How to Engage Customers with Social Media Posts
So you have created your social media accounts, added your business information and a profile picture. Now what?
The challenge of what to post can be a little intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be! Your weekly post provided as part of the SocialCRM shop marketing service is a great start, but you can do more.
Most of the time, we have the same goals when it comes to social media: Get our customers to engage online, increase our following and gain new customers.
There are a few things to consider when planning your social media content:
- Keep it clean
- Avoid politics and religion
- Make it entertaining
The first two are pretty easy to grasp. Being in the automotive industry, you obviously want to keep your posts in line with your business model and brand, but you also want your customers to relate to it. When advising shop owners on what to post on social media, I tell them to pay attention to the things they like and comment on while looking over their personal social media sites. If you’re interested in it, your customers may be, too. This can give you a head start on what to share on your shop’s social media channels. Just be sure to keep in mind the three tips above.
An example of great Facebook content comes from Lifetime Automotive in Tempe AZ. They have mastered the art of taking relevant pop culture and merging it into automotive maintenance.
Take this Facebook post for example:
This got customers to like, share and comment. Not only did the shop tap into the old-but-new trend of beards with a bit of humor, they also promoted a service they offer. Here is another example:
When it comes to Instagram, the same rules apply. But you can take it one step further by including other local business in your area.
For example, let’s look at C and C Auto Service in Boston MA. They have over 100 followers on their Instagram account and have turned it into a “Boston Fan Club” in some ways! Not only do they post state inspection reminders, but they do a wonderful job showing their customers what the business is all about. In the post below they cover work, family and Boston. This post got 47 likes, and it showed off how much they care about the community.
Customers can relate to this because they have probably been to this eatery. But the back end magic happens for C and C happens with the tagging. C and C tagged the restaurant in the post, and the restaurant then tagged C and C in a post of their own. What does that do for the shop? It shows other locals (potential auto repair customers) that their favorite restaurant trusts C and C. Maybe that person is looking for a new auto repair shop and now has a name in mind. This will also help both businesses in their ranking on the Instagram search function for their area.
Now, this next example stings a little for me, since we in San Diego just lost our team to LA — but that’s a different story for another time. Posting about your team’s wins either in football, baseball, hockey or any other sport can get your customers pumped up and more likely to engage with you on social media – see below for another great post from C and C Auto Service.
If you aren’t seeing the level of engagement from your followers that you had hoped for, try something new. Remember, a picture says a thousand words — or in social media terms, a thousand likes. Photos and videos are at the top of the list when it comes to engaging content.
You can also look at what other businesses in your area are posting, the engagement they are getting and how many new followers they have acquired. You can learn more about that from this past blog post, Optimizing Your Facebook Page With Insights – Overview .
Social media is a powerful element in your overall auto repair shop marketing strategy. Your SocialCRM support agent will be happy to help you get started.
Check out:
- Lifetime Automotive on Facebook
- C and C Auto Service on Instagram
- Learn more about SocialCRM social media services
