Listening « Social Media for Dealers

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

Filed under: Quick Tips, blog content, Getting started, how to, Listening, social media strategy, what to write

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.

Filed under: Quick Tips, article, building relationships, dealer marketing, engaging customers, getting personal, Listening

June 30, 2011 • 9:09 am 0

Six Easy Steps to Creating A Social Media Marketing Strategy

If you are unclear as to where to begin your social media marketing strategy, we can help! The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently published findings that suggest 58% of Americans say that they perform online research on the goods or services they’re considering buying. At least half, if not more of the people that come through your dealership doors, check out their options online before they ever step foot in your RV dealership.

So the big question is, how do you capitalize on this and get your message out? A good place to start is with a good social media marketing strategy, and here’s how.

1.) Understand what Social Media is.

Social Media is best understood as one of many Internet marketing channels. It has the amazing ability to go viral; to interact and reach millions of people. If used effectively, social media can help you engage with your customers about your RV dealership, your products, your service and your brand as a whole.

2.) Listen to what is being said.

The best way to understand your customers is to actually hear what they are saying about you and your dealership. Most importantly, determine who is the leader of your online following, who are the main influencers and who is driving the conversations. When these people talk, others will listen. If no one is talking, social media will give you the steps to change that.

3.) Identify goals and objectives.

After taking some time to listen, start deciding what you want to accomplish, where you want to be and what your dream social media scenario would be. You will have a better understanding of where you want to go.

4.) Develop your plan.

First, decide which social platform (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, YouTube) you’d like to use to get started. If you choose to use multiple platforms, make sure you have a plan for each individual one as well as a umbrella for the dealership as a whole. We recommend starting with one and working your way up.

It takes time, so be patient. Give it the effort it deserves and focus on building content.

5.) Create your content.

It’s key to be a creative in this ongoing step. Optimize your content with targeted keywords and be smart about what you post. When searching for an RV, what types of words or phrases do your customers use? Start there and then continue outward. Content can come from all sorts of places, like photos, interviews with staff or customers, news, statistics, etc.

6.) Track your success.

It’s extremely important to measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy. Start with monitoring who’s reading you content and where they are from. From there monitoring fans/followers, readership and site views can give you a good picture of where you’re at.

*Image Credit: EssjayNZ

Filed under: Step-by-Step, content, Getting started, Listening, RV social media, social media strategy

October 27, 2010 • 10:49 am 0

Be a more connected RV dealership.

Why are you contemplating (or using) social media at your RV dealership? Seems like a “no duh” question, but it isn’t. You shouldn’t be doing social media simply because someone told you that you should or because it’s what everyone else is doing. You need to have a clear understanding as to why your dealership should care about social media.

At its core, “social media is about being a more connected company” (via Lisa Barone). For an RV dealership, what are the benefits of being connected?

The specific answers to these questions may vary from dealership to dealership, but here are our most basic thoughts on what the benefits of “being connected” are, and how social media can help your dealership be a more connected company.

Why be connected?
The Internet is changing the way customers give and receive information. They are talking online (in social media). You can either listen, learn, and participate with your customers or ignore this huge social shift. You gain a huge edge if you’re connected to the conversations about your dealership, your community, the RVing industry, your competitors. Social media allows you to be alerted to key conversations and gives your dealership an avenue to respond and provide input. Social media connects you directly to the people talking about your business.

On top of that social media provides the perfect platform to listen and respond, social media also offers a wealth of information from which your RV dealership can learn. Being connected allows you to learn about your customers (and potential customers). Who are they? What do they like/dislike? Why do they RV? Where do they travel? What do the need? If you’re connected, your insight into your audience will become deeper. Having a deeper understanding will allow you to build trust and connect with your customers beyond the RV sales floor.

Be connected so you can better serve your customers.

*Photo credit: baddog

Filed under: Why social media?, Customer Expectations, customer service, Lisa Barone, Listening, rv dealership, rv industry, social shift

July 7, 2010 • 3:53 pm 1

Nobody wants to be sold to.

Without a doubt, social media is a powerful marketing tool for your RV dealership. BUT, with that said, social media should not be used to push an advertising message.

The bottom line:

Nobody is checking their Facebook or visiting Twitter to be sold to, they’re not there to listen to “Sale!” “Buy!” “Visit today!” or “Shop now!”. People in social media do not want to be inundated with sales messages. People are on social media to connect and engage in conversation.

So, you might ask, “Without an advertising angle, how is social media a helpful marketing tool?”

Our answer:

Marketing, in it’s most basic form, is about finding out what a customer’s needs are and explaining your unique solution for meeting those needs. Marketing in social media is no different. Use social media to listen to your customers and prospects. Find out what they’re talking about, what they need, and then offer solutions/help/recommendations/advice. Use social media to become a resource for your customers, to establish a relationship, build trust, and help them with their RVing needs (whether it be camping advice, parts recommendations, service tips, or product knowledge)!

Social media allows you to differentiate your dealership on something other than price. It allows you to capitalize on your dealership’s strengths, know-how, customer service, and products. In social media, you’re can actually communicate with customers and prospects, not just hit them with a sales message.

Social media is not meant for shouting sales messages.

Photo credit: Tim Parkinson

Filed under: Strategy, The Basics, Why social media?, Consumers, customer service, customers, dealer marketing, dealership, Listening, marketing, marketing basics, push message, rv dealership, RV sales, sales message, shouting, social media, social media marketing

Social Media for Dealers

The Art of Listening

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Social Media for Dealers

How To Avoid Sounding Like Spam.

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The Art of Listening

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Six Easy Steps to Creating A Social Media Marketing Strategy

1.) Understand what Social Media is.

2.) Listen to what is being said.

3.) Identify goals and objectives.

4.) Develop your plan.

5.) Create your content.

6.) Track your success.

Share this:

Be a more connected RV dealership.

Share this:

Nobody wants to be sold to.

Share this:

Topics

Recent Entries

Tags

Our recent tweets:

Brought to you by:

Subscribe by Email!

Follow “Social Media for Dealers”