Social Media is the wave of now and the future. It seems that a new social media platform pops up every couple of years.
Your car dealership needs to be active, present, and visible on social media. You need to grab the attention of the car buyers in your area to make your name the one they think of when it’s time to look for anew or used vehicle.
Become Successful on Social Media
When building a social media presence or altering the one you have, you need to ask yourself some questions and understand what each platform has to offer. Facebook is a lot different than Twitter and so is Instagram. You’ll have options on Snapchat that you don’t see on other platforms, but you might want to find the most professional to draw in commercial customers. There’s a lot to learn when it comes to the different apps you can use.
Create a Specific Strategy for Each Social Media Platform
Understand what each platform has to offer and why your business should be present on it. If the platform offers a personal touch, make sure you utilize it as much as you do the professional presence of a platform such as LinkedIn. Ask yourself these questions when developing the right strategy:
• Why am I using this platform?
• Who will I reach on this platform?
• What post types work best on this platform?•How are my posts unique to this platform?
These questions should be relatively easy to answer. If they aren’t you need to rethink your strategy or avoid that platform. As a car dealership, you want to make the most of the time and money you’re investing in each of the social sites you have accounts with.
Be Consistent With Each Account
It’s important to learn what each platform will require when you’re posting. Do you need to post several times a day or a few times each week? Both Facebook and Instagram offer a Stories feature that allows you to share what’s going on at that time but you should post to these pages many times each day to stay active. Here are some things to consider to be consistent:
• How often do you plan to publish on each social media platform based on the best practices for that platform?
• What type of content do you plan to post on each platform?
• Who is your target audience on each platform?
Your followers are likely following hundreds or thousands of other people. If you’re not posting new content regularly, it’s easy to get lost or forgotten in the shuffle of followers that should see you and your content.
Focus Your Message
Each platform you use will have its own uniqueness in users and layout. There will be some overlap of people on various platforms, which means you need to show a focused message that offers the quality and consistency of a company that is highly respected in its industry. Review your accounts and make sure your message has a focus across each platform, even if the content is different for each of them.
Pay Attention to Trends
Social media changes so quickly that you need to be on top of what’s trending and participate in it. Whether you’re creating posts that are made to push your page to the front of the line or you’re participating in something new that’s trending online (for example, The Ice Bucket Challenge), you want to know what’s trending and create posts to include those current trends. Create a list of sites in your industry that often publish high quality, current content, and try to mimic what you see to stay with the trends.
Measure Your Results
The effectiveness of your social media presence isn’t always measured in leads and sales. If you’re reaching an audience on several platforms, there’s a good chance you will be at the front of mind for the car dealers following your pages. Some of the metrics used to measure your results are:
• Reach and engagement for Facebook
• Impressions, retweets, and mentions on Twitter
• Clicks, impressions, and interactions on LinkedIn
• Engagement and impressions on Pinterest
• Likes, comments, and mentions on Instagram
• Views and engagements on Instagram Stories
Track these metrics on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis and adjust your content accordingly to improve your social media strategy.
Invest in Video Content
More people are using videos to share messages because audiences would much rather watch a video than read several paragraphs of text. This is certainly an important place for you to invest your social media marketing dollars. Use videos to give your accounts a serious boost and more fully engage with your audience.
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