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For marine, outdoor power equipment, or powersports dealers social media can be a valuable asset. Viral marketing can attract a bevy of people to your store, potential new hires can look at your posts to get a sense of whether you would be a good fit, and updating existing customers through social media posts can help drive repeat purchases. Furthermore, not having at least one active social media account can drive customers away, since some may find that as being a sign of your store either having gone out-of-business or become ‘out-of-touch.’

 

Gaining popularity on social media networks, especially for small businesses, however can be tough. There are tons of dealerships out there and only so many people surfing their Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/etc. for Marine/OPE/Powersports related news. But, granted that the posts the dealer makes are relevant and well curated, social media advertising can be worth it even when the accounts don’t gain too many followers. Many people check online to see whether businesses have any active social media accounts before they go check them out in person, so you should be making posts that make it clear to them that your dealership is active, reliable, and ready to serve end users’ needs.

 

It is possible for social media outreach efforts to backfire, but most of the pitfalls are easy to avoid. Posting politically-incorrect things, for example, can give dealers a bad reputation. Or, information in a post that you made in the past can become outdated, which can cause a customer to be misinformed and disappointed. Implementing quality control for your social media marketing efforts, both actively and retroactively, would solve both these issues.

 

To grow the list of people following the social media accounts associated with your dealership, there are many things that you can do. First off, you want to make sure that you are posting interesting content. You should ask yourself, what would my customers want to read/watch/hear about, then start planning your content from there. Secondly, you can start to include more call-to-actions in your posts – i.e. ‘retweet if you like x,’ ‘like for a chance to win y,’ or ‘leave an online review if you are satisfied with z.’

 

 

Getting owners of social media profiles that have more followers than yours does to reference one of your posts, or post on your behalf, is another surefire way to gain followers. Doing so is called ‘influence’ or ‘influencer marketing,’ since for this social media strategy you are taking advantage of ‘influencers’ to grow interest in your business. Manufacturers have been known to offer free goods and services to popular Internet personalities, in return for them spreading information about their products.

 

But surely, maintaining a social media presence requires a time commitment. Thankfully, there are tools that can make much it easier, such as services for automating posts to be made after certain events happen and social media scheduling services for setting posts to be made at specific times in the future. If you are having a hard time coming up with topics to post about, or figuring out which hashtags to use, there are websites that can help you with that too. Or, of course, you can always ask a millennial for Twitter tips, Facebook tips, LinkedIn tips, etc. If you build a significant audience, you will be able to use Twitter analytics and Facebook analytics to glean insights about your customers.

 

Even if they never gain too many followers, social media accounts posting good content associated with your dealership are a good idea to have because they provide potential customers visibility into who you are in addition to how well you would be able to satisfy their needs. But, obviously, having many followers who will flock to your store and tell others to do so as well is where you want to eventually end up. To make getting there easier and faster, CRM can help improve your social media strategy.