2013
Autospeak-Straight Talk contains articles covering digital and social media marketing social communities and events marketing
3 Valuable Lessons I Learned About Automotive Social Media in 3 Days
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(Posted on Feb 4, 2014 at 12:32PM )
Last week, I started working for Wikimotive as a social media rep. It’s my job to maintain a dealer’s social media presence by creating great content that gets users interacting, and maintain that interaction in order to build a connection.
The automotive industry is new to me; my social media experience up to this point has been general content marketing, which is focused on generating page views and interactions, not necessarily business. The great thing about social media, though, is that my experience in content marketing easily relates to business, as the content I create and promote also generates page views and interactions — it’s simply fine-tuned for a local audience full of potential customers.
With that said, here are three valuable things I learned about automotive social media in 3 days:
1. Don’t Concern Yourself with Big Numbers
Coming from content marketing, bigger was always better. The goal is to drive as much traffic to a blog or piece of content as possible, as quick as possible, and move on.
With automotive marketing, the idea isn’t to necessarily stop worrying about stats and growth, but to realize that you’re not creating “viral†content that will appeal to millions of people all over the world. You’re focusing on an extremely niche market in which precise user targeting is everything. That doesn’t mean your content shouldn’t be appealing to millions, it simply means that ten views from local users is worth more than 10,000 from those living on the opposite side of the country.
If your marketing firm is posting big numbers from your various social media pages, ask them these questions:
- Where is the majority of that traffic coming from?
- Was the promoted content directly related to my business?
- Are users showing interest in my inventory?
Customer relations is the most important aspect of automotive marketing. Your sales people know this better than anyone. If they’re not there to greet a customer, they’ve lost a potential sale. And if they don’t make a connection with a customer, they’re less likely to follow through with a purchase.
Your social media team needs to know how to interact with users without overtly pushing a sale before the user shows interest. A good social media rep. knows when to begin asking questions about a user’s interest, and when to simply maintain positive interaction with the user.
You’ll find amazing things can happen when your team puts genuine effort into their interactions with your users. It’s what turns users into customers.
 3. Quality, Relevant Content is Gold
By taking the time to find and craft quality, relevant content, your social media team is paving the way for that crucial interaction. Through my experience in content marketing, I’ve learned about the power of great content, and its effect on users. It can elicit an emotional response, allowing your team to begin building a connection between them and your business.
The Automotive Industry is no exception. Great content will always catch a user’s eye, and that will give them a reason to begin interacting with you. From there, as long as the content is relevant to your business, you can swing the topic of discussion and potentially gain a customer.
By MARK FROST
Wikimotive