The prospect of getting involved with social media can be completely overwhelming. Between the excessive number of applications, platforms and programs, the sheer volume of social media participants, and the always-looming learning curve, it’s easy to quit before you even begin. Don’t fall into the “paralysis of analysis” trap. With social media, all you need to do to start is listen.
It’s a common misconception, especially with small businesses, that social media is a broadcast platform, a place to shout your sales message to the masses. It’s not. Because it’s not, you can’t just jump in anywhere and start participating. The goal with social media is to find (or create) community, connect, and engage. You can’t do any of this without first listening for:
Discussion on your business: What are people saying about your dealership, your service department, your staff? Are people writing reviews, sharing recommendations, including you in blog posts?
Discussion on your competitors: Benchmark your dealership. Are your competitors generating more conversations? Are those conversations more positive or negative than those about your dealership? Do your competitors participate in online conversations? What are they saying, how do they contribute?
Discussions on the products you carry: Knowing how customers react to your inventory is incredibly valuable. Where are they talking about what you carry? Are their comments positive or negative? Who’s talking? Who’s responding?
Discussion on your industry: Follow news articles, blog posts, reviews, forums, and comments about your industry? How do customers’ view RVing? Travel? Vacation? Recreation? Where are they talking?
That seems like an awful lot of listening – Don’t worry, here are 3 incredibly helpful listening tools:
Search blogs, microblogs, bookmarks, comments, images, video, news, and forums in 1 easy step. Simply type in your dealership name, select the “All” tab, and hit “Search”. Use to find conversations about your dealership, competitors, and manufacturers.
2. RSS
Your RSS can be your catch-all. Subscribe to SocialMention search terms and have them sent to your RSS reader. Stay updated by doing nothing! Do a Google blog search for relevant terms for your industry; add those to your RSS. Stay up to date in one easy place! (For more info the what & how of RSS readers work click here to read our post all about RSS.)
Set alerts for certain keyword terms (i.e. your dealership name, your city/county, your manufacturers). Alerts will comb news, blogs, websites, and video. When results come up, they’ll be sent to you, no searching required. For an added bonus, have them sent to your RSS reader.
Filed under: Google, Strategy, The Basics, analytics, Getting started, Google, Listening, monitoring, reader, RSS, social media
I am the sales manager at Jay’s RV in East Tawas MI. I have a personal facebook account and wanted to find out how to set one up in Jay’s RV name without being part of someones pesonal profile.
Hi Andy,
To setup a business page on Facebook, you must have/use an personal Facebook account. This may seem like a pain, but it actually makes things run smoothly. Nobody will know who’s personal account the business page is linked to (unless you share that info), and instead of having to log in to Facebook with two different account, you just have the one.
Even if you don’t plan on using Facebook personally, you can setup an account, and do nothing with it, and use it to build the business page.
I hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any further questions.
-Bethany
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