Social Media

Since many of our social media car dealerships use contests on Facebook as a way of gathering more “likes” for their page, I wanted to help keep you up to date on the changes Facebook is making regarding contests on their platform.

In the past, any auto dealership looking to run a promotion (“sweepstakes, contest, competition, or other similar offering”) need to get prior, written permission from Facebook.  Unfortunately for most, if not all small businesses, Facebook wouldn’t grant this permission to businesses that hadn’t spent at least $10,000 in Facebook ads.  Disobeying this policy could lead to your Facebook page being blocked.

Turns out, Facebook has now dropped both the spending requirement and the need for permission.  Small businesses, like your auto dealer website, can now run promotions on the Facebook platform.  Since this can be an extremely cost-effective way to increase your brand awareness and number of “Likes” on Facebook, we encourage our auto dealer customers to take advantage of this new opportunity.

There are still guidelines and restrictions, so make sure you thoroughly read through Facebook’s policies. Also, please feel free to leave a comment here or contact DealerOn if you have any questions about conducting a contest or promotion on Facebook.

Facebook Community pages have been a “new” feature for about four months, yet many people and businesses don’t know much about them.  Essentially, Facebook uses Community Pages to gather information from across their platform, creating a sort of wiki of information, even including information from Wikipedia when appropriate.   According to the social network, “Community Pages are meant to be the best collection of shared knowledge on topics that interest you.”

Facebook asked users to link profile sections (like interests, employers, wall, etc) to a Community Page in order to “discover the friends and people who share these connections with you.”  While this can be a great tool for users, imagine what this might do for your car dealership that isn’t aware of their dealer Community Page?

Everyone who mentions your auto dealership on their Facebook page, positively or negatively, could have that information included on the Community Page, without your car dealer staff being aware.  Here are some steps your dealership can take to avoid having a potential dealer Community Page disaster:

First, search for your dealership’s name to see if a Community Page exists.  If so, click on the “sign up” link so someone from your dealership will be contacted with updates for your Community Page.  Facebook has been slow to make the connections from business sites, like a car dealer website, to Community Pages, so unfortunately, your car dealership may just have to bide your time and check your Community Page often.  It can be a great tool to track what Facebook users are saying about your dealership, or even your OEM, online.

I wanted to let our dealership website customers know about a new feature designed to increase interaction on your inventory pages.  Dealers now have the option to allow their car dealer website visitors to “Like” a particular vehicle, sending the information to their Facebook account.

When your dealership customers click the “Like” button, the page title, URL, thumbnail gallery of all available photos and a link to the vehicle details page is sent to Facebook.  The button is available for both new and used inventory.

To see an example or to find out more information, contact your DealerOn account manager at 877-543-4200.

I wrote on Friday about the changes Facebook has made to their landing tab capabilities for non-authenticated businesses, and today I want to let our auto dealer customers know a couple of ways to get around this blow to small business social media and Facebook’s marketing capabilities.  Just to make things clear, your car dealership page will still be able to create and use custom tabs on your Facebook page, however you cannot designate one of them to be the first tab visitors land on anymore.

One way to customize the content your new Facebook visitors will see is to change your profile picture.  Consider adding text or an image that directs people to the tab you would like them to see.  Some examples are “Click on the Sweepstakes tab to enter” or “Watch our video greeting on the Welcome tab.”  This way your dealership Facebook visitors will see the call to action you create regardless of the tab they land on when first reaching your page.

You can also direct your Facebook traffic to the intended tab by linking to it.  Each created tab has its own URL, so when you link to Facebook from your auto dealer website or in your emails, include the link to the intended tab.

If you have questions about your car dealership social media campaign, contact the DealerOn marketing department.  We have the tools, knowledge, and insight to help auto dealers remain successful while marketing online, no matter how many changes occur.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Looks like Facebook isn’t just pulling the privacy rug out from under its many users, it’s also changing the way small businesses, including most auto dealerships, can use the social media platform.  Previously, Facebook allowed all business pages to create a customized landing tab that visitors would see when visiting your auto dealer’s page.  Facebook has announced that now only “authenticated pages” will be able to use a landing tab.  This means that a “page must have greater than 10,000 fans or the Page admin must work with their ads account manager” in order to be considered “authentic”.  Pages that don’t fit into those categories will not be able to use landing tabs anymore.

This latest change is in addition to the introduction of Community pages.  These are pages designed to be “the best collection of shared knowledge on a topic.”  Wikipedia information will be shown, but Facebook is looking for users to contribute information as well.  This could create a problem for small businesses as it could potentially limit the amount of control your dealership has over its brand.  These pages aren’t controlled by a business or brand, but by Facebook and user content.

Your car dealer online marketing vendor should be able to help your dealership understand these and other changes in the social media world.  I’ll have a post up Monday on ways your car dealership can get around these restrictions on using a landing tab for your auto dealer Facebook page.  Please call us at DealerOn (877-543-4200) if you would like more information regarding how to get the most out of your dealership’s presence on Facebook or other social media outlets.