You probably know by now ー and maybe you have heard it from us ー that your dealership needs a strong social media presence to boost the performance of your sales strategy.
Most dealers have already created social pages for their dealership on primary social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Hopefully, your team has done so and is in the habit of posting regularly. But are you giving your social media pages their best chance to drive engagement and leads?
Dealer Spike proposes some social media “hacks” (aka, best practices) to connect with more customers and prospects on social media and build your brand awareness.
Need a fast read? Here are three big tips to create good-quality social media content:
- Write content that’s informative and meant to benefit your audience.
- Use images that are relevant to your audience. Especially if your post links back to your blog, use a handful of images to break up lengthy text and engage visual-minded audiences.
- Stay connected with your audiences by responding to comments on your posts. You can also message followers directly if they have a high-urgency request. Maintaining a conversation with your followers keeps them connected to your dealership!
Read on for in-depth hacks per social platform!
Keep Post Copy to an Ideal Length
The ideal number of characters in social media posts are as follows (note: characters include spaces and punctuation):
- Facebook – 40 to 80
- Instagram – 125 or less
- Twitter – 71 to 100
Social media users love posts that are short and sweet ー this is proven by the fact that Facebook posts within the 40-character range receive 89% more engagement. Paring down your character count isn’t easy, so we provided a few examples of how it can be done.
BBQ 7/9 @ HWY Motors! Demo models 2-4PM
Ideally, your Facebook post should include a picture or graphic to stand out. Your audience is very visual, and looking at an image corresponding to your message could increase engagement on your post.
Instagram users are the most willing to read longer text. Keep in mind Instagram is an image-based platform, so posting a relevant photo with your message is a must!
Come BBQ with @HWYMotors 7/9 2-4PM
$9 per guest – all you can eat! Grab a plate and demo our latest models. Call for details.
Though Twitter only allows 240 characters per post, followers are willing to read almost half the allotted allowance for Tweets.
Come by @HWYMotors for a slop n shop Saturday 7/9 2-4PM! Grab a burger & demo our new models.
Photos are optional for Twitter, but they certainly don’t hurt!
Bonus! Blogs
Blogs are a great channel to provide lengthier, detailed content. You can drive more traffic to your website and improve your SEO by keeping up a regular blog. Search engines reward longer blog posts because they contain more keywords. In 2021, an ideal blog length is 2,100 to 2,400 words. Now before you panic at the prospect of writing massive blogs, remember there are alternative strategies to boost your post rankings. These include:
- Proper backlinking
- Adding alt-text
- Targeting high-performing keywords
- Including media (social media embeds, videos, etc.)
You can turn your social media posts into valuable blog posts by sharing photos from an event (such as the examples listed above), along with a summary of the event, a thank-you to all who came and a description of the units available to demo. Remember to share a link to your blog post on your social media pages!
Social media is a great way to keep your customers coming back to your dealership, and all it requires is some creativity and time to build your dealership’s online presence.
If you have questions about managing your social presence, contact Dealer Spike today!