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BLOG: What value can social media add to your dealership?

3rd February 2016

As a dealership, you should have a strong social media presence. 75% of dealers believe that social media has helped them to sell cars and support their business.

Everyone’s connected to their phones, scrolling through their Twitter or Facebook feeds as they go about their day. With people spending an hour and a half every day on their phone, there is a huge audience out there that you can reach with well targeted, engaging social activity.

Over 60% of dealers felt that social media has already touched part of their business and would contribute to it in the future. There are more than 2,206billion users of social media and with one million people joining social networks every day, there are thousands of potential customers that your dealership can reach.

Social media use means that you’re optimising more channels that a prospective customer could find you on and maximising the potential for a sale. Evans Halshaw was found to be the most successful dealership using social media, attracting 11,000 followers and 762 retweets from customers. How were they successful? Hosting a competition on their social channels, sharing images of people with their new cars and personalising their posts, Evans Halshaw have been able to establish their brand online.

When 57% of a customer’s purchase decision is made before they talk to the business, it is key that you’re building your social channels to reach the widest audience possible.

What social media can do for your dealership

Increase interaction

With so much choice when it comes to choosing the right vehicle/dealership, 90% of consumers start their search for a car online,checking your profile out on social channels before looking at your website. By ensuring that your social feeds are regularly updated and full of fresh content, you can stand out from your competitors and drive more traffic.

If customers have a question about the vehicles you stock, they may check that you have the right one by contacting you directly on social media to see if it is at your dealership. A slow or forgotten response could lose the deal and drive your customer to someone else’s dealership.

30% of people prefer social customer care to customer service over the phone, so it’s essential that your dealership pays attention to these channels. One concern people have regarding social media is that it leaves them vulnerable to public complaints. However, if a customer does express a negative review, a social presence gives you the opportunity to resolve this issue publicly and demonstrate your excellent customer service.

Build your brand

Buying a car is one of the biggest purchases that a person can make. To encourage people to make such a big spend, you need to build their trust in your sales team and the dealership itself. An effective way to do this is through your social channels because you can share both industry insights and latest news to demonstrate your understanding of the automotive business.

27% of people studied by Dealer.com said that social media influences their decision on which dealership to buy from.

A quick, speedy response to a customer enquiry shows that you offer a comprehensive service and that you genuinely care for your customers. Equally, you can share jokes, pictures of work events and engage customers in a discussion about the latest hot topic in the office, all of which humanise your brand and convey the personality of the people that make your business.

Caralot are a great example of how social media can be used to engage with your customers they have more than 32,600 followers on Twitter and constantly update their channels.

An online showcase

Social media is a visual marketing channel that you can use to make the customer’s journey from thinking about purchasing a new vehicle to buying a car much simpler. Knowing the age, model or brand of car they want buy means that when you have photos of your stock on social channels, they can see the exact vehicles on your forecourt.

By sharing images of your newest stock or the most popular vehicles at your dealership, you can use industry hashtags, networking hours or even create your own to broaden the reach of these pictures.

Sharing images works, Facebook posts saw a 2.3 times more engagement than those without pictures, while Tweets with images were retweeted 150% more than those that didn’t have an image.

While stock more, sell more is what it takes to change your business’ gear, tweet more, sell more might be the answer when it comes to attracting customers.

Thanks for reading!

Sue Thornton

Sales and Marketing Manager

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