I often lay awake at night wondering how dealers and business owners can break free of the tired old paradigm and move forward with Social Media marketing. As you probably know, I spent my career managing successful stores, so I can’t help myself. It always pains me to see people who are stuck. I see bosses telling their staff to “get more likes” on Facebook. I see them struggling with this new media, without much help from the manufacturers.
I see a lot of poseurs out there promising lots of Facebook likes.
I was having a conversation today with a colleague. He told me a story of a dealership whose advertising agency got them a lot of action on Facebook with a campaign around a charity for their local school. They were able to get 20,000 likes on the store’s Facebook Page. During the short time of the campaign, the page had about 6,000 people talking about it, which on Facebook equates to 30% engagement. Nice job.
That was a few months ago. Today they still have those 20,000 likes but only 100 people talking about the page. What happened to all those people? They left the party. Sadly, with such dismal engagement, it doesn’t matter how many likes they have now because their status updates aren’t landing in their fans News Feeds. Are these the types of likes they really wanted?
Not all likes are created equal. The reason people liked this dealership’s page was not because they connected with the brand. It’s because they connected with the charity. It’s one thing to get likes and quite another to keep them present and talking. I can’t help but feel compassion for this dealership because I’m sure their ad agency was high-fiving each other over their success. And in the old mindset of advertising to the masses, that would’ve been a success. Today, it’s a squandered opportunity.
The key to Facebook marketing is to deliver awesome content to your audience to get them talking with you and about your store. What types of content does your customer want to interact with? You must know more about your audience to answer that. What are their interests? What problems can you solve? What’s unique about your community, and its sub-communities, that make up your part of the world? The answers to these questions will give you cues on how to keep your community engaged with your page.
It’s hard work to keep your fans attention.
It used to be you could buy attention but that ship has sailed. Today, your fans want to feel aligned with you. If you succeed in that alignment, they give you permission to market to them. It’s a privilege (not a right) to deliver anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them!
If you build it they might come, but there’s no guarantee they will stay.
Where the ad agency failed is in their antiquated thinking. Nobody stays when it’s not interesting. There are too many other interesting things to interact with and enjoy. When someone chooses to pay attention to your store they’re actually rewarding you with something precious. And there’s no way to get that attention back if they change their mind.
Your customer’s attention is an important asset. It’s something to be valued, not wasted. Do the work it takes to keep that attention. Define your marketing strategy. Hire a content marketing strategist to help you grow your Social presence the right way. It’s not about the latest tools or what new network will get you the most traffic. Let’s focus on building that solid foundation to keep your customers’ attention. That’s how you keep them coming back for more!
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