6:15 am, July 29, 2014
A FRIEND recently asked me for some advice regarding the strategy of his business’s Facebook page.
Although my friend’s trade is retailing high-end clothing, the approach when using social media is the same for any company, including motor dealers. Firstly, you need to decide what your objectives are. Far too many people think this is how many likes or followers they want to achieve, but that is just a goal or a target and it means nothing to the audience.
As the business owner or content writer, you need to set out clear objectives regarding the audience you are trying to attract and how you will use Facebook to interact with them.
Only you will know the audience you would like to interact with. Some options that people may be interested in are cars, local news, food, sport, etc.
All that matters is that the audience you want to interact with are linked to the products you are selling and you feel comfortable writing and sharing that content. Social media is not about spamming, or selling to your audience. However, if you are going to use social media to sell, the 80/20 rule needs to come into play.
Eighty per cent of the time, you should use Facebook to interact, request feedback, engage
with past customers or share and discuss external interests. Only 20 per cent of your comments/posts should be discussing your products for sale.
Some good friends of mine in the motor trade do this very well. They do not try to sell cars, they talk about their customers picking up their vehicles, or external interests such as sports and competitions.
This has led them to grow significantly not only in size of followers on all social media platforms, but also in business written because of the following they have built.
Who is Ben Garside?
Ben is marketing manager for First Response Finance. To speak to him about his column, email him [email protected]
