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Is your Dealership Making these Mistakes on Facebook?

Is your Dealership Making these Mistakes on Facebook?

Stop Doing these 12 Things for Better Results

Your dealership is “with it” when it comes to social media. As proof, you can point to your Facebook presence. But just being there isn’t enough. You have to be smart about how you use that presence, and it’s all too easy to make mistakes on Facebook that keep you from getting any real business benefit. To help you boost your returns, we’ve listed a dozen common Facebook faux pas.

  1. Confusing profiles and pages.

On Facebook, profiles are for people – you, for instance. Your dealership is a business, so it should have a Page.

  1. Creating multiple accounts.

This wastes your time and will surely confuse your intended audience. You can segment post distribution, which allows you to target your messages.

  1. Using the “set and forget” button.

Your Facebook presence exists to foster sharing and conversation among your customers and prospects. Your part of the conversation requires monitoring and responding to other people’s comments, not just publishing your own posts.

Check your Timeline to be sure settings are what you intend. You can allow people to comment and leave posts without your pre-approval or you can approve (or reject) items before they appear. You can also embargo others from adding anything, but don’t do that – you want people to join your conversation.

Regularly checking your page allows you to say thanks for compliments, agree (or not) with opinions and – this one’s critical – respond in a timely manner to negative postings.

  1. Ignoring those negative posts.

So what if you’re incensed or your feelings are hurt? You cannot ignore negatives, and you cannot respond unprofessionally. “Listen” carefully, fix everything you can and let the poster and your followers know you fixed the problem. Take complaints to heart – they may not be presented nicely, but there’s probably a helpful suggestion lurking there.

  1. PEER Strategy | Evolve | SEO | Loyalty BoundFailing to beef up meta descriptions.

Links you add to new posts automatically have some metadata (short description and image), but you can boost its SEO power by adding a bit of relevant text from the linked article – a statistic, brief quote, etc. Make sure it includes a relevant keyword.

  1. Using only still pictures.

Video has surged past photos when it comes to organic reach and share-ability. We’re not saying “don’t use photos,” just that you should take better advantage of video.

  1. Getting into a rut.

target_flat_icon-02Mix up your content and you’ll capture more interest. Play around with different types and track response to see what your target audience responds to most. In addition to video, post photos of your dealership’s crew in action, and have people tag themselves. Publish a one-word post and a link this time, a full paragraph or two next time.

  1. Posting War and Peace.

This is Facebook. People want tidbits, not whitepapers. If you have something lengthy to say, write a blog article and post a link to it.

  1. Posting gigantic images.

Posts with too-large graphics are just as off-putting as posts with too many words. Image size affects clarity. A crisp, interesting image will be irresistible, but poor quality reflects poorly on your dealership.

  1. Using “bait and switch” headlines.

Headlines should accurately tell people what content they’ll find if they click through. Trying to fake people out with catchy headlines that lead to irrelevant content is annoying. You won’t convert people you annoy.

  1. Assuming you should post during business hours.

Yes, your dealership is a business, and your customers and prospects are business people. But especially in the trucking and construction industries, who has time to spend on Facebook during the workday? Studies show that publishing posts between 5 pm and 1 am earns 11% more interaction than 8-5. After hours publishing is much more effective than early AM. And Sunday posts can bring you 25% more shares, likes and comments than Wednesday posts. Mix it up.

  1. Over-publishing.

Even your most devoted fans don’t want to be inundated with posts. Publish regularly, to stay top of mind, but not too frequently. Quality over quantity.

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