Do you have an auto repair shop and are looking for ways to enhance your social media presence? In this digital world, social media platforms play an important role in building trust among followers and improving brand reputation.
Most auto repair businesses have a social media account, but only a few know how to create a strong social media presence to build trust among the customers. If you are wondering how you can do so, auto repair shop social media marketing is your answer. Read the blog below to know more.
Why Social Media is Beneficial for Auto Repair Businesses
Connect better with your customers.
Social media platforms offer advanced targeting options, allowing businesses to reach specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. This means that you can tailor ads to reach the most relevant customer base who will be interested in your auto repair services.
Moreover, social media marketing efforts also provide an opportunity to directly interact with your customers through likes, comments, polls, and quizzes that nurture meaningful interactions with your audience and help address their concerns promptly in real time.
Increase your company’s visibility.
Social media has millions of active users, providing businesses with a vast opportunity to reach a broad and diverse audience group and target new clients. By establishing a strong presence on social media and regularly sharing your content, you can reach an audience beyond your existing customers and connect with new potential customers.
Build brand awareness
Brand awareness helps develop trust, recognition, and credibility among your target audience and existing customers. Auto repair social media posts help you to interact with your customers, enabling them to connect with you emotionally. By consistently posting about what your business has to offer and emphasizing positive customer experiences, you help shed a positive light on your business.
Showcase your industry expertise.
You can add customer testimonials and positive reviews on your social media platforms to showcase your industry expertise and generate trust among your target audience. For example, auto repair shops that aim to target the younger audience can upload engaging social media posts emphasizing the services that appeal to the current generation of automotive enthusiasts.
Types of Automotive Social Media Marketing
Organic posts
Organic posts refer to the practice where you post content that is free of cost to promote your business goals. This includes photos, videos, stories, etc, that brands share on their feed.
When you leverage the advantages of organic posts, you can expect your post to be seen by your followers, your follower’s followers, and social media users who follow your hashtag. For example, auto repair Facebook posts ideas that aim to reach a set of target audiences organically come under organic posts.
Promoted posts
In promoted social media posts, brands pay social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram to have their content shared with a specific new target audience with the goal of increasing brand awareness. These ads are shown to those sets of audiences who are most likely going to be interested in your brand’s products and services.
Facebook and Instagram ads
Facebook and Instagram ads appear in a user’s feed, story, or sidebar, depending on the ad format and placement chosen by the advertiser. Facebook ads allow businesses to target specific demographics, interests, behaviors, and locations, making it easier to reach a target audience.
Instagram ads in the hands are for Instagram platforms and appear in user feeds or stories.
Facebook lead ads
Facebook lead ads are a type of advertising format that allows businesses to collect leads directly from the platform. This makes it easy to generate leads by allowing the target audience to express their interest in your products and services by filling out a form without leaving Facebook. Lead ads typically include a brief description, an image or video, and a CTA button, which, when clicked, opens a form with the user’s information already filled in based on their Facebook profile. This streamlines the process for users and increases the likelihood of conversion for your business.
7 Best Social Media Ideas For Auto Repair Shops That Helps To Build Trust
Your auto repair shop can use social media posts to build trust with customers (even before they become a customer). This is imperative for your shop as the more a prospect believes that you will do what you say, the more likely it is that they’ll choose you over the competition. One way to do this is by posting content on your social media profiles. Here are 4 examples of auto repair social media posts that can help you build trust with your followers.
Steps To Building Trust:
Help Identify Symptoms to Problems – Educate your customers about when they need your services and how it will save them in the long run.
Notify Customers of Recalls – Since recalls from manufacturers are often sent by mail, make sure your customers know about them the way they consume information.
Show How You Protect Your Customers – We are just three months into the Coronavirus pandemic. It’s not too late to demonstrate your commitment to customer safety.
Show Your Work – There is no better proof than the actual work product.
Identify Common Problems
If your customers are like me, they know zilch about cars. I could drive on a flat tire for 5-miles without noticing. (Shout-out to the off-duty officer who told me at the stop-light!) Yeah, yikes.
So when it comes to car maintenance, you can bet that some of your customers could use help identifying and solving common problems.
Twisted Wrench Auto Repair has a great example of how to provide education through social media posts. By offering free advice, this auto shop is showing customers that they’re invested in the health of their vehicle. Plus, one of their followers might say “My car hums! I should take it in to get fixed!”
If you post about car maintenance, make sure to include:
A short and sweet description. Identify the part of the car, how to identify if it’s not functioning properly, and possibly how to fix it.
An image. This helps novices (like me) better understand the description and catches our attention.
Notify Customers of Recalls
Similarly, to the point above, your auto shop can post about product recalls. This information is great because it creates a sense of urgency for your followers to bring their car into the shop.
In addition to sharing the news article about the recall, you could include whether or not your shop has the part and how long it will take to fix. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for a follower to see your post, confirm their car is affected, and choose your auto shop to solve the problem.
Share New Standards of Cleanliness
How are you protecting your customers from sickness? Newnan Station Automotive posted this update about how they are keeping their senior customers safe. While you may not have a program similar to this auto shop, you can post answers to questions your customers have, such as:
Do employees wear a face mask while working?
Do employees wear gloves when moving my vehicle?
What process do you have in place for cleaning the waiting area?
Show Your Work
There’s no better way to prove that you can do a job than by showing it. Posting images of the types of cars you service or how you conduct a state inspection is sure to show your followers that you can deliver. This also takes the guesswork out for prospects who may be shopping around for a new auto repair shop.
Promote Local Charities and Events
By showcasing your involvement in local events and charities, you can demonstrate your commitment for the betterment of the community. Through this act, your target audience starts to associate you with your contribution to society, which helps humanize the brand and foster a sense of connection with the local residents.
Show Gratitude and Understanding
Showing gratitude towards your customers, whether through thank you messages or loyalty programs, strengthens the bond between you and your customers. This fosters loyalty and encourages repeated customers. Moreover, understanding the pain points of your target audiences and taking steps to address the problems and negative comments differentiate you from your competitors and establish an emotional connection. Hence, as a brand, you must appreciate your customers when they give feedback and demonstrate a willingness to listen and learn, as well as improve your products.
Respond Appropriately to Reviews:
By acknowledging feedback, whether positive or negative and responding promptly, businesses show the customer that their opinions matter and are valued. Moreover, responding appropriately to negative feedback can help businesses manage damage to their reputation and turn negative experiences into positive ones.
Developing an Auto Repair Social Media Strategy
Actions speak louder than words, which is why pictures and videos on social media are a great way to build trust with followers. These are just a few examples to spark inspiration. To get more ideas look up the social profiles for other local auto repair shops, or even nationals chains like Jiffy Lube or Goodyear.