Do you know where your customers are spending their time? Many can be found on Instagram and that’s where you should be too.
As a car dealer, you want to have your advertising and information in the same space as your customers. That used to be on television, but that’s not the case any longer. More of your new customers are on social media, especially Instagram.
Get Your Dealership Noticed on Instagram
Its time to get your car dealership on Instagram. Even though you’re new to this social medial site, you can master it pretty quickly with these ten tips:
1. Plan Your Content
Don’t go blind into Instagram, you need a plan and to know when to post the content you’re going to add to your page. Make sure your content is unique, engaging, and capable of attracting the attention of your audience. Whether you’re going to show your hottest deals, allow your employees to get goofy in a video, or highlight the services you offer, you want to make sure there’s a plan of engagement.
2. Add Hashtags to Your Content
Your Instagram post will be more relevant if it has hashtags that bring people to your page and show them what you’re ready to offer. You can add up to 30 hashtags to a single post, but you might only need a couple of them to get the job done. You can have some that are niche-specific or offer hashtags that talk about the brand or features of the vehicles that you’re offering for sale. Is your hashtag game on point? It needs to be.
3. Add High-Impact Captions to the Mix
Instagram is all about the images, but if you don’t tell the story of the image, you will have a hard time engaging with your customers. Add captions to let your audience see what your photo is all about. This is especially important when you post photos from community engagement events that you participate in with your customers and your team. The captions used will tell the story of your post and let others understand your images more clearly.
4. Make Sure to Include People in Your Instagram Posts
If all you posted on the page for your dealership were the cars that you sell, you wouldn’t attract as many people to your page as you do with posts that include people. Add images of happy customers next to your dealer staff, include posts with customers driving off the lot with a smile on their faces. Adding photos that are people-centric and directed toward your dealership will make it easy for you to engage with your customers and let others know you’re ready to help them with a new car.
5. Add Dealership-Specific Information on Instagram
Your Instagram posts should allow your potential customers to know more about your dealership and what you have to offer. If you have an award-winning service department, show the hours, the awards, and some of the vehicles being worked on. If you have a fun sales team, show them doing something fun. If an event is coming up, announce it, and invite your followers to come and join you to support the event.
6. Find the Right Time to Post on Instagram
Timing matters with Instagram. Posts are shown to your audience in a timely manner, with the newest posts showing at the top of the news feed. If you want your posts to be seen and followed, you need to time their release the right way. SproutSocial states the best time to post to Instagram is Wednesday to Friday between 10 am and 11 am to be seen during the lunch hours near the end of the workweek. Avoid posting on Sundays when people are well into their weekends and preparing for the next week.
7. Engage with Others in the Auto Industry
You want to be engaged with others in the same industry as you to make sure you have more relevance and offer a professional feeling around your posts. Your followers’list should include others in your industry as much as it does customers that might be interested in seeing what you offer. The professional feeling will be noticed by prospects and will make it possible for you to be more engaged.
8. Engage Before and After the Instagram Post
If you want to receive more Instagram engagement one of the tricks is to engage with other content shortly before and after the post. This increases your chance of engaging with a wider audience and more people are likely to visit your profile. It’s amazing how this one trick will work to increase the relevance and importance of the Instagram posts that you’re adding to your profile to gain prospects and attract more customers to your feed.
9. Use Instagram Stories to Attract Your Audience
For 24 hours, you can truly engage your audience directly with the use of Instagram stories. Try to add interesting stories to your brand page, look for ways to highlight and showcase a “vehicle of the day” or a “deal of the week” to make sure your followers can feel the clock is ticking on the model that you’re showing off. Let them see the car you want them to see, enjoy the features and qualities, and know the deal that you’re offering for that car.
10. Measure Your Instagram Results
Is your Instagram Marketing working for your dealership? Monitor and measure your results to make sure you’ve optimized the Instagram Marketing and the features being used. It’s important to have an Instagram presence and be visible to potential customers, but that visibility must result in sales for your dealership. Make adjustments that will help your dealership stand out and gain more followers and connections on this social media site.
Your car dealership needs to use Instagram to take advantage of this social media site to make sure you stay fully-engaged with potential customers. With these tips, you should be ready to gain a strong following on Instagram right away.
This post may contain affiliate links. Meaning a commission is given should you decide to make a purchase through these links, at no cost to you. All products shown are researched and tested to give an accurate review for you.
