Social Media for Dealers

A resource from HuebnerPetersen's Dealer Marketing Services

March 28, 2012 • 2:18 pm 0

Your online reputation is more important than ever.

As I was reading over an article on Facebook timelines by Dave Fleet, I started to realize how a company’s online reputation is directly related to how that company is viewed in social media.

Facebook’s new timeline for brands  gives companies a little less control over what appears on their timeline. When someone posts a status update they can tag your dealership. That tag then appears on your company’s timeline.

The good news: If someone tags about how much they love your company’s product every person who visits your timeline will see how thrilled another customer is with your company.  The bad news: If a tag related to your business has a negative angle, like a link to an article that someone about your horrible customer service, everyone who sees your timeline will see a negative review of your dealership, until that is, you have the opportunity to hide it.

This new setup makes it all the more important for you to monitor your dealership’s online reputation.  Create plenty of positive content (promote giveaways, email coupons, create discussion, etc.) and find those negative reviews.  Listen and respond (offer apologies, help, or customer support).

As social media continues to evolve it becomes more and more important that your dealership manages its online reputation.

Filed under: Facebook, , , , , ,

March 21, 2012 • 11:24 am 1

Social Media and their mean words…

It’s great when customers write love notes on your Facebook wall or Twitter feed but what do you do when they write some, well, less than favorable reviews? I know there’s no way someone would think that your product or service was less than legendary, but mistakes happen. Below are five steps to dealing with uncomplimentary comments on social media.

1. DON’T IGNORE IT! Don’t just assume the negative comment will get lost in the feed or other customers will come to your rescue.  Not only is the angry customer expecting you to respond, but all your other customers will be watching to see how you handle the issue.

2.  Comment and Apologize RIGHT AWAY! No, you don’t have to admit you were wrong but you do have to apologize for the experience your customer went through.  A number of times, customers just want to be heard.  If you comment “I’m really sorry to hear about that! I can understand your frustration’, you are demonstrating that their comment is a concern of yours and you heard it.

3. Be Quick About it. One of the most important things to remember is to respond right away! Consumers using social media to express their concerns are looking for a response within hours! YES HOURS! Keep an eye on that feed/wall and make sure to respond as soon as possible.

4. Get Details in Private. Ask the customer to ‘explain the experience in an email to info@issue.com (your email) or by phone 555-123-4567’ so you can fully understand the situation. If they don’t email or call, at least other customers see that you are trying to fix the issues and you’re dedicated to your customers. Also, this way they don’t hear all the negative details.

5. Fix the Issue. Is it something as easy as apologizing and promising to look into the situation? A good way to not give away the bank, is to ask the customer what you can do to fix it.  Most of the time you were willing to do more than they need.

 

photo by Life As Art

Filed under: Quick Tips, , , , , ,

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, , , , , ,

December 23, 2011 • 10:28 am 1

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, , , , , ,

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, , , , ,

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