Social Media for Dealers

A resource from HuebnerPetersen's Dealer Marketing Services

January 18, 2012 • 8:00 am 0

The Importance of Updating

We cannot stress enough how important it is to update your social media regularly. Social media is a virtual extension of your dealership. The values you portray in your dealership need to also be portrayed through your social media. Would you shut down your dealership for a week at random? Of course not! If someone came in to your dealership with a customer service question, would you ignore them? No way! You need to act the same way in your social media outlets. Here are a few tips on how to keep your social media current:

1. Make an appearance.  At the very least, post something weekly. If your last Facebook post was in September 2011 promoting your last sale, you have a problem. People need to see you engaging in their community. If someone walked into your dealership but couldn’t find a soul around, that would be an issue. It is the same way with your social media outlets. You need to show them that you are there.

 2.  Make it a customer service priority. More and more people are using social media, rather than an email or phone call, to resolve customer service issues. If someone posts on your Facebook wall or tweets you with a question or comment, respond! Even if you don’t have an answer right away, tell them that you will find out and get back to them ASAP.

3. Don’t be afraid of negative comments. You should always respond to comments immediately, especially negative comments or complaints. When you immediately respond, it shows that your dealership takes customer service seriously.

4. Have a current and quality profile picture. Your profile picture is the first thing your customers see, so make sure it represents your dealership well. If you have a 2009 model of a camper in your picture: change it. If you have a picture of your staff from five years ago: change it. If you have your old logo as your picture: change it. Your profile picture needs to describe the way your dealership looks today.

5. Keep your BIO and information current. Any time your dealership makes a change, think about how it could affect your social media. If you change your phone number, you may need to update your Facebook page. If your store hours change, update your information. If you have a new web address, change it on your social media.

Quite simply, if you remember that your social media is an extension of your dealership, then keeping current shouldn’t be a problem. You want to make sure that people can always reach you with as much ease as possible. The more they trust your social media, the more they will trust and recommend your dealership.

photo by Ias

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January 5, 2012 • 7:47 am 2

Developing Your Social Media Goals

With this new year, and the season of resolutions, we challenge you to set social media goals for 2012. Whether you are already cruising along or you hardly know where to begin, it’s a great time to set goals for how your dealership wants to use social media. Here are some tips on setting and accomplishing your 2012 social media goals:

1.    Be specific. The more specific you are, the more focused you will be. Don’t just say, “I want to use social media more”. How do you want to use it? What relationships do you want to build? Where should you focus your attention? When you have specific goals for your dealership it will be easier to keep on track.

2.    Aim high. Don’t be afraid to shoot for the stars. If you are just starting with social media for your dealership, you will find that once you get the ball rolling, it can really take off. When you are persistent in your social media habits, then it won’t be hard to reach those lofty goals.

3.    Write it down. They say that 97% of people who do not write down their goals fail to complete them. Don’t just verbalize your goals. Once you have it written down, share it with your team. Let everyone know your social media mission for 2012; then they can help you work toward accomplishing that goal.

4.    Make it a habit. Once you have your goal, practice it every day. Even if you aren’t posting something every day, be checking to see what people are saying. Get in the habit of getting on your social media daily.

5.    Use good judgment. When you set out trying to accomplish new goals for social media it can be very easy to get caught in the spamming web. It is something we always stress: Do not resolve to posting quantity over quality. Make sure that what you are saying is important and pertinent. For example, if your goal is to post onto Facebook x number of times per week, great! But don’t tell your followers what you had for lunch because you can’t think of anything better to say.

Once you have your social media goals identified, go for it! Jump right in and start talking. It might be very helpful for you to go back and look at some of our previous blog posts to get ideas. If you follow these tips in setting your goals, you are already starting 2012 off right.

photo by Nico Soler

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December 30, 2011 • 10:58 am 1

How To Avoid Sounding Like Spam.

When diving into social media, dealerships can run the risk of sounding like spam.  Nobody will want to follow your dealership if they can’t distinguish you from the junk mail they receive in their email inbox or the never-ending advertising messages in their social media streams.

You can get around sounding like spam by following a few simple rules:

1.    Quality not quantity. Social media is a tool for developing relationships with your customers. Make sure that what you have to say is valuable to them and promotes a conversation.  Is what you’re saying interesting to you?  Would you ignore, listen, or respond?  Go for quality posts.

2.    Use variety. Re-posting something you have already said can be a good trick, but sometimes people see that as spam. Work on rewording and repurposing your content before re-posting something too similar.

3.    Ask questions.  Remember that social media is a conversation with your customers.  When you ask questions, you are giving customers an easy opportunity to interact with you.  Ask them questions. Be personal.  A back and forth conversation is rarely seen as spam!

4.    Be careful with punctuation.  Nothing screams spam more than the overuse of exclamation marks. When you are overly enthusiastic in your social media it can seem fake. You want to be as real and personal as possible, so limit those exclamations.

5.    Don’t be too self-promotional. You want to use social media to build a relationship with your customers; social media is not like traditional advertising, it is not simply venue to sell your product, but a way to meet and learn about your customers.

As your dealership develops social media goals be sure that you keep these anti-spam guidelines in mind.  Remember: If it sounds or looks like spam to you, then it will definitely look like spam to your customers.

*photo by Robert Hruzek

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December 23, 2011 • 10:28 am 0

The Art of Listening

One of the biggest mistakes made by RV dealers when starting out with social media is talking without taking the time to listen. Social media is all about creating a real relationship between your RV dealership and your customers. These types of relationships can’t be fostered when one party does all the talking.

A recent blog post by Eric Harr, “Myth: To Be Heard, Talk. Truth: To Be Heard, Listen.” is full of great information on the importance of listening. In his post Eric details the ways in which you can spend more time listening and still be heard. Here are some of our favorite points:

1. 80/20 Rule - You should be 80% listening and 20% talking. It’s hard to write back or produce valuable content if you’re not listening to what your customers are saying.

2. Quality Counts – Don’t stop talking completely, but when you do respond, make sure what you’re saying is valuable and engaging.

3.  Listen to Learn – You should be listening to your customers so you can know better how to improve their lives. You’re building loyal followers by offering information that makes them feel special or is valuable o them.

4. Get Personal – Ask questions about your customers. Make them feel like they are in a personal conversation with you. Social media is a great tool for making mundane conversation personal. Find out about your customers and engage them in conversations that apply directly to them.

5. Caring is Sharing – If you make people feel like you care about them, they’re more likely to spread the word about your dealership. And, we all know that it’s hard to beat good word of mouth.

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December 14, 2011 • 11:15 am 0

8 Tips To Great Blog Posts

Blogging can be an essential component of any RV dealersihp’s social media strategy… but sometimes coming up with great posts and getting yourself into the groove can be a difficult process. Here are eight great tips to help you find your way to writing great blog posts:

1.) Make a working list of ideas. Take some uninterrupted time to sit down and start compiling a list of blog topics, ideas for photos or videos and anything else that comes to mind. Even if an idea seems a little off base or silly now, it may be just the things to spur a genius post in the future – don’t immediately discount any of your ideas. Plus, having a big running list of topics makes it easy to get started each time you sit down to write.

2.) Jot down ideas and notes. Whether you keep a little notebook handy or just type little ideas into your phone’s notepad, make sure that you are always on the look out for ideas you can use on your blog. But, most importantly don’t forget to jot them down!

3.) Make (and keep) a calendar. Creating and maintaining a schedule for your blog posts is one of the easiest and most effective strategies you can use when you start writing. Plan out when you want blog posts to go out and coordinate a corresponding time to sit down and write the post. If you have extra time you can always use it to get ahead of schedule and crank out a few posts in advance.

4.) Make it conversational. Nobody likes reading technical journals and most people lose interest when a writer drones on. Write your blog posts as if you were talking to one of your customers or even better one of your friends. Make each post conversational and interesting to read.

5.) Use relevant titles. Sometimes the only thing people will read is the title of your posts – so make them good. Imagine scanning through a blog full of articles, you’re only going to pick out the ones that sound interesting (based on the title). Your customers are going to be doing the same thing. So get creative and keep your titles relevant to what you’re writing about.

6.) Add photos. Everyone loves a good photo, especially when it corresponds to or breaks up what you’re writing about. Seeing a page full of text can be daunting to some readers, use the photos you post to draw them into what you have to say.

7.) Use lists. Using lists in your writing makes it easy to quickly read through a post as well as easy to follow. You’ll notice that list formats are widely use across the web as well as in all different types of publications. Use this time tested technique to draw attention and make your posts stand out even more.

8.) Edit yourself. Every now and again a missing comma or misspelled word will slip through when you publish a post, but truly take measures to prevent as many errors as possible. Write your post, run spell check, read through it a time or two and if you have someone you trust, have them read it too!

Happy writing!

*Photo Credit: e_walk

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