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Tweet This Not That To Engage Your Dealership’s Audience

Tweet This Not That To Engage Your Dealership’s Twitter Audience

A recent study shows that 36% of marketers have found a new customer by using Twitter. What would that be worth to your dealership? Tweet strategically, and you can put yourself in that 36%. So let’s talk about what you should tweet about. First of all, a few don’ts, so we can end on a positive note.

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hash-tag-twitterDo not tweet anything that’s:

  • Political, religious, personal (about others).
  • Defensive or negative. No whining. Nothing uncomplimentary about your competition, either OEMs or dealers.
  • Overstated about your dealership or the products you represent.
  • A waste of people’s time
  • Boring.
  • Irrelevant.

Of course you’re too professional to tweet anything tacky. But boring and irrelevant can stifle your Twitter success.

twitter_promoteInstead, tweet appealing tidbits that are worth reading.

Your audience is very busy, so the interruption better be worth it. Your tweets should be timely and business-related. Remember that people are most likely to remember and respond to messages that elicit a gut reaction, whether that’s nostalgia, amusement, surprise or fear. You’re tapping into the emotional side to purchasing that affects even buyers of heavy trucks and construction equipment.

What can you tweet about?

  • News and current events that relate to your industry, your community or your dealership – Finally! Our huge new repair shop is open. First-visit discount for our Twitter followers only at #xxxx or The first new Freightliner XXX just rolled in. Even more impressive in person. You’re going to want this truck in your fleet.
  • Questions or other calls to action that pique interest and automatically motivate people to respond and retweet.
  • Quick tips. Ask customers to give advice on how to resolve a follower’s problem as well as providing your own insight.
  • Quotes – saying of the day, cartoons or humorous quotes. It’s super-easy to find loads of relevant and fun things on the internet to brighten your followers’ day.
  • Subjects that put a face on your dealership – staff photos, your new office space, special events, community volunteer work, etc. Even an occasional personal message — Gorgeous day to be working outdoors in upstate NY! Where’s your jobsite today? — help humanize your dealership.
  • Photos and video links, perhaps a daily photo of a customer on the job with some equipment you sell. This is a great way to engage your audience and also collect pictures and stories for other content. Tweet a call for submissions. Make it a contest.
  • Pass along great stuff – articles from other sources or a tweet you know your audience will appreciate. Retweeting lightens your content creation load and broadens your audience. But don’t retweet so often that your dealership’s brand gets lost in the shuffle.
  • Share your own stuff, linking to blog articles, whitepapers, etc. You can talk specifically about your products or services, too, but only in small proportion compared to informative or entertaining tweets.

be-interesting-informative-positive-consistentYou can overtly ask your audience to retweet something, but save that for messages that really need to be spread, such as an announcement about an upcoming webinar or to widely distribute a short survey question.

You have to actively engage, too. It’s good manners to periodically thank people for testimonials or other positive tweets. So is quickly acknowledging any problems. If several people are having the same problem or issue, tweet to your whole group about the solution you’ve devised to build across-the-board credibility.

Social media pundits suggest you should post “frequently,” but really, let’s be sensible. You’re not a candy company. Your audience doesn’t have time for chit-chat about nothing. They want information. Help, and, yes, if you can entertain them in the process, they could use that as well. So make sure you have something worth passing along before you fire off that next tweet. Fewer, really useful or memorable tweets will be more appreciated and shared.

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