Social Media Survival Guide

Are your social media efforts paying off? There is a lot more to dominating social media than staying active and communicating offers. The completion of Meta’s Andromeda update has changed how your content is scored and distributed. Here are some tactics that will help you earn an advantage and optimize your efforts:

1. Know Your Goals – We all want to sell more cars, but what does that look like to you? If you want to expand into a new region you’ll need dealership branding and audience engagement content to build a relationship with new shoppers. If you want to increase your local market share you’ll need to have a steady funnel of shoppers with VIN-targeted inventory ads. If you want more leads you’ll need to create a social event. If you want more website traffic you’ll need content that builds awareness and value. Understanding what we want our social media strategy to do for our bottom line will determine how we approach social media content.

2. Diversify Your Content – Lookaline audiences are a thing of the past. Instead of limiting your reach to specific messages, diversifying your content appeals to numerous new audience groups. As your content becomes more relevant to more people, interactions and rankings will immediately improve. Remember: we are making social media content, not TV commercials.

3. Link Your Audiences – As omnichannel marketing capabilities evolve, dealers have the power to create their own audience funnel. We don’t need to scrounge for low-funnel shoppers with expensive Google campaigns or beg for mid-funnel shoppers from overpriced lead providers. Sharing audience shopping data allows us to create a custom shopper experience every step of the way. 

4. Avoid Low Performing Posts – Sold customer photos might seem like a great way to keep content volumes high, but they are silent killers. Low-performing posts significantly influence ranking algorithms. You can make yourself invisible in one day by spamming low-performing posts. This means your next banger won’t get near as many views and your non-follower reach will be heavily throttled. If people don’t like what you’re sending, you will be suppressed. This also affects boosted and campaign ads.

5. Have FUN! – The ultimate goal of social media marketing is communicating the value of your dealership experience. This isn’t about buying the right car; it’s about buying a new car from the right dealership. We don’t have to wait for customers to visit our showroom anymore. Now we can communicate the excitement and energy of our showroom to anonymous shoppers at every stage of the funnel. Make sure you are introducing your knowledgeable staff, your gorgeous facilities, and the social value of having done business at your dealership.

Social media reporting gives us valuable real-time insights. We can see what our customers are looking at and tailor every post to align our goals with our shoppers. Once visibility is established (usually 60-90 days consistent strategy) we can begin to influence what our shoppers are looking at. One step closer to dealer autonomy!