When it comes to car dealerships, it is crucial to forge customer relationships and guide them through every step of the buying journey. This is essential if you wish to stand out, stay a step ahead of the competition, and attract new customers. It is time to think out of the box, and that is where social media plays an integral role – a lot of prospective buyers are out there. Moreover, with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, 62% of car buyers search their vehicle online, not to mention a lot of pre-purchase research takes place from behind a screen. As per stats, more than 70% of consumer buying decisions are regularly influenced by social media.
Top social platforms that can benefit your car dealership
1. Find customers on Facebook
Facebook is a behavioral powerhouse – it understands the interests and habits of nearly every demographic on the planet! This data is gold, as it enables Facebook to keep consumers online for longer periods of time by presenting more specific content. When you put out a Facebook ad, you select the demographics you want to market to, and Facebook does the rest. Once published, Facebook automatically presents it to the most relevant database that consists of the target demographic based on their past behaviors. Factors like location, search keywords, comments, likes, posts, and even liked brands are taken into account. People even use Facebook to engage dealers about listings, talk about vehicles and services, conduct vehicle research, and much more.
2. Take advantage of Twitter for sales conversions
Car dealers can take advantage of Twitter by keeping focus on short snippets of content. You should regularly share or post concise, striking comments, and even link to a video or longer format to boost organic traffic and followers. Frequency of posts is also vital. Consumers don’t want to see ten posts per day, but they also want to see more than one post per month. It is about maintaining a balance with your Twitter audience that will involve some trial and error but helps in the long run. Business-oriented services are available too, such as advertising, campaign management, targeting, and analytics. Twitter business lets you promote tweets, videos, and the overall account to boost brand awareness.
3. Explore video marketing on YouTube
It is no secret that top YouTube influencers make an excellent income, a majority of which comes from ad revenue on the ever-popular platform. Regardless of the industry, YouTube’s video platform is a very effective channel for advertising. This is because users are highly engaged, and the ad placement has been tested and refined. When you advertise on YouTube, your placement is displayed on content in a variety of ways. Some are video-based, while others are simple text-based pop-ins. It is up to you to decide who will see your ads on YouTube by creating buyer personas. Proper selections of demographics and interests influence the effectiveness of ad campaigns. They let you modify the ad strategy as you go so that you target the right audience.
4. Cater to millenials on Instagram
Did you now that millenials are officially the largest auto buyer group in the U.S.? And a lot of their decisions are based on what they see on Instagram. This platform is excellent for engagement and reach. Showcasing a car through boosted advertising on Instagram gives your dealership’s social media strategy a chance to expand into a larger community of in-market shoppers. You might have to adjust your strategy a bit around posts, when it comes to first-time buyers. You also need to consider images and videos that support your brand. This new community is interested in learning more about your dealership in addition to your inventory. Break the ice, engage with customers, and motivate them to opt for the test drive.
Some additional pointers to bear in mind:
- Create content that customers can relate to. Not everything shared or promoted online should have a direct sales focus to it. Being relatable and sharing fun content through social channels can be a more effective strategy than only posting inventory or car-specific content.
- Add a specific social media element during promotions or special events. For instance, you can offer incentives to users for “liking” or “sharing” an event post by entering them into a special raffle. It increases your user base and organically improves the content’s online reach.
- You have to engage with social media users via two-way communication. Respond to comments, answer questions, and clarify doubts.
- Dealership social media business profiles indicate quite a bit about the kind of quality service you can expect. How would you feel about a business if you saw their comments were vague and sometimes misspelled or grammatically incorrect? Yes, it doesn’t mean there are quality issues at the dealership, but these minor issues matter for consumers who wish to do business.
Progress on social media doesn’t happen immediately. The money and effort put behind social media marketing through car advertising and brand awareness, takes quite a bit of time. You might not see results at first, but over time your social media strategy builds on itself and progress is more visible in the form of significant results. You should keep prioritizing the presence of your brand on social media because it boosts the proof and trust factor, attracts new customers, instills a sense of loyalty, improves brand awareness, and drives traffic and sales.
