Don’t bury your head in the sand - marketing via social media is here.

Like it or not, marketing via social media is here. Whilst you might not engage in it yourself, your customers are.

Social media is not just about posting adverts or stock inventory. A growing number of consumers want to engage with the people they do business with. This is leading forward thinking dealerships and motor dealer groups to rethink their website design and strategy, as it is not just an interactive brochure anymore.

Automotive dealer websites up until now have been about catching the consumer who is about to change their car. So previously the most important involvement by the management was to ensure the continuous update of new/used stock inventory, photographs and refreshing the quarterly new car campaigns.

Unfortunately this means that your customer has no need to return to your website for 2/3 years because it serves no other purpose to them.

This is where the biggest shift in thinking needs to happen. You need to make your customers “fans” of your business and give them the opportunity to comment and suggest improvements. They also need to hear other news than offers, sales, finance deals etc

Running your web presence in a way that has your customers (and potential customers) returning time and again requires a lot of effort and social media marketing requires time. If you think posting short messages on Twitter and sharing daily photographs are easy to do, think again. If you have a specific goal and you implement a social media plan, using social media could be easier but it would still require a lot of time.

You could choose not to focus on social media marketing, but that means you also will not get the maximum impact from using the free social networks. You need to make a decision about how you want to take advantage of this shift in internet marketing and decide how you are going to implement it in your business. For many companies, it is not always possible to spend time on creating content and building strong networks in social media. As I have said before motor dealerships run leaner than ever and more often or not the responsibility for online communication to customers is handed to the wrong people.

I cannot stress this point enough – and if you relate it to your own buying experiences you’ll know this to be true – so here goes:

Would you agree that today your website is the main way that you are communicating to your potential customers?

Would you also agree that the decision whether to make first contact often rides on your communication through this channel?

Of course we all know the answers to the above, but our research has shown that although business owners and senior dealer management know how important their communication is with customers, they often give the job to the wrong people – and worst of all it is not vetted before being published. We know this because when they are made to look at it for themselves, they are shocked and embarrassed at what they see.

Now that social media has come into the equation, the possibilities for devaluing your business or brand become even more prevalent if not handled properly. It is often given to the lowest paid staff member. We have seen dealerships using the sales trainee and even students on work experience placements to updating motor dealer websites.

Motor dealers call in experts for many things to help with their business, but are reluctant to make a relatively small investment in using experts for communication for their online presence. Get this right and customer retention levels grow, which as we know is cheaper than chasing conquest business.

For companies that do not have the time to make social marketing work, there are other options.

Motor dealers can really gain full advantage of using social media by outsourcing the tasks to specialists like motortradesolutions.net (MTS.net). Outsourced Marketing is actually very effective and affordable for companies. When motor dealers outsource, they are getting the expertise on a pay-as-you-go basis without spending money beyond the contract price for the project. With MTS.net you can set a budget or use our menu pricing system for your social media marketing.

Outsourcing your marketing means there is no need to invest in salary packages, bonuses, pensions, national insurance or company cars. Equally you do not have to provide valuable office space, computers or equipment. Outsourcing can work for all types of motor dealers - big or small.

The MTS.net team can work on creating contents for your website and your other social media accounts. Our experts are from the motor trade and can also work on getting your account more followers by following the right people and connect with them for your business.

If you would like to know more please call us on 0845 658 6880 for an initial discussion to see how we can best help you.

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