Social Media for Dealers

A resource from HuebnerPetersen's Dealer Marketing Services

May 7, 2012 • 10:49 am 0

Marketing tips all day long!

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Did you know that RV Social Media now has a Twitter feed that provides rv-oriented marketing tips all day long?!  It’s true!

Follow us on Twitter under the handle @rvsocialmedia .

We cover all sorts of social media and digital marketing tips and news.  Plus, we provide tweet ideas, blog content ideas, and resources that you can use to connect with your own audience.

Give us a follow and drop us a tweet.  We’d love to say hi and converse with your dealership in Twitterland!

Filed under: Quick Tips, , , , ,

May 1, 2012 • 3:13 pm 1

S.M.A.R.T. Social Media Goals.

Goals Matter! Whenever you’re doing any kind of marketing, including social media marketing, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve.  When thinking about your dealership’s social media there are 5 important things to keep in mind that will help you make your goals ‘S.M.A.R.T’.

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Attainable

R = Realistic

T = Timely

Be Specific:

When stating your goal, make sure it’s very clean and states exactly what you expect.  You can achieve this by answering the Who, What, Where and Why.

  • What: What are you trying to accomplish with social media?  Get fans?  Find followers?
  • Why: Specific purpose or benefits you’re hoping to achieve.  Are you trying to get more on site traffic?  More web traffic?
  • Who: Who needs to be involved?
  • Where: Does your goal take place in a specific area?  Facebook?  Twitter?  YouTube?

Measurable:

Social media goals need to be measured. It can be anything from: “We need to sell at least 5 units with this promotion” or “We need to reach XX number of people”.  To effectively measure, you’ll need to track your efforts.

Attainable:

Make sure to set your goal at an attainable level.  To get 1 million video views isn’t an attainable goal.  To get 10-25 “likes” on Facebook is something more realistic.

Relevant:

Does this goal make sense for your dealership?  Do your social media efforts fit with the overall direction of your dealership’s marketing?

Timely:

When are you going launch your social media campaign? When should you have it completed? If your answer is more than a year or two, you should break it up into smaller attainable goals.  What could you accomplish in 6 months?

Learn more about SMART goals here.

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

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, , , , , , , ,

January 12, 2012 • 9:00 am 0

What Is a Hashtag? And Why Should I Use It?

 

Often, when dealers begin using social media, they become overwhelmed at the new vocabulary that is used on Facebook or Twitter. It’s confusing at first, for everyone!

One of the most common trip-ups is Twitter’s hashtag. Most dealers new to Twitter have no idea what a hashtag is, so they end up using it incorrectly or not using it at all. We are here to help you. Let’s begin with: hashtag = #. A hashtag is simply the number sign.

Hashtags are used in Twitter to categorize topics. Since Twitter’s setup is pretty simple, they developed the hashtag so people file their “tweets” under particular topics.

Example: You post a comment telling everyone to pop into your dealership this weekend. “Hey guys, check out our new inventory this weekend before you head out on your adventure! #camping”

What the #camping does:

  1. Since you placed a “#” before “camping” it will automatically make it a link.
  2. You (or anyone) can click on that link and it will take you to a page of every other Tweets that used “#camping”.
  3. Your tweet will be held in this archive of all other tweets mentioning #camping.

The hashtag is a powerful tool because it allows people who are not following you to see your tweet. A person who has never heard of you but is interested in camping will search #camping and see your tweet. This helps expose your dealership to a wider audience, and it helps establish you as a key leader on topics.

Want to know more? There are tons of websites promoted to helping you understand social media vocabulary. If you are still a little fuzzy see how Twitter describes hashtags. Also check out this blog post that describes more Twitter vocabulary. Happy #Tweeting!

photo by ccsdteacher

Filed under: Twitter, , , , , , , ,

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, , , , , ,

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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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