With revenues down across the board, it’s a good time to discuss the one thing that doesn’t cost you a dime: social media. Your various social media accounts are entirely free, and now is a great time to work on growing your following.
Video Transcript:
Welcome back to another Wednesday Workshop from DealerOn. We hope this video finds you well.
With revenues down across the board, it’s a good time to discuss the one thing that doesn’t cost you a dime: social media. Your various social media accounts are entirely free, and now is a great time to work on growing your following.
Today we’re going to go over a few tips that will net you more followers and increase the engagement of the followers you already have. Keep these three basic rules in mind when crafting your posts, and you’ll be in good shape.
1 – Be seen, 2 – Promote engagement, and 3 – Follow up.
Being seen means exactly that. Before any other concern, your posts need to be seen by the people that follow you.
Post when your followers are on their social media apps. As a good rule of thumb Thursdays and Fridays after lunch are a peak time for social media browsing. That may differ for your business, so I’d suggest checking analytics on Facebook for more precise times.
Pictures help your posts stand out. If you’re on Instagram, that goes without saying, but it will do wonders for your visibility on Facebook, Twitter, or any of the others. Your showroom of photogenic merchandise is a great place to start taking pictures.
Lastly, people like their social media posts like they like their pancake stacks: short. Social media tends to be browsed rather than read, so get to the point.
You need your followers to engage with your posts, which includes adding comments or likes, or even better, sharing them to their friends and followers.
The easiest way to do this is with a call to action. A simple question posed after a picture prompts your followers to make a comment.
If you have the means, the best way to promote engagement is a contest. These tend to get shared, and you can even have that be the barrier for entry into the contest. Whoever shares gets a chance to win. Offer something of value—say, a good coupon for your service department—and watch your post be shared again and again.
After your posts are seen and engaged with, don’t skip the follow up! This lets your followers know that they’re being heard and that you care about them. For example, don’t just follow up with the contest winners, talk to everyone else too. Thank them for their participation and wish them better luck next time.
Respond to comments and reviews within about a day of receiving them: answer questions, reward engagements, that kind of thing. Thank people for good reviews, and thank people for bad ones too, along with a pledge to do better. You might not get that one customer back, but everyone else will be impressed with your civility and commitment to customer service.
Last, but certainly not least, maintain a positive attitude. While that’s perhaps more important in these trying times, it’s always a good idea. Positive posts are far more likely to promote positive engagement than negative ones, and your attitude can rub off on others.
Besides, the internet is negative enough as it is.
That’s all the time we have for today’s workshop. As always, if you have any questions or comments, leave them below and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next week for another Wednesday Workshop from DealerOn.
