Automotive

Building Your Brand through Social Media

The Clubhouse conversation that challenged convention on bland automotive social media.
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Building Your Brand through Social Media

Tuesday's Clubhouse with Minority Motors’ Perry Watson III was a dive into the art of using social media for brand building. The social networking tools that have become a natural part of many personal lives can effectively build a brand that connects with the community we are a part of and the consumers we hope to attract. 

Perry acknowledged there are many things to be aware of in the world, but demystifying some of the practical and powerful abilities social media offers will benefit the entire community. Some in the industry have developed social media as part of their infrastructure, while others have little to no awareness of which platforms to use, how often to post, what content matters, and who is on the other end. The conversation opened the floor for folks to ask questions and share their experience and data. 

An opening volley by Paul Daly set the "no wrong answer" tone for the room: 

"Think about the feeling you want people to have when they interact with your brand. you should never question whether or not posting content that is authentic to who you are." - Paul Daly

Who is responsible for generating and executing the content? 

There is no one answer to questions like this. Your approach will be as unique as your business and team. Some folks shared the who and how of this part of their business infrastructure. 

Nathanael Greklek is an example of how to knock digital marketing out of the park and was willing to share: 

Mohawk Auto Group, located in upstate New York, has a digital marketing team of 5, including a full-time editor. The team creates new digital content every day. Nathanael Greklek has been with the company for five years and was the original solo member of the team. He slowly grew from a one-person team with a selfie stick to a production team creating new things every day. 

Where would you start? 

"Even if you just buy them an iPhone and tell them to make content. I've talked to many individuals who will handle one[social media account] for, like 12 stores, and it's just way too much. So I would recommend one per store. One person that handles social media, Facebook, Instagram, and that's where I would start. I would first start with delivery pictures, getting your sales to take photos of every single delivery that comes through your store and posting them at the end of the day." -Greklek

Takeaway: A person focused on this work will find what they need to succeed. Get them started. 

Which platforms do you use?

"So we are predominantly on Facebook, we do branch out to Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. " -Greklek

Takeaway: Facebook hits a magic zone where you can upload pictures with unlimited words, increase visibility with a robust tagging system, and not require the viewer to listen to any sound to take in. 

How do you measure success?

"The initial [goal] is seeing the amount of reach and engagement people look for [in] the follower count, when in fact, everyone should focus on the attention." -Greklek

Takeaway: Content must connect but more importantly, it must invite those it reaches to engage with it. Liking, Sharing, Commenting: these are not just emotional validation points. These metrics show us how effective we are with our content, tags, and time to create them. 

Kyle Mountsier shared the impact of social media engagement from Nelson Mazda in Nashville, TN. 

In late 2019 the average cost per sale of the vehicle was around $420. The company hired a full-time social media team member and focused on a few things: 

  • no more stock photos
  • lean into dynamic photography and video
  • never posting another OEM repurposed content post
  • keeping all content within the local city

From November 2020 to May 2021, there were 264 posts with 2.5 million impressions across social media platforms on organic content. Then from May 2021 to Nov 2021, there were over 9.7 Million impressions. 

Cost per sale from 2019 to mid-2021 dropped from the previous $420 to just under $250 with just a team of two dedicated to two stores. 

Takeaway: People know an ad when they see it and will often ignore it. Well-made, honest, organic content can bypass the ad fatigue people feel and invite them to see what is going on in their city through the eyes of your business. 

What platforms do you utilize? 

"We were utilizing Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and a little bit of TikTok. But it's crazy how you can rack up impression shares quickly, although you've got to dedicate yourself to that. We did a fair amount of YouTube. But on YouTube, the content is different. We did a good amount of walk arounds and educational content, you know, feature content. And that was successful. And then also, the last place that many people forget is Google Business Profiles. So between six and nine original photos uploaded per week, as well as a video or two." -Mountsier.

Google business cheat codes: 

To increase your Google Business Profile visibility, consider a few things. 

  • Set location data on the images
  • Use a high-quality camera. People will zoom in
  • Name your images. "Mazda-CX-9-at-Galleria-Mall-in-Franklin-TN.jpg" will come up in more searches than IMG8675309.jpg.

Takeaway: By learning and utilizing each type of social media, you maximize your chance of finding engagement for each piece of content you create. And they're all FREE, so find what works and dig in. 

Where did you learn this? 

There are no short roads or magic bullets. It takes years of google, conversations, blogs, mailing lists, trial and error, and a desire to be a master of your craft.

Patrick Brown of Viva Auto Group shared some of his processes. 

The 3-2-1 approach to social media

  • Three stories
  • Two posts
  • One live a day

Each sales team member posts three stories, two posts, and one 3 minute long live video a day for the last year and a half. 

"It's our lowest hanging fruit, still our highest converting people coming from that. They know who we are. They feel comfortable doing business with us. Our CSI increases. We're hitting all of our CSI targets in our company. Gosh, it's simple. Everybody thinks it's complicated, but it's just being engaging, right? That's what it is. But it's made a game-changer for us." -Brown

Takeaway: People want to do business with people who do what they do, laugh at what they laugh at, and love what they love. Allowing teammates to bring some of themselves to their outgoing marketing will increase engagement and familiarity. 

Have you had anyone express hesitance to cross their workplace with their personal social media presence? 

"We saw that when we first launched it, a lot of people were like, 'well, I don't want people to see what I do.' They quickly weeded themselves out. After 45 days it started working like gangbusters. We had people try to create a separate page. But the problem with that was they didn't have the legs that their personal page had. They had to start from scratch.” -Brown

Do they ever get bored posting about work? 

"I'd say 30% of them are: 'Hey, guys, we got this truckload of cars, we got this today, Hurry, before they're gone.' That kind of thing does happen. And it's valuable. But the more value is: 'Hey, guys, I'm here with my kids. And my little league, baseball game, we're doing this all day,' That is what we're doing. And that is because now you have a personal connection with people." -Brown

How do you control the content? 

"But what you're going to find is, don't manage it based off of the small amount of people who are going to be doing that crazy stuff, because so many more people want to do a good job, and they're just going to kill it for you, they're going to sing your praises for you. And those one or two guys that aren't going to do it. Well, they'll weed themselves out anyway." -Brown

Takeaway: If you hired them, and they're with the organization, they should either be posting the right stuff or they shouldn't be in your organization..

Do you leverage the content for dealership use in addition to employee individual posting? 

“Well, the business pages are managed by the dealership, and we repurpose that content, in addition to the employees doing their individual stuff. So we leverage both.” -Brown

How do you manage all of this?

"We have BDC managers in our stores. They make decisions, desk deals, hire and fire people. But they are out there with them on the floor, you know, more time is spent on the floor than in sales. People out there, you know, manage the process. So I mean, think about all the desking templates you have and all that kind of stuff, you know, you don't need that kind of brainpower like you used to anymore. So the heavy lifting is with managers out on the floor, making these videos, curating content, and getting that strategy out there for people. So it's successful, and that's where it is. So as far as the dealerships pages, I have an account with Hootsuite that brings everybody together so I can manage it and see analytics that way. But as far as individual people, you know what they are doing because you're there with your people doing it. And that's how you manage people." -Brown

Takeaway: Content that genuinely captures the life of our organization has to come from the living and breathing environment in which we operate. Making identifying and completing social media branding a part of the day-to-day stuff of business, we create associate-manager relationships that generate less friction to produce better content. 

Is there space for demographic-based marketing in Social Media? 

Kelly Saunders, Owner of Automotive Sales and Leasing Consultancy, offered her experience working in the diverse Cary, North Carolina.

"We promoted the Hendrick brand by saying, Hey, listen, we care more about you and doing right by you, and will make you whole no matter what, whatever it takes. And so I did their social media, and I did sales. So I did both. I was the Facebook social media manager. And I was in regular floor sales. And that was time-consuming, but it was fun. I have to say. And so when you do that, and you focus more on what people care about, then you reach a multitude of demographics." -Saunders

Kyle added, "I just wanted to say, as your community goes, your community goes, which is a little bit quippy. But basically, whenever I'm thinking about content, it is not forcing it, right. So whatever your community is, your dealership community will reflect that. And the minute you try to say 'I want to be in the Spanish market,' but you don't have a single Spanish speaker or Hispanic person in the dealership, it's not gonna work."

Takeaway: If the people you hire are as diverse as the community your dealership is a part of, they will by default generate content that appeals to the broad set of shared and unique values that each demographic contains. 

Bob Lanham, Head of Automotive Retail for Meta, offered some closing thoughts:

"We did a study at the end of 2020. And let me give you the two reasons 80% of people visit a dealership's social media profile. The first reason is to see what other people are saying about them. It's not necessarily always the photo. It's the comments. 

The second reason is to get a sense of the dealership. Are they friendly? Are they professional? Do they treat their staff well? So you nailed it, on the type of content that we should be having, and the proof is in the data." 

Takeaway: Social Media can be your digital welcome mat to potential new customers, or it can be a warning sign. Don’t take the opportunity lightly and take advantage of the timing now to put the people in place to manage the social media aspect of your business now.

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