One of the many ways we at Stratosphere Studio like to stay engaged with our consumers is through social media. This form of networking is one of the fastest growing and ever-changing forms of communication. But how does a repair shop or dealership relate to and engage with the average Joe through social media?
Vehicle owners range from a variety of different backgrounds of income, race, gender, and geography. It is your job to get online and connect with them and we want to help do just that! Below, we’ve done the research and come up with some of the best ways to reach the everyday car customer through social media.
Connecting Through Social Media: The How-Tos
Making an effort to develop and maintain personal relationships with customers can be difficult. But that doesn’t mean you should strive for those connections. When you reach out to people, it lets them know you care. This is especially helpful when working in the repair business. People want to know you care about their safety and their car safety. So how do you do that?
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Think Like Your Audience
At Stratosphere, we have a “they ask, you answer” mentality. We try to figure out what it is our audience is asking and you should do the same. No one knows your business better than you, so you’re the best to market it. Repairmen can also have similar vehicle struggles, so who is there to better to understand customer needs? When you create a social post, think of yourself as the average person with car troubles or interest in cars. It would be wise to take an hour to go through the different people who like and follow your pages. You’ll get an idea of who you’re posting for. It’s all about engaging, so instead of posting article after article, throw in some Facebook polls or questions with graphics.
Don’t be afraid to experiment a little either. Start out with articles and blogs from your website but go ahead and post a video or something interactive. How-to videos, polls, infographics, and even memes are great for finding what people want to see.
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Maintain a Friendly Persona
There is a lot of trusts put into auto repair by consumers. Drivers can never be sure of their body shop truly cares about repair a car for safety and just making a sale. One great way to build trust with your consumers online is by posting about employees. Each week, try featuring a different employee and their background. You can also post birthdays, accomplishments and any updates from within the shop. People will buy from other people, so adding faces to the company will help your audience know you care.
You can also ask your customers questions. This is one of the easiest ways to get your customers to engage with you and start commenting. For example, if there is a famous local car show coming up, ask for the best advice on how to get their or their favorite memory from the past year.
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Provide a Call-to-Action
We’ve talked a lot about calls-to-action on Stratosphere before. They are a great addition to any web posting or social media post because they ask people to engage by completing a task, giving feedback, or navigating to your website. Calls-to-action can be very simple in wording as well. You can ask someone to “like” this post if they agree or disagree and comment why. Calls-to-action can also be accompanied by a downloadable offer or deliverable. If your repair shop is offering discounts or special deals, a call-to-action is a great way to promote that feature.
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Get the Timing Right
Keeping a consistent posting schedule is so important if you want to properly engage your consumers. Knowing what times your consumers are online and responding to posts is huge. This goes back to the experimenting we mentioned earlier. Play around with different posting times to see who’s responding and when. This will help maximize your exposure.
It is also important to post consistently. Try posting similar content on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. Your consumers will become accustomed to seeing your posts on those days. For example, on Monday you can spotlight an employee; Wednesday can be a fun poll, and Friday can be a flashback or how-to video post.
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Help Your Followers Feel Seen
Some social media users love knowing their comment, like, or review was seen. If someone reaches out to you, reach out to them! Replying to both positive and negative comments is a great way to learn your audience. By liking their comments or replying to a message, it shows you truly care about them and their opinions. It also helps build trust in your company. They’ll begin to see you as personable and reliable.
Do you need help managing your repair shop’s social media efforts? Or, do you have questions on where to get started? Stratosphere studio can help! We manage the social media pages of several of our clients to help them engage more with their clients. Reach out below!
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