Social media marketing can appear overly simplistic or too complex for the unknowing individual. However, for the expert marking strategist, social media marketing has many valuable tools to offer, which businesses should invest their time and budget in. To provide some insight on how to best leverage social media marketing for car rental companies, this article will review social media marketing terminology, maintaining audience engagement, and recommended social media strategies for auto marketing.
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What Is Social Media Marketing for the Car Rental Industry?
Social media marketing for the car rental industry involves social media management, reputation management, and industry-specific marketing techniques. Car rental advertising tends to follow similar marketing plans to other automotive businesses. While you may use some of these same techniques, the uniqueness of your car rental marketing plan depends on your company’s commitment to providing an exciting perspective on standard industry topics.
Social media management refers to creating, posting, and using analytics for content dedicated to your socials. It often involves integrating B2B and B2C marketing into your social campaigns. Engagement with your audience and participating in social listening are vital to maintaining a well-balanced social media page. Likewise, reputation management refers to methods employed to influence a control a brand’s reputation, focusing on portraying an authentic online identity through transparent marketing practices. Along with social media management, this strategy involves PR management, comment monitoring, and negative content filtering.
When enacting proper social media and reputation management into your auto marketing plan, it is of the utmost importance to also consider the following:
- Customer Experience: Through your social media – whether it’s social media content production, comment management, or viral media attention – always ensure you provide excellent customer service. Many car rental companies owe their success to maintaining a reputation for outstanding customer service and client interaction.
- Invest: If you have chosen to pursue social media marketing in the car rental industry, you must dive headfirst and invest in the process. Great social media involves targeted campaigning efforts, high audience engagement, and stellar – sometimes costly – content production.
- Target Industry Trends: Social media platforms are constantly changing. So, your content should constantly change to reflect current trends. To best engage your audience and increase traffic to your socials, stay on trend by producing relevant and timely content.
Marketing Strategies to Leverage Social Media for Auto Marketing
A variety of social platforms for effective car rental marketing exist. The key to successful marketing lies in choosing which platforms will allow you to reach your KPIs quickly and sustainably. SEO Design Chicago highly recommends utilizing LinkedIn and Facebook as your business’ primary socials.
Professional Social Media Platforms
We all recognize that LinkedIn aims to optimize a business’s core objectives and values to create lasting network connections. LinkedIn is an excellent resource for B2B networking, as 97% of B2B marketers use the platform consistently. Creating business relationships is a win-win scenario for both parties. Both businesses will see more referrals and higher customer satisfaction.
Additionally, businesses often use LinkedIn for educational purposes. There is no better way to establish your brand voice and credibility than through being transparent with your audience about the car rental industry. You should post relevant images, videos, or articles that seek to inform users of the car rental industry. Then, emphasize your commitment to customer satisfaction by highlighting the importance of consumers knowing the ins and outs of successfully navigating the industry.
Video-Centric Socials
Most often, visual content contributes to higher levels of audience engagement. When formulating your auto marketing plan, consider that viewers are 40 times more likely to share visual, interactive content over written content. Several social media platforms are optimal for visually oriented campaigns. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are platforms that suggest visuals to customers who are most likely to engage with your brand.
Once you have determined which platform would most engage your target audience, decide which types of visuals would best highlight your car rental advertising. Due to the overlap with other automotive businesses like car dealerships and auto shops, you must create ads that prioritize the specific benefits of rental car companies as opposed to dealership offers for car rentals to your target audience. In-placement ads are highly lucrative options for car rental social media. Videos that showcase customer testimonials are a favorite of automotive businesses as they demonstrate the trust built between consumers and companies. Promo videos are another practical choice for car rental marketing as they present specials, promos, pricing, contact information, and competitive rates.
Create Mobile-Friendly Apps
With internet access at the tips of our fingers, implementing a mobile auto-marketing plan should be of the utmost importance. All online and social marketing campaigns should be mobile-friendly. Whether that involves creating a specific app for your rental company or reconfiguring the website linked to your social page; individuals are more likely to pursue business with your brand if they can easily navigate your social or website on their mobile devices.
Several of the best strategies for social media and car rental marketing via mobile devices involves SEO and text campaigning. Automotive search engine optimization, or automotive SEO, utilizes keywords that boost your car rental business’ website ranking. A higher ranking equates to customers perceiving your website as more credible. User-friendly apps that appear credible ultimately lead to higher customer satisfaction. Similarly, using text messaging or the notifications feature on socials also contributes to customer satisfaction. If social media users are interested in certain cars, dealership locations, or specials, you can use the alerts on your social platforms to immediately notify users of these deals.
Paid Social Media
When in-house auto marketing strategies are not contributing towards meeting your KPIs, partnering with other platforms or individuals through paid social can significantly increase your business’s reach.
The term paid social refers to paid advertising or paid ads. Paid ads involve paying for the specific placement of business-related advertisements on social media (also called in-placement ads). As we know, concentrated marketing efforts can take a toll on the budget. Still, paid social remains one of the more cost-effective options. For example, SEO Design Chicago recommends that automotive and car rental businesses incorporate pay-per-click advertising (PPC) into their auto marketing plans. With this approach, you only pay the social platform when a potential customer clicks on the ad. This strategy focuses on identifying target customers – increasing traffic to your automotive websites and other social handles – without overspending on the allotted budget.
Partner with Influencers
When creating content for car rental advertising on social media, many forget that it is perfectly acceptable to outsource work. If you browse a few companies’ social media, you will notice that they often partner with influencers. Car rental companies can participate in influencer marketing through live events, featured Stories posts, and brand campaigning. All of these allow you to target your ideal customer based on the influencer’s audience. Think outside the box and partner with existing marketers who may already be experts in one of your targeted social media fields. Partnering with influencers is an excellent way for car rental businesses to gain traction on social media.
Arrange Driving/Safety Campaigns
Demonstrate your car rental company’s desire for the well-being of its clients by arranging test driving and safety campaigns. Campaigns like these are very effective strategies for car rental marketing. This is because they focus on raising awareness of automotive safety techniques, educating potential clientele, and ensuring that clients become familiar with your brand’s products and services. Strategies such as these build strong relationships with local clientele and further popularize your company’s brand.
SEO Design Chicago Will Leverage Your Auto Marketing Socials
If you are interested in leveraging your auto marketing social media to increase revenue, raise awareness of your products, or simply build your brand’s credibility, consider partnering with experts in social media marketing. SEO Design Chicago tackles a variety of marketing services daily. We specialize in strengthening SEO for all types of marketing, including social media, reputation management, content writing, and link building.
For instance, have you ever thought about integrating local SEO strategies into your social media marketing strategy? Local SEO aims to increase the rank of your car rental company’s website in consumer sear results. You can implement effective SEO in social media by using keywords in your content. Whether you are located near an airport, a hotspot travel destination, or are known as the go-to location for rental cars after accidents, SEO Design Chicago’s knowledge of local SEO techniques ensures increased brand exposure. Although our home base is in Chicago, we recommend partnering with a local firm like SEO Design Chicago in Milwaukee, which will leverage your auto marketing socials to your advantage.
FAQ:
- What does social media management involve?
- Why should my car rental business be on LinkedIn?
- Why are videos effective on social media?
- Should a car rental company have a mobile app?
- How can car rental companies partner with influencers?
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