While putting together a presentation recently, I assembled a simple checklist of daily duties for a dealership Community manager who’s doing Social Media marketing on Facebook and Twitter.
Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of people ask me about how to get more engagement on the Social platforms. I always reply back with a question: “How are you engaging?”
Unfortunately, many dealers and business owners still have the mindset that Social Media is a broadcast channel.
You have to give out what you want back (which pretty much works for everything we do, right?). If you want people to engage with your Facebook page or on Twitter, your store must reach out and engage. Traditional advertising was always a one-way communication channel. Messages were broadcasted to anyone who was within ear shot in hopes that someone would take action.
Today, marketing and media have come together and morphed into a hybrid of two-way communication. Customers and brands are interacting; Customers are engaging with other customers and sharing experiences.
This is a fantastic time in dealership marketing. We all should want to talk to our customers because conversation between buyer and seller usually develops into a sale.
For some, however, this is a difficult transition. You have no time to waste. There is no more wall between brands and their customers.
I was honored to spend some time this week with a group of successful Mercedes-Benz dealers. These are the cream of the crop in auto retail and I’m proud to say they each are taking Social Media marketing very seriously. Each has a dedicated person, a “Community Manager”, listening, engaging, creating content and marketing the heck out of their stores. They’re generating leads and they’re hungry to know what more they can do to succeed.
For those who are new to Social Media or not as advanced as these dealers, take note. The sooner you start connecting with your Social customer, the better chance you’ll have at participating in the conversations that happen everyday around sales and service.
If you’d like to succeed in Social marketing today, you must have a Community Manager to act as the hub–the liaison between your store’s “brand”, your employees and your customers. The two Social platforms I recommend for dealers to start with are Facebook and Twitter. My 3rd recommendation is to start blogging. In fact, blogging is so important that I’ll have to dedicate another post to it!
To give you a jump start (or redux) on your Facebook and Twitter marketing, I’ve mapped out a checklist of 10 items for each that you should be doing daily. These tasks will help you engage more and reward yourself with more engagement from your fans and followers:
1. Post at least one relevant status update.
2. Respond to any comments. Want engagement? Engage.
3. Share 3 interesting status updates you find.
4. Like or Comment on at least 7 status updates or messages.
5. Leave a comment on another Page whose audience is your audience.
6. Running Facebook Ads? Review stats twice daily.
7. Locate 3 relevant pieces of content your audience would like and schedule it.
8. Review Facebook Insights. Look for trends and emulate them.
9. Ask one thought-provoking question.
10. Listen for and respond to every lead immediately.
1. Follow at least 20 people.
2. Follow back at least 10 people.
3. Reply to at least 5 people’s posts/messages.
4. Tweet at least 3 relevant posts you’ve curated (including your blog posts).
5. Tweet no more than 1 dealership-related Tweet every 2 days.
6. Recommend 1 person you admire on Twitter.
7. Re-Tweet 7 tweets you find relevant for your audience.
8. Converse: 10 minutes of polite 2-way chit-chat goes far.
9. Thank anyone who Re-Tweets or Mentions you.
10. Unfollow everyone that’s inactive.
Your Turn: Are you just beginning to build your Facebook and Twitter presence? What other daily duties would you add to this list?
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