The Power of Social Media: How to Harness Its Impact on Marketing
Having a strong online presence means more than simply having a website. It's about being active and visible where your customers spend their time. In today’s day and age, social media has become the new forum for finding and influencing consumers.
With the ever-increasing reliance on technology and the prevalence of social media, you have a unique opportunity to leverage social media marketing to attract, engage and connect with your target audience like never before.
In this article, you will explore the importance, benefits and opportunities of social media marketing for your dealership. Topics covered will include:
- The Integral Role of Social Media in the Buyer’s Journey
- Benefits of Maintaining an Active Presence on Social Media
- Strategies for Social Media Marketing
- Strategies for Organic Posts
- Strategies for Paid Advertising
- Strategies to Combine Organic Posts & Paid Ads
- Getting Started with Your Social Media Marketing
The Integral Role of Social Media in the Buyer’s Journey
Social media has become an integral part of nearly everyone’s daily lives. Consumers spend an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media each day. This time spent on social media isn’t simply mindless scrolling or an escape from reality. It has become a platform for consumers to search for products and shop online.
As much as 41% of consumers have discovered a new product through social media, according to HubSpot’s State of Consumer Trends in 2023 report. When looking for purchase ideas, consumers now turn to social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for inspiration.
Social media has also transformed the way consumers interact with brands. Through platforms like Twitter and Facebook, consumers can now directly communicate with brands and share their experiences with others. This real-time interaction allows for a more personalized and engaging shopping experience, making consumers more likely to trust and purchase from a brand.
When it comes time to move past product discovery and make a decision about a purchase, social media plays a major role in the consumer shopping process. With the abundance of user-generated content, such as reviews and ratings, consumers can now easily research products before making a purchase. Social media also allows for word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals, which greatly influence consumers' decisions.
Social media has revolutionized the way products are marketed and advertised. With highly targeted ads and personalized content, all types of business and brands can reach their desired audience effectively and efficiently.
Benefits of Maintaining an Active Presence on Social Media
Your dealership can leverage the seeming omnipresence of social media to your advantage. Consider the following benefits of social media marketing to your dealership.
Cost-Effective Marketing
Traditional marketing methods can be expensive, especially for small businesses. Social media platforms, on the other hand, allow you to reach a wide audience of engaged consumers at a fraction of the cost. This makes social media marketing an accessible and budget-friendly option to promote your brand and offerings.
Increased Brand Awareness
Having a strong social media presence allows your dealership to reach a wider audience and increase brand awareness. By regularly posting engaging content and interacting with your followers, you can attract new potential customers and promote your dealership and inventory to a larger audience.
Personalized Shopper Engagement
Engaging with shoppers on social media has numerous benefits. It allows you to build a loyal customer base through personalized interactions and it empowers you to create personal connections through authentic and relatable content.
Sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses, customer testimonials and stories of adventure can help you to forge emotional connections and foster long-term relationships. By responding to comments, messages and reviews, you can create a sense of community and foster brand advocacy. Consumers appreciate this kind of personal touch and are more likely to trust and support a brand that values their input.
Reach a Larger Audience Base
Social media platforms provide an unparalleled opportunity to increase brand awareness and reach a wider audience through both paid ads and sharable organic content. With the vast amount of data that social media platforms have on their users, you can create highly targeted ads to reach your desired audience.
You can use paid ads to your advantage by targeting individuals who are interested in topics related to your industry (for example, outdoor activities, landscaping, homesteading, adventure sports or specific brands. Nearly half (49%) of consumers have made a purchase after seeing a targeted ad, according to Sprout Social.
Sharable organic content, on the other hand, allows you to leverage the goodwill of your existing customer base to help spread the word about your dealership's products and services. As they share posts with their own network of followers, it increases brand awareness and drives potential customers to visit your dealership or website.
Strategies for Social Media Marketing
The right social media marketing strategies can bring more attention to your posts and expand your reach to bring in more customers and further establish your brand as a leader in your industry.
Strategies for Organic Posts
Organic social media content refers to posts that are created without paid advertisement. These posts can include anything from photos and videos of new inventory arrivals, dealership events and customer testimonials, to behind-the-scenes looks at the dealership and its team.
By sharing authentic and relatable content, you can showcase your dealership’s brand personality and values, build trust with your audience and establish a strong brand identity. Consider the following strategies for organic social media.
Be Consistent with Your Branding
When it comes to building a strong social media presence, consistency is key. Make sure that your dealership's branding—including logos, colors and tone of voice—are consistent across all your social media channels. This will help to establish brand recognition and build trust with your audience.
Utilize Hashtags
Hashtags are an effective way to expand your reach on social media, especially on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Research relevant and trending hashtags, see what other dealerships are doing and pay attention to popular hashtags in your community. The right hashtags can help make your posts more discoverable to a wider audience.
Once you have a list of relevant hashtags, use them strategically. Avoid overusing hashtags or using ones that have no relevance to your content. This can make your posts seem spammy and may discourage users from engaging with your content. A good rule of thumb is to use no more than five to seven hashtags per post. This will keep your posts targeted and ensure that they don’t appear overly cluttered.
Post Regularly Each Week
Posting consistently is essential for maintaining an active social media presence. You don’t necessarily need to post daily, especially if you don’t have the time or content to share, but you should try to post a few times a week. This will keep your dealership top of mind for your audience without overwhelming them with too much content.
In an age of social media influencers and phone filters, there’s a lot of pressure to curate a polished social media presence, full of perfectly captured images. Just remember to prioritize consistency over perfection. Shoppers who are looking to make a purchase place a lot of significance in authenticity.
In an age of social media influencers and phone filters...remember to prioritize consistency over perfection.
If you don’t have a lot of time to create and post a variety of content, take 15 minutes to capture several photos around your dealership. A few fun facts and images of your inventory, your front desk, your building or even your team can give followers an authentic look at your dealership. This builds trust that your social presence is an accurate reflection of your business culture.
Engage & Inform Your Audience
While the ultimate goal of an active social media presence is to drive shoppers to your website and move them further along your sales funnel, you don’t want to bombard them with sales messages. For every sales-focused post linking back to your website, share three community or educational posts that encourage your audience to interact with your content.
Educational posts serve two important purposes:
- They establish your dealership as an industry expert, building more trust in your brand.
- They help shoppers recognize the need for maintenance or repairs, which could spur them to contact your dealership for service.
Boost Important & Time-Sensitive Posts
You can “boost” posts on Facebook by paying a small fee to get your post in front of more of your audience. Boosting posts is an easy-to-use alternative if you aren’t in a position to run paid ads right now. While boosted content doesn’t have the same reach and targeting capabilities as paid ads, it’s a cost-effective method to bring greater awareness to your most important posts (seasonal sales, dealership events, etc.).
Offer Incentives to “Like” & Share Content
As your followers like and share your content, your influence can grow exponentially. That’s the power of social media. If you have a small organic following, you can potentially grow your audience base by convincing your followers to share your content with their own social circles. Occasionally offer incentives to “like” and share your posts, such as a discount on a future service or a free item at their next visit.
Leverage User-Generated Content
Encourage your customers to share their experiences and adventures with your units. Not only is this an easy way to source content for your social posts, it leverages word-of-mouth from your customers. Ask them to tag your dealership in their posts to get your brand in front of their online connections.
You can also repost user-generated content to build a sense of community and authenticity. Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to say that user-generated content is the most authentic content posted by brands. Just remember to credit and/or tag the original poster in your message if you aren’t utilizing the built-in re-share features on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This pays homage to the individual who provided the content and also shows that your dealership is engaged with your customer base.
Engage with Your Audience
Social media is all about being social, so make sure to engage with your audience on a regular basis. Respond to comments and messages promptly, ask for feedback and opinions and encourage user-generated content. This will not only help to build a strong relationship with your audience, but also increase the reach of your posts.
Getting feedback from loyal customers helps you build a better business. Consider customer responses and customize products and services to reflect feedback and deliver what customers want and need. Incorporate what's valuable to them within your business practices.
Strategies for Paid Advertising
With so much competition from other brands on social media platforms and amid the ever-changing algorithms that impact social media marketing, it can be challenging for your organic content to stand out. Paid advertising on social media can help your dealership gain visibility and attract new customers. Consider the following strategies for paid social media advertising.
Segment Your Audience
One of the biggest advantages of social media advertising is its ability to target specific demographics. Divide your target audience into smaller groups based on their characteristics, behaviors and interests. Utilize audience segmentation to create personalized ads that are more likely to resonate with each individual shopper. Instead of delivering general marketing messages to a broad audience, segmenting helps you to optimize your ad spend by targeting specific sales leads that are most likely to convert.
Use Data to Identify Segments
Data is a powerful tool when it comes to audience segmentation. With the vast amount of data that social media platforms have on their users, you can create highly targeted ads to reach your desired audience. Some useful data points include:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Interests
- Purchasing behaviors
- Website visitors
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is especially adept at capturing data about its users’ interests and behaviors. You can use this feature to your advantage by targeting individuals based on demographics, interests and behaviors.
Choose the Right Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms are not interchangeable in terms of reach and results—each has its own strengths and limitations. There are a few key factors to consider when identifying the most effective social media platforms for your campaigns. These include understanding your target audience, evaluating platform demographics and user behaviors and staying up to date on industry trends.
For example, if your target audience is primarily younger individuals, you may want to focus on platforms like Instagram or Snapchat, which have a younger user base. Alternatively, if your audience is more diverse in age and interests, you may want to utilize platforms like Facebook or Twitter.
Keeping up with industry trends can also play a key role in determining which social media platforms are most effective for your dealership. For example, as the popularity of video content continues to rise across all industries, it may be beneficial to focus on platforms like YouTube that prioritize video content. Instagram, on the other hand, may be better for visual storytelling, such as showcasing inventory features.
Utilize Different Ad Formats
Most social media platforms offer various ad formats such as image ads, video ads and slideshows. Experiment with different formats to see which ones perform best for your dealership. For example, if you want to showcase a unit in action or give your audience a tour of your dealership, a video ad may be most effective. If you want to showcase several units or several details of a single unit, you may consider a slideshow ad, which can include multiple images and/or videos.
Run Monthly Advertising Campaigns
Paid ads can gain prominence quickly, but they need sufficient time to grow an audience to produce the best results. Try running your paid ads for a month at a time and analyze the results at the end of each month. It’s also important to remember that paid advertising on social media is not a one-time effort; it requires continuous testing and refinement to achieve the best results.
Use A/B testing to identify the most effective elements for your target audience. Experiment with different ad copy, images/videos, targeting options and budgets to see what works best for your dealership.
Retarget Website Visitors
Implement retargeting campaigns to re-engage users who have shown interest in your inventory, but haven't made a purchase. Dynamic ads are a great way to showcase products or promotions that a website visitor has shown interest in. These ads can be highly effective in driving conversions, as they are tailored to the individual's interests.
Retargeting ads don't have to be limited to just reminding website visitors about products they've viewed. You can use this opportunity to upsell or cross-sell related products or services to increase the value of each customer. Once you have a successful retargeting campaign, consider creating lookalike audiences based on the data collected. This will allow you to expand your reach and potentially attract new customers with similar interests and behaviors.
Leverage Co-Op Content from Manufacturers
Many manufacturers offer co-op programs to reimburse dealerships for advertising their brands. Some manufacturers may even post content on your behalf, saving you some effort in managing your social media accounts. This is a helpful way to get in front of the manufacturer’s followers and potentially convert them into your own audience.
Although it can be tempting to devote all or most of your ad spend to co-op content, it’s important to reserve the bulk of your ad spend for your own content for three primary reasons:
- Content from the manufacturer typically appeals to brand enthusiasts and may not resonate with your larger audience.
- Many manufacturers have very specific brand standards, which may not align with your dealership’s branding, making these posts stand out as third-party content.
- Content that is posted by your dealership will naturally reach and appeal to a wider audience.
The bottom line is that co-op programs are a great way to grow your audience within a certain pool of consumers, but don’t restrict your social media reach by putting all your eggs in the co-op basket.
Be Intentional with Ad Spend Allocation
As a general rule of thumb, allocate around 40-60% of your ad spend toward your general branded dealership content, 10-15% toward display ads and reserve the remaining budget for any co-op opportunities from manufacturers.
Strategies to Combine Organic Posts & Paid Ads
Social media strategies don’t exist in a silo. By combining organic and paid social media strategies, you can effectively increase brand awareness, engage with your target audience and drive potential customers into your sales funnel. Consider the following strategies to combine organic and paid social posts.
Keep the End Goal in Mind
Think about the end goal – what is your social media campaign meant to accomplish? Having a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with your social media presence allows you to make informed decisions about which platforms to use, what type of content to post and how often to post it.
If the end goal is to increase brand awareness and reach a wider audience, it probably makes sense to focus on platforms with a larger user base such as Facebook or Instagram. On the other hand, if the goal is to drive sales and generate leads, platforms that cater to more specific, targeted audiences like LinkedIn or Twitter may be more effective.
Having a clear end goal can also help you tailor your content and messaging to align with your overall strategy. Knowing your end goal can help you create posts that are engaging, informative and relevant to your target audience, rather than just posting for the sake of having a presence on social media.
Start with Small Steps
For organic posts, start somewhere and post regularly, but be careful not to become “spammy” by posting multiple times a day. Posting a few times per week is enough. Consider hiring a family member, intern or college student part-time to post on social media on a weekly basis and respond to comments. When it comes to paid ads, start with a small budget and reassess your strategy after a month to review performance and goals.
Use Analytics to Identify Ideal Posting Times
Like other marketing campaigns, social media advertising is all about timing. Posting at the right time can greatly impact the success (or lack thereof) of your social media marketing campaigns. By posting when your target audience is most active and engaged, you will increase the chances of your content being seen and interacted with. This can lead to higher engagement rates, increased brand awareness and potentially more sales.
The ideal posting time for social media content varies depending on factors such as audience demographics, industry and platform algorithm updates. However, analytics tools can help you identify patterns and trends in your audience's behavior to determine the best times to post. These tools provide data on metrics such as engagement rates, reach and impressions, which can help dealers make data-driven decisions.
For organic posts, analytics tools can provide data on when your followers are most active and engaged. By analyzing this data, you can determine the best times to post your content to reach the highest number of people and generate the most engagement. This can also help you plan your content calendar accordingly.
For paid posts, analytics tools can provide data on the performance of different ads at different times. By analyzing this data, you can determine which times result in the best return on investment (ROI) for your social media ad spend. This information can then be used to optimize future ad campaigns and maximize their impact.
Partner with a Social Media Marketing Vendor
Social media marketing is more effective when you can team up with an experienced partner who is familiar with the various social media platforms and knows how to get the most out of your campaigns using the above best practices and strategies. Choose a social media partner who has industry expertise and understands the challenges, expectations and seasonal trends of your industry. A partner with these insights will have the resources to reach your target audience, engage with potential customers and ultimately generate better results for your business.
Your ideal partner should also offer valuable insights and recommendations based on their experience working with various businesses. They should provide guidance on which platforms to focus on, the best times to post, and what type of content resonates with your community. This can save you time and resources, as you don't have to constantly test and adjust your social media strategy.
Partnering with a social media partner can also help you stay on top of the latest trends and updates in the ever-changing world of social media. The right partner will constantly monitor industry developments and algorithm changes and adapt social media marketing strategies accordingly. This ensures that your strategies are always utilizing the most up-to-date and effective tactics for each social media campaign.
Consistent Support
Working with a single social media partner means you have access to a consistent support system. If you’re managing your own social media campaigns, you may experience times when the platform’s own support team isn’t responsive. You may even get connected with an agent who doesn’t know your dealership and your social media objectives.
With the right social media partner, you can see metrics and get prompt answers to your questions. You’ll also enjoy a single point of contact with a rep who has the industry expertise and knows your dealership.
Getting Started with Your Social Media Marketing
In the fast-paced world of online shopping and digital connections, social media is a powerful engine for driving sales leads. By leveraging the unique features of various social media platforms and implementing a few of the above best practices, you can connect with your target audience, build a loyal community and accelerate sales in the digital age.
If you are looking to enhance your social media strategy and drive a more targeted campaign that maximizes your social media spend, connect with a social media expert to integrate your current goals with industry best practices and consumer trends.