11:26 am, June 1, 2012
CHANGES to Facebook just announced make the social network easier and more effective to use for dealers, according dealer management software specialist Pinewood.
Added functionality allows dealers to schedule status and content updates on their pages in advance. By simply clicking on the clock symbol and setting a future time, dealers will be able to plan communications.
Additional functionality has been also added to the administration controls, allowing various access rights or roles to be granted for different users such as manager, content creator, moderator and advertiser.
This makes defining the responsibilities of administering the page across different job roles within a dealership much easier.
Pinewood marketing executive Chris Caines said: ‘These are small changes but actually make Facebook much easier for all kinds of businesses to use, including dealers.
‘Now, dealers using Facebook can schedule updates in advance in a single session, rather than having to revisit their page every time they want to make a change. This is very useful for scheduling promotions and out-of-hours activity.’
Scheduling also helps avoid the common problem of flooding users timelines with multiple content updates, he added. However, it would be wise to choose times carefully – many updates will be set by businesses for familiar times such as 9am or noon, for example, and content updates could get lost within this peak activity.
Chris continued: ‘Giving defined roles to the dealer staff who can access your Facebook page along with different levels of access means that managing the page is potentially easier, with different team members being delegated different tasks.
‘These roles could change the way brands integrate Facebook into their marketing communications strategy, moving away from one-person, social channel management.’
Pinewood added a free Facebook integration tool to its Pinnacle DMS in January. This plug-in can be added to each dealer’s company fan page so that their social audience are able to easily view used vehicle stock, with all inbound enquiries appearing instantly in Pinewood’s Pinnacle DMS.
