Dealerships problem with facebook
We are all aware of the hype of social media and particularly facebook. You as a dealership might even have you own facebook page. However, a car dealership is not a coffee shop, a restaurant or a retail store. The average consumers frequency of engagement is low compared to all other retail businesses. This presents a problem for feacebook for car dealers. No matter what you put on your facebook page that guy that brought a car from you last month is not naturally going to want to be your fan regardless of the deal he got or how much he loves his new car.
There are plenty of businesses including dealers who've created huge facebook followings via promotions and give-aways. Although this might get people to 'like' your page, where do these people go when the promotions are over? Since the nature of interactions between the car dealer and the facebook fan doesn’t allow for constant compelling deals like a coffee shop might, the true value of fans gathered in this manner is diminished for dealers.
So, you might now be thinking “well why should I bother with facebook”? If you used facebook in the right way there are ways you can generate traffic to your website and play a significant part in your online car marketing. Pay attention to the pointers below.
1) Make it easy to find information about your location and web address on you facebook page. Make sure you include Active hyperlinks that point to your website pages. These should litter your account
2) Build your network legitimately by providing a business card to sold and serviced customers asking them to like you on facebook including your facebook account information. If they chose to become your fan via this avenue you know you have a chance to drive more website traffic from legitimate quality interactions
3) Publish content that can maintain a relationship with your customers after their purchase. For example, if you dealership offers various after care services make sure your customers are aware of this through status updates and other posts.
4) Make your stock, searchable through facebook. Make it easy for returning customers to find what they want and give them a reason to keep you on their facebook by providing a tab on your page that allows the user to search the make, model of the car they are after. On this tab, provide links to your website for the customer to get extra information on their search results.
5) Create a landing page that will encourage visitors to 'like' you. This is the page that new visitors will automatically be taken to when first visiting your page. This landing page has to include either a video, or a graphic that is attention grabbing and will draw the viewer in. This also has to contain a brief but clear description of your dealership. On this page you can also include links to your website and other social media pages you have.
