Social Media for Dealers

A resource from HuebnerPetersen's Dealer Marketing Services

February 15, 2012 • 2:44 pm 1

Social media: How much is enough?

With so many outlets for social media today it can be extremely overwhelming to keep up. Your dealership wants to have a strong presence in social media, but you also don’t want to be stretched too thin. This article from Jeff Bullas details how many outlets certain type of companies should be using.

For RV dealerships, we think an optimal number of social media channels is four:

1.  Blog – Your dealerships social media “home base”.  This is where you build content, boost SEO, and develop your voice.  A blog is a great tool to converse with your customers. When you utilize a blog you can show your customers how your dealership works. A blog provides a place where you can expand on thoughts from your Facebook posts or tweets.

2.  Twitter – Easy to use, easy to link to your blog, perfect place to listen to customers and build industry knowledge. Twitter provides a forum where you can easily communicate with your followers or customers. Twitter is a more abbreviated social media outlet and it is easy to tweet daily about the happenings at your dealership.

3.  Facebook – Facebook is a great place to get followers for your dealership.  More and more people are using Facebook as a place to take care of customer service issues or ask questions. Facebook is a very friendly atmosphere and is place where your customers want to see you interacting. The more customers see you making conversation on Facebook, the more comfortable they will feel talking with you.

4.  YouTube – We’ve talked about video many times before.  Video is perfect for an RV dealership because it allows you to show off your product and it gives customers a solid reason to stop by your dealership. When a customer researches before purchasing, you want your dealership to pop up on their radar. There is no better way to do this than to have a video showing what off what you have to offer.

In the end, the more you are using social media, the better your dealership will appear to potential customers. With these four channels, you will be able to keep up with Social Media without being stretched too thin on quality posts.

Filed under: The Basics, , , , , , , ,

December 28, 2011 • 9:00 am 0

Battle Mode

An effective social media campaign works to capture the interest of a specific audience, and more importantly, creates interaction with that audience. A powerful way to encourage interaction is to provide information and tools that ultimately help promote a brand or product.

A great and current example is the Ford “Battle Mode” Facebook campaign, in which customers log into Facebook to customize a Ford Mustang. Customers build their dream Mustangs and then pit their custom Mustang vs. another, with Facebook users voting on the cars.

We like this campaign for several reasons:

1)  People love to customize. There are over 1,700 pages of customized Mustangs built from this campaign.  It’s obvious that the “Build Your Own” tool Ford has created connects with their niche Mustang audience.

2)  The fun connects to the end product.  Customers are utilizing the “Build Your Own” tool, which in turn helps promote the many features Mustang has to offer. This campaign encourages consumers to visualize their dream car and to aspire to purchase one.

3)  Everyone loves to win! Ford competition in their campaign to interaction. Contests and competitions are effective ways to drive traffic.

Ford’s “Battle Mode” is great case study.  The campaign is all about customer interaction.  Ford asks you to build a dream car, they ask you to decide which car wins the battle.  The takeaway?  Make part of your social media efforts about providing ways for your customers to interact with your dealership and your products.

Filed under: Strategy, , , , , , , , ,

December 7, 2011 • 11:35 am 0

Social Media & Small Business: Infographic

Social media and online interaction between dealerships and their customers is growing at an astounding rate — and the success of these endeavors is growing just as quickly. With statistics on usage, success rates and other more details being released each day, infographics are popping up all over the place to make sense of the numbers. You’ve probably seen different types of infographics in magazines, news channels and across many of your favorite websites. In case you’re not familiar with infographics, they are simply graphic representations of information (or statistics). Below is a great infographic based on how small businesses (and dealerships) are currently using social media. Here are a few key facts we’ve pulled out:

  • 51% of Facebook users are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of
  • 62% of adult US Internet users watch videos on video sharing sites
  • 61% of small business owners now use social media to attract new customers

Source: Crowdsourced Logo and Graphic Design by crowdSPRING

 

Filed under: Statistics, , , , , ,

November 29, 2011 • 1:15 pm 0

RVIA is getting social!

RVIA Expo in Louisville

It’s that time of year again — time for the big RVIA Louisville show. A week of checking out all the new products and getting sneak peeks for what the industry has in store as we all head into 2012. With so much excitement and change literally under your nose, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to update your social media program based on all the new things your learn and see. Here are a few ideas to get you started, but keep in mind that the options are endless.

1.  Write a blog post about the updated “green materials” and aerodynamic profiles you see in the 2012 product

2.  Post pictures of the most impressive new units (and their interiors) on your Facebook page

3.  Twitter positive quotes & ideas from the Outlook Breakfast

4.  Make LinkedIn connections with the different people you meet

5.  Take pictures of new units you’ll soon have at your dealership, make a gallery on Flickr or share teasers on your Facebook page

6. Blog about what makes you most excited the upcoming 2012 product and what it means to your customers.

RVIA is all about the changes and new products. Make sure you use this opportunity to share all the excitement you have for the upcoming year with your customers!

Filed under: Quick Tips, , , , , , , ,

November 11, 2011 • 1:47 pm 0

Quality – not quantity.

As a follow up to our last post about collecting friends, here’s an article, from Fast Company, about the value of a Facebook fan and importance of finding quality fans rather than just upping your quantity of friends. Several different firms have researched the annual value of a Facebook fan and the findings range from $3 to over $130. What are your fans worth? And more importantly what’s your strategy, quality or quantity?

Filed under: Facebook, , , , , ,

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This information is brought to you by HuebnerPetersen's Dealer Marketing Services and Front Lines Marketing Programs. Please visit http://HuebnerPetersen.com for further information.

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