Social media marketing is the process of creating content for social media platforms to promote your auto repair business, build community, and drive traffic to your business. It is about meeting your target audience where they are. It requires an evolving strategy with measurable goals.
What are the Benefits of Social Media Marketing?
Increase brand awareness
Social media presence helps boost brand awareness by allowing you to reach thousands of people. It also helps drive traffic to your website, which is a great way to measure the brand awareness of your auto shop.
Build community
Social media platforms allows you to communicate with your audience, gather feedback, hold discussions and get their opinion. You can respond to their questions/comments or even ask them questions. This is a way to build lasting relationships with your shop customers.
Humanize your business
By interacting with your customers, you help build trust. It allows you to establish an approachable persona which helps your audience feel connected to you.
Generate leads and customers
You can run ads on all social media platforms to gather leads. You can even use features like Instagram/Facebook shops, direct messaging and appointment booking capabilities.
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy?
To create a social media strategy you will need to do the following:
- Set clear goals: First step is to establish clear goals. What is it that you want to achieve from social media marketing? Is it brand awareness or lead generation? Or do you want to build credibility?
- Research your buyer persona and audience: Learn about your audience. Understand their pain points and the problems they face. This will help you present solutions to their problems later on in your content.
- Research your competitors and their social media presence: Have a decent understanding of the key players in the industry. See how they are positioning themselves on social media and the type of content they are posting. Also check how they are talking to their customers.
- Choose your platforms: You don’t have to be on all social media platforms. You can choose the ones which work for you and where your audience is. Your research will help you establish that.
- Establish your KPIs: You need to have a clear set of outcomes that you are looking to achieve from your social media marketing. Do you want X amount of leads, or do you want Y% increase in web traffic. All these need to be pre-determined so you know what you’re working towards.
- Create unique and engaging content: Focus on creating social media content that educates your audience and inspires them to take action. Also create entertaining content that is relatable and shareable.
- Organize a schedule for your content: Always have a posting schedule. Outline the days and times you will be posting. Check the best times to post and follow that.
- Measure and track performance: Always keep a close eye on how your content is performing. If some content pieces or campaigns aren’t working, you can let them go. And if other’s work better you can invest more time and resources there. Adjust your strategy as you go along.
What are Best Practices for Social Media Marketing?
- Create diverse content and use a variety of formats for social media. Focus on video content, carousels, polls, contests etc.
- Stay consistent. You can’t post for a few weeks and then abandon your social profiles. Consistency is key here in growing your audience and achieving your objectives.
- Don’t just post. Establish two-way communication so you can ask your audience questions and answer their questions. Respond to comments, run live streams, gather feedback via polls etc.
