It’s no secret that social media is a numbers game. With the number of metrics, measurements, and stats at your fingertips, fans, followers and engagement matters. It can be the tipping point for your local dealers making sales and keeping customers happy.
Sometimes, it can be difficult for local business owners to see the value in driving follower growth and engagement on their channels. They might have lots of conflicting priorities or might not know where to start with good social media content and targeting.
We’ve outlined some easy ways that your local dealers can expand their own networks to make it easier to reach the right audiences for their business, and thus your brand:
Post content regularly
How many times have you visited the social media page of a business you like, only to find it hasn’t been updated since 2018? If a business owner lets their social media content drift away, so will their followers. Rather than growing their presence, their follower numbers will decline – meaning that fewer people see your messages if you decide to post an update. The algorithms that the platforms use will also position content less favorably.
Quality is better than quantity. Make sure that the content being put out is relevant, useful and interesting, rather than just spamming people’s feed for the sake of posting something.
Just saying, nobody comes here to see a puppy... Cute as it may be. By posting fresh relevant content on a regular basis, it will appear in more feeds and your audiences can engage with your brand more. Use content that is relevant and useful to followers too, so they'll be more likely to share your content.
Follow and engage with others
Social media is about making connections with others. By liking, following, commenting and getting involved with online conversations more people will see the content. This gives new people the chance to find out more about a business or brand.
Take a look at competitors and influencers, check out who’s following them and who they follow. Check out other local businesses and community accounts. Encourage your dealers to take the time to engage and get involved in discussions to grow their follower base. Review different hashtags for discussion that relates to your area.
Think about influencers too – is there a way you can work with them to promote the business to their audience? Tagging people and pages can be another option too, and being responsive to customer inquiries through social media channels is essential.
Change up content for different platforms
It can be tempting to use a scheduling service to post the same content across all channels to save time and resources. This isn’t always the best approach though.
Different types of content work better across each of the platforms. What performs well on Facebook might not be the same as on Instagram or YouTube – even down to captions and the size or length of content. By tweaking content for the channel they’re using, dealers can create more relevant and optimized content that can reach a wider audience. Maybe you can provide them with categorized content? Materials at the right size for each channel for example. You'll want to make (social media) marketing as easy as possible for your dealers so that they can re-share your story and the content you worked hard on.
Understand what works
Sometimes when trying to run a business, social media can feel like something else to tick off your (already pretty full) to-do list. Your dealers might not be internet savvy. They might not believe in social media. Often, they don't invest in marketing. It’s important that time-strapped dealers use the time to create content wisely. Another reason why you as headquarter might be better off providing content, to begin with.
But, say your dealers are going to handle it by themselves. All social media channels provide lots of data about how the audience interacts with specific content. Analytics tells you what’s popular, what action people have taken after seeing your content and which audiences prefer what. This can help you to continue to create the kind of content that you want to see. As a brand headquarter, it might also be a great idea to come up with a short video to help your dealers understand the underlying analytics. Knowledge is power, right? And shared knowledge then is strength! You can actually help your dealers to climb these stairs...
Paid advertising
So it's a numbers game, social media channels operate to generate advertising revenue, as well as serving relevant content to its audiences. This is where paid advertising comes in. It might sound unnecessary to your dealers – Facebook’s free to use after all, why would they pay?!
However, over the last couple of years, as you'll already know, most of the bigger social media networks have changed their algorithms, making it harder than ever for content to reach audiences organically. Even if people follow a page or account, they might not see content as often as business owners would like. Customer awareness is key to growth and sales – if people don’t know about a product or service, they can’t buy it. By using relevant paid advertising to reach different audiences, your dealers can reach new audiences and drive sales.
It’s key with paid advertising that your dealers understand how they’re using this, who their audience is, what this would mean for their marketing budget and first and foremost, what they want to achieve by advertising. Advertising to the wrong audiences can be a waste of money and time. But, dealers should be aware that in 2019, between 90 and a 100 billion dollar was spent on social network advertising! It's where the party is at! So if you as headquarter would like your story to be there, locally, your dealers should be out there too...
Make sure people are aware of your social accounts
There’s so much content online it can sometimes be difficult for consumers to cut through the noise to find a business in the first place. Make sure that dealers include their social media links anywhere that customers (or potential customers) might be – this includes a website, emails, printed materials, business cards, events, as part of sponsorship arrangements, receipts, and in-store. It’s a really easy way to connect with people who already engage with your brand. Again, as a brand, you want your story out there. And you need the stores and dealers to be your team.
How to help your dealers share your story
Help your dealers by providing them with these tips and tricks. Give them examples, showing your brand and story. Showing them what they could be delivering. Provide them with inspiration. What else can a business offer its followers? Is there an opportunity to do something like a monthly prize draw, a giveaway, a small discount or a voucher code for customers who follow a business’ different channels? It doesn’t have to be anything excessive, but it can be an easy way to acquire new followers and engagement at a minimal cost.
It might be that your local dealers are struggling to come up with ideas of what to share on their channels, or they might not have the time to plan it properly. You can make this easier by giving them content ideas, media, and images that they can share with their own followers. This has the additional benefit of ensuring that the content used is approved and on-brand – no more blurry images or photos that are “borrowed” from Google! But, also not that same Unsplash pic that so many of their competitors are using!! How to have great material, visuals, AND text? An easy way to share your content with your local dealers is through Embrosa to make your marketing life easier! And, not just yours. You can make your dealers so very happy by providing them with THE solution for their social media.
Embrosa ships your story. All of your content wrapped up nicely in a clean and fresh app on your dealer's smartphone. Once a month, your dealers can receive a notification saying all their content is ready to be approved and BAM, their Facebook is ready for a whole month. Your story out there, with your content, the right content for the right region in the right language. And, Instagram sharing is already available. Instagram planning will be available soon! We know... it sounds too good to be true. Check it out for yourself! Any questions? We're here to assist you in any way we can. Just send us an email: support@embrosa.com or reach out through chat on this site OR any of our social accounts. We'll get in touch with you and we will find ways to ship your story! Because that's what we do!