Social media has matured into a major player for effective dealership marketing and lead generation. Its tremendous growth has amplified the problem of well-intentioned people aimlessly trying to figure it out as they go.
Now that significant investments are being made and marketers are more closely held accountable for their results, it’s time to stop the madness and take action to improve your social media strategy.
What is this social media strategy you speak of?
Did you know social media is the number one daily activity among Americans, topping time spent on email and Google?
76% of Facebook users visit the site daily!
Social media is BIG and only getting bigger. Being thoughtful and deliberate about social media marketing saves precious resources. A written strategy helps you and your team focus on the efforts that get the best results.
According to Fast Company, 93% of marketers use social media to promote their business. If you lack social media strategy, you are likely missing a large chunk of your target consumers.
How can I improve my social media strategy?
- Write it down. Create a game plan and stick to it. Only 32% of marketers have a documented social media strategy, and these marketers with a plan are 60% more likely to be effective in their content marketing than those without. Statistics show people who write down their goals have an 80% higher success rate. Start with the goals you want to attain and determine the strategy needed to accomplish them. Create a plan made of small doable steps to get you where you want to be, with timelines, and review your plan monthly.
- Commit to a Content Calendar. Close your eyes and picture this: it’s May 3rd, end of the day, everyone’s gone home and suddenly it hits you: tomorrow is Star Wars Day – May the 4th – a huge marketing opportunity and you’ve got…nothing. A mad scramble ensues to come up with a clever concept, create the necessary assets, and execute in time to ride the wave of lightsaber-filled fun. In some cases, it may be too late to do anything at all. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Enter the social media content calendar. Your content calendar will:
- Organize your content
- Supply fertile ground for brainstorming and inspiration
- Never let you miss important dates
- Improve team collaboration
- Save time
- Let you allocate resources more effectively
- Help you gain a deeper understanding of what works (and what doesn’t work)
- Clearly define your target customers. One of the first things you should do is define your target customers. Unfortunately, most dealers don’t have a clear idea of exactly who they want to reach. Maybe this is because, for years, the answer to that question was, “Everyone.”
Social media allows you to laser-target ideal customers – those most likely to buy what you sell. Why spend money to reach people who aren’t interested when you can be uber-efficient with your investment and reach the right customers?
Pro Tip: Determine who your “Raving Fans” are and create content that speaks their language. What are their concerns, issues, and questions? Leverage Facebook’s ad tools to promote that content for lead generation.
- Outline your top goals and track corresponding KPIs. Social media gets very overwhelming at times and you may be avoiding it because it’s daunting. It’s easy to get caught up in all the craziness and lose your footing.
Determining and setting goals for social media is where many companies (not just dealerships) fail in their process. Every investment for your business should have an intended goal. That way, you can create a strategy to achieve those goals, execute it, measure your efforts and tie the results back to your goals. In other words, establish ROI.
Some common areas for setting goals are:
- Growth of business page or profiles (likes and followers) from within your market area.
- Engagement
- Reach
- Traffic to website/landing page
- Leads
- Sales
- Online reviews
- Customer loyalty
- Lead with your story. Numbers numb. Stories sell. “No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story,” explains Dan Kahneman, who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering work on the psychology of decision-making. But the best social science says storytelling lies at the heart of memorable and persuasive communications. Everyone has a great story to tell, but not everyone knows how to tell a great story.
What is your story?
It may seem trivial but there are stories to tell every day about your organization that your customers are interested in; stories about the community you’re in, the causes you support and the people you help.
Everyone’s busy doing his or her job so you must make it someone’s job to tell your story. Social media strategy will make your efforts more effective. You’ll spend less time worrying and you’ll be able to hold your vendors more accountable.