With the dominant rise of social platforms taking over consumers’ attention, it’s becoming increasingly important for brands to establish an online presence. There are over 3.96 billion total users across all social media platforms, making the potential reach that small businesses can now access unparalleled.
With that said, it can be difficult to craft and deploy effective content for social outlets that resonates with consumers and cuts through the noise. This can lead to lackluster results and ultimately discouragement.
We’re here to help. Here, we’ll explore four distinct types of content that your auto shop can utilize to bolster your social media efforts.
1. Short-Form Videos
The first variation of social content that you can directly integrate to your social strategy is short-form videos. These quick, insightful bursts of information have taken over the social media landscape.
Consider TikTok and its mega-rise to popularity. Users spend hours on end scrolling through the app watching content of this kind. Even industry incumbents, Meta (Facebook + Instagram) and Google (YouTube), have begun experimenting with their own short-form video content via their Reels and Shorts features.
And it’s working. In fact, around 50% of users say they prefer short-form video content over any other form. And yet, it only makes up about 12% of Facebook and Instagram content. That leaves your auto shop with a bustling opportunity to leverage these social outlets to drive brand growth.
How to Do It
Remember, video content is centered around storytelling. You need to offer a window into your brand that customers can relate to and take value from. As an auto shop, there are a variety of ways to do just that.
- Create a video explaining how to check your car’s engine oil
- Compare various tires and how to choose the best one for you
- Offer a fun look at the behind-the-scenes of your auto shop
- Make a clip of recent charity events that your shop attended
The key is to stay creative and keep the viewer in mind.
2. Responses to Customers
The next way your auto shop can strengthen your social presence is by actively engaging with and responding to customers. Building a connection with your social base is a fundamental component of any successful social strategy. It can have very real positive and negative consequences, depending on what your brand does. Don’t just take it from us, though. Let’s see what the numbers have to say.
Approximately 52% of consumers expect businesses to respond to their comment within seven days. This can increase customer advocacy by as much as 25%. Companies that fail to respond to customers on social media see an increase in churn rate up to 15%.
How to Do It
Now that we’ve established the importance of staying active online, let’s address how you can do it. Here are some essential engagement practices that your auto shop can implement today.
Respond to Everything
When a customer receives a response from your business to their question or complaint, it let’s them know that you hear them and that your business values them. When your shop fails to respond to a customer, however, you indirectly send a different message to them. You let them know that they’re forgotten, that they’re just another customer, and that your shop doesn’t truly care about them. This may seem extreme, but in today’s polarizing world of social media, each customer needs to feel valued or they will simply take their business elsewhere.
Respond Quickly
While we did mention that 52% of consumers expect brands to respond to social media comments within seven days, that doesn’t mean you can afford to wait that long. In fact, about 2 in 5 users expect a response within one hour of sending a message.
Offer Solutions
When responding to customer inquiries or complaints online, always answer with a solution. Much like we mentioned with short-form video, you need to bring immediate value to the customer. If they have a question, answer it clearly and directly. If they had a bad experience, amend the situation and incentivize them to come back in.
Be Positive
Studies show that users grow less engaged when negative or neutral content enters their feed. Avoid this phenomena entirely. Make a deliberate effort to stay positive and upbeat as you engage with customers online.
3. Behind The Scenes
The next approach to social media content that your shop can leverage is behind-the-scenes looks inside the workings of your business. Many shop customers have no idea how the auto repairs and services are performed. That’s where the opportunity lies.
More than just posting your products and services, you can use your social platform to educate and inform your customers about how you do your job. Such an approach to social content is much more interesting to consumers than simple promotions and ads. It gives them a unique look into the background of your shop and its culture.
How to Do It
One straightforward approach could be to post a video that shows your social base how you carry out a typical task, i.e oil and filter changes, state inspections, tire rotations, etc. It could even become a weekly series where you cover a different service.
If your shop has implemented some kind of employee incentive program, such as technicians competing for a weekly commission, you could create a video that covers the competition and show how techs try and edge each other out.
Try and have fun with it. If you organize some team-building events such as dressing up for Halloween or a secret santa for Christmas, record that and show your team’s camaraderie.
The key here is to show how your shop and team is approachable and relatable to the customers. Help them feel like they get to be a part of your shop, even if it’s only for the duration of the video. It’ll go a long way in fostering meaningful relationships with your customers online.
4. Reviews
We know that 93% of customers read online reviews of a brand before doing business with them—so why not capitalize on that? It could be the make-or-break factor that pushes a customer to commit to having their car serviced at your shop vs at a competitor’s.
There’s an age-old marketing tactic that you can utilize here: user generated content (UGC). UGC is as simple as it sounds—content (such as reviews and testimonials) that users of your products and services have provided. You then display that content on your various online channels—including social media.
It’s one of the most effective ways of convincing a potential customer to convert into a paying customer, and that’s why so many brands take advantage of it.
How to Do It
Here’s how you can get started with UGC. First, solicit reviews from every customer that comes in to your shop for any purchase. It can be as simple as saying: “If you were happy with our service today, we’d love for you to leave a review for us.”
Once you start to compile more UGC, you can begin to embed the best ones on your social media. This will directly help your brand stand out in a crowd, and it goes a long way in refining SEO efforts.
Automate
It’s abundantly clear the amount of sheer value that social media offers to small businesses, but let’s admit it: managing all this stuff can be a pain. Collecting dozens if not hundreds of customer reviews, curating the best from the rest, and deploying attractive UGC on your socials is not an easy task. It’s tedious and time-consuming.
What if you could simply automate the process of soliciting reviews? Even push them directly to Facebook and Google without any extra work? Let’s go beyond that. What if you could also streamline a variety of your other manual efforts—loyalty programs, email and SMS marketing, and even scheduling and following up on appointments? That’s where BayIQ comes in.
BayIQ is a comprehensive marketing software that was carefully designed with auto shops in mind. In fact, it was even made by former shop owners who recognized that marketing activities were taking away from their ability to operate their shop. So they built a solution.
The BayIQ software automates all of those rote tasks while seamlessly integrating into your current systems. It allows you to quickly visualize progress and track performance through customizable reports and dashboards. Make it easy to grow your shop with BayIQ.
