Recognizing Social Opportunity in Your Dealership

It took years of trial and error for me to learn how to create a social media presence that helped make me my dealership’s top salesperson. Strong social media pages are the cornerstone to an effective online presence that converts, but many dealerships get hung up on what it is they should be sharing with their connections. Here are five tangible, actionable ideas of what to share on social to get moving with a fierce social media presence:

Focus on Features

Using video, zoom in and highlight specific features of different models rather than sharing “walkarounds” on social media. The features you share should be things that customers get excited about like techy wireless charging, blind spot monitoring functions, or a sleek infotainment system. The features that help the in-person selling of the vehicle can also translate excitement to prospective buyers online.

Eye the Service Drive

On platforms like Facebook or Instagram feature a service drive superstar, a classic or older model that will capture both the feeling of longevity in these vehicles and also a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. There are tons of opportunities at a dealership to pull at peoples’ heartstrings—to make them feel warm, fuzzy nostalgia—and social media is the perfect place to serve it up. The occasional cream puff trade-in can work perfectly for this mission as well.

Include Special Guest-Stars

Although you don’t want to flood social feeds with redundant pictures of new customers standing awkwardly with their vehicle out front of your dealership, you will want to feature some occasional smiling faces to keep things personable and fun. I warn though that this post should be less frequent than the others—again we don’t want your social profiles to only show photos of strangers awkwardly standing beside their newly
purchased vehicle (often looking a bit exasperated and hungry.) Keep these photos interesting, like you see in this example and remember: you’re trying to capture a feeling with these special guest-stars.

Capture Local Happenings

Events happening locally can be great opportunities to capitalize on and create local visibility to your social media pages. Fundraisers, art walks, college happenings, and sports events are just some ideas for great, locally relevant affairs to feature on social. Bonus points if you can capture an automotive-related local happening, like a car show! Also, many community events have unique hashtags so using that hashtag with your uploads can bring extra visibility to your page.

Be More Human

In order to build relationships with prospective and past clients you’ll want to also highlight the people behind the posts, so be sure to include some personal shots on your page. These photos can feature employees, behind the scenes happenings, or everyday action at the dealership. Feel free to add some humor and personality to these captions so that your audience gets a flavor for who you are.

I hope this allows you to begin to understand what you can post on social media to grow a presence that attracts and converts. Just as Alan Ram had helped scores of salespeople become successful with his phone and internet conversion training, I want to help my colleagues become successful through converting off social media.