Unless you are an avid collector of cars or actively watch live NASCAR races on YouTube, you probably do not realize the role social media marketing plays in the automotive industry. Everyone remembers the long-winded advertisements for car dealerships on late-night infomercials (although some may hope to forget.) Nowadays, given our current technology-dependent era, a majority of automotive campaigning occurs through the digital realm. Compared to those lengthy infomercials, as our attention spans have decreased, small repetitive doses of social media have become more memorable. As such, exposure through social media has become a tried and true technique for circulating auto-centric businesses’ brand voices, developing relationships with potential customers, and increasing sales revenue.
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What is Automotive Social Media Marketing?
If you are unsure what an automotive social media marketing strategy entails, let alone how to leverage it, this article will provide some peace of mind. Automotive social media marketing generally uses digital marketing concepts to promote dealerships, auto-repair businesses, etc. Specifically, the term refers to how expert marketers implement those general digital media strategies in combination with target social media techniques through social media platforms.
Strategies to attain this marketing style for automotive industries involve leveraging digital platforms to maximize brand awareness, customer reach, and networking. Choosing to rely on these popular social media platforms allows minimal strenuous effort via activities like door-to-door campaigning and ultimately adds to results through simple, consistently targeted communications. Consistent automotive social media marketing offers high returns, such as an engaged and educated customer base, a credible brand voice, and fruitful B2C relationships.
Every business in the automotive industry should experience a seamless transition when integrating social media into its current marketing strategies. Ideally, companies should contact a local and trustworthy marketing firm to ensure their business implements the most reliable and profitable automotive social media marketing. Notable steps to achieving ideal KPI marketing through social media include:
- Hiring out to attain customized marketing advice from experienced professionals
- Identifying target social media platforms and strategies
- Understanding the relationship between sales and social media
- Utilizing retargeting and remarketing strategies for audience retention
Why Should Your Automotive Business Use Social Media?
Whether you identify as a potential purchaser of an automobile, a previous client seeking to upgrade or receive auto-repair work, or a member of the automotive industry searching for tips on increasing sales revenue, social media marketing will provide promising results for all parties. Were you aware that more than 70% of millennials consider technology and infotainment features necessary when purchasing a car? Instead of window shopping or even test driving, nearly 61% of all age groups use digital media to conduct their research and finalize their sales for car purchases.
Effective digitally driven marketing has become the standard for successful automotive campaigns. On top of that, striving to produce campaigns through innovative strategies like social media has become the more recent norm within the industry. Given the new bar, businesses should stay ahead of the game and invest their efforts into digital automotive marketing strategies now. Your digital presence is about more than just posting content and blog posts to your Facebook page. You need a cohesive strategy for social media.
Marketing Strategies to Leverage Automotive Social Media
Automotive marketing strategies differ depending on the target audience, intended brand voice, and chosen online communications platform. Businesses should realize the infinite amount of company exposure possible through these social sites to achieve stellar social media marketing.
Omnichannel Approach
The most lucrative approach when first engaging in digital marketing involves increasing brand awareness to connect with viewers. Just as each social site has a different demographic, each viewer experiences a multitude of random and targeted advertisements. As most customers begin their search for automotive services online, consistent traditional, digital, and creative advertising becomes vital to attracting these potential consumers.
Omnichannel approaches offer higher interactions and higher product promotion. Social media, car dealership websites, and online business directories are all common channels for digital marketing.
SEO Design Chicago recommends Facebook advertising and LinkedIn marketing as the top platforms for auto businesses. With over 850 million members and a varied demographic loaded with B2B companies, LinkedIn is a frontrunner for social media marketing. In contrast, Facebook’s algorithm presents a broader range for targeted B2C campaigns. Facebook provides Newsfeed ads, suggested videos, Facebook and Messenger Stories, and desktop versus mobile-friendly ad options. Although each option requires customized content, the amount of brand exposure seems worth the effort.
Social Video Ads
Consumers are highly supportive of and equally receptive to visual content. When deciding between all content marketing options, you should consider that viewers are 40 times more likely to share visual content than written content. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are the most video-centric platforms. Facebook has suggested videos in addition to placement ads like Messenger, Facebook Stories, and in-stream videos. When cold-targeting audiences, the suggested videos may happen to draw in customers unfamiliar with your brand.
In contrast, in-placement ads are an ideal automotive social media marketing tactic. Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger all provide in-placement ads which single out targeted consumers. The Stories features allow auto businesses to reach consumers with personal appeals – potentially creating a shared experience and trustworthy image for the brand. In comparison, in-stream ads are placed either before or during unrelated content. However, while the Stories have flexibility in their timeframe, in-stream ads should be kept brief and provide a quick overview of the brand’s B2C message.
Once you have decided which social media platform to pursue ads for, you must determine which type of video to create. Product demos and care tips feature vehicles or auto services. Promo videos relay specials, promos, general pricing, and contact information – a practical choice when attempting to sell products in a competitive market. In contrast, event videos include live streaming and spotlight experts, vehicle releases, and current business consumers. Customer testimonials are highly desirable within automotive marketing strategies as they demonstrate the relationship between consumers and businesses.
Paid Social
Paid social is just one form of paid advertising. The term refers to targeted paid advertising on social media – interconnected with examples of in-placement ads on social media platforms. SEO Design Chicago recommends automotive businesses use pay-per-click advertising (PPC). This is a budget-friendly approach since you only pay when a potential consumer clicks on the ad. This strategy further targets ideal clientele – driving traffic to automotive websites – without consuming your businesses’ finite resources.
As another creative version of paid social, influencer marketing is great for brand promotion. You can participate in influencer marketing through live events, featured Stories posts, and brand campaigning. You can target specific audience groups depending on your partnership deal with the influencer. For example, if an influencer often promotes the newest car models and has a large following on social media interested in cars, you would form a partnership with that influencer so they can promote the most recent car models at your dealership. Not only does this prompt lasting networking connections, it also generates relationships with a secondary audience group – the influencer’s followers interested in updates about the latest car models.
Target Societal Issues
To not only promote your automotive business but also demonstrate your support of matters beyond “strictly business,” aim to target societal issues on your social media platforms. Use hashtags, links to donation and business pages, and show your support via comments. Targeting a societal issue as part of your automotive marketing strategy associates your brand image with a worthy cause. By choosing a current social topic and centering your campaigns around that issue, you are leveraging social media to benefit your business and make a positive impact in the community, thereby boosting your customer base. For instance, you might choose to support breast cancer awareness month and offer special dealership pricing for anyone impacted by breast cancer during this period only. This technique shows empathy for your target audience, builds invested B2C relationships, and will most likely increase sales.
Mobile-Friendly Apps
To benefit the most from social media marketing for the automotive industry, optimize SEO strategies and web/app design. Automotive SEO, or automotive search engine optimization, uses specific keywords to boost your automotive business’ website ranking. The higher your rank, the more credible your website will appear. Additionally, using thoughtful SEO keywords in combination with a website designed to be a user-friendly experience on apps and social media prompts a higher customer satisfaction rate.
B2B and B2C Relationships
The key to effective automotive social media marketing is actively engaging with your customer base, including direct customers and business partnerships. There are a few ideal ways to create long-lasting interest in your automotive business. Running social media contests is a unique way to market your services. Contests usually generate a lot of “hype” and media attention for the participants and the business promoting them. Information about upcoming contests posted on social media spreads quickly. This gives your business a higher chance of increasing audience reach, boosting traffic, and creating qualified leads.
Become an Authentic 21st Century Automotive Business With Social Media Marketing
Many strategies exist for becoming a leading business in the automotive industry. However, leveraging social media marketing for automotive businesses drastically increases your stakes in the competition. Realistically, most individuals today rely on the web and social media for researching new products. Through engaging in automotive social media marketing, you are creating an authentic and relevant experience via these marketing methods for your clientele. SEO Design Chicago specializes in auto industry marketing. Our team can create a social media strategy to help you connect with car buyers by creating content for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels.
FAQ:
- What is automotive social media marketing?
- Why should businesses use social media?
- Why are videos so effective for marketing?
- What is paid social advertising?
- Why is SEO important?
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