Social Selling Guide for Automotive Sales Professionals – Part 9 of How to Sell Cars via Facebook – Real Social Selling
(This series is an edited excerpt from Assumptive Selling: The Complete Guide to Selling More Vehicles for More Money to Today’s Connected Customers, which is available on Amazon for $49.99. To begin with the first article in this series, visit How to Sell Cars via Facebook – Real Social Selling.)
Social Selling Guide for Automotive Sales Professionals – Part 9 of How to Sell Cars via Facebook – Real Social Selling
Let’s take what we learned in the first 8 parts of this series and create a quick 15-Point Social Selling Guide for Automotive Sales Professionals:
- Facebook first. As of this writing, the return on your time investment is too miniscule to spend much effort on any social network besides Facebook. That said, if you have linked social accounts (for example, Instagram and Facebook), feel free to manage both profiles and allow a post on one site to populate the other.
- It’s your personal profile. Because of the way Facebook’s current algorithms work, social selling is just not practical with a business page. Page posts (as of this writing) receive little to no interaction because no one sees them. Facebook buries these (they say) to improve the user experience. Of course, Facebook would gladly let you pay to boost your page’s posts into anyone’s news feed. This means you’ll need to use your personal profile if you want to become a Social Selling Warrior. Using your personal profile means you’ll need to consider the next three points:
- No more drunk posts. When your personal profile is doubling as your business page, you’re basically always at the dealership. So, act like it on Facebook. If you go out for a few beers after work, refrain from posting anything until you’re sober. It doesn’t take much to outrage the online public today.
- Avoid controversy. There are a few issues (political or otherwise) where we can all agree. For example, I think we can all agree that childhood cancer sucks. Feel free to get involved with these types of issues but try to avoid anything controversial. Even showing your support for a controversial new road on your Facebook page stands the chance of alienating a potential future customer. Besides, no one is going to wonder “Why didn’t Steve speak up on his Facebook page about the new road?”
- Be sensitive. Gone are the days when you can publicly dress like a Native American and mimic their ceremonies. This extends to all cultures, colors, races, creeds and religions. Understand this and find something else to dress as this year for Halloween.
- Make everything public. Since you’re often going to “friend” your customers, you’ll want to be sure that everything you post is intended to be posted for all to see. When you limit your posts by setting them to anything but the “Public” setting, you’re not only keeping those who follow you and friends of friends from seeing what you post, you’re also eliminating the chance for a post to go viral.
- There is a limit. As of this writing, Facebook has a 5,000-friend limit on personal profiles. While not a big deal when you’re just starting out, for Social Selling Warriors this can cause a problem. You’ll want to encourage other salespeople, vendors, and anyone outside your market to follow you so that you can friend as many locals as possible.
- No contests. When you use a personal profile, you’re not allowed to run contests on Facebook like you can with a business page. If you find the need to run contests, start a business page, then market the contest via your personal posts.
- Calls to action. Be sure to include calls to action in your posts, and especially on your Facebook Live events. This means you’ll want to tell your audience what you want them to do. (Some people need that before they’ll engage.) So, ask them to share, like, comment, call you, download your app, and send you referrals. Those are all good calls to action to include; of course, don’t overdo it, you’ll want to limit these to about one or two calls to action per post.
- Buy a good selfie stick. When posting pics with new buyers or doing a Facebook Live event, you can either have someone else hold your smartphone and film you, or you can use a selfie stick. Since you don’t want to have to always depend on others, invest a few dollars in a good selfie stick. If you’re serious about using live videos to drive your social selling, spend a few more bucks and buy a selfie stick that doubles as a video stabilizer (this is sometimes called a gimbal).
- Play to your audience. So, you have the Batmobile for sale at your dealership; but, it’s an $85,000 Demon and you know that 99.99% of your Facebook audience can’t afford something so expensive. This doesn’t mean they don’t want to see it; they do. However, you’ll want to include some content that will encourage them to buy what they can afford from you, so pan over to the used Challenger that’s $15,000 during your Facebook Live event about the Demon and tell them why the $15,000 version is also cool.
- Buy a drone? This one is up to you (and depends on the current laws), but drone footage of a super sale or offsite event can generate a lot of engagement. Additionally, offering to shoot drone footage for the clubs and organizations you joined in your old-fashioned networking will help you become more involved (which helps you generate more business from these activities).
- Celebrity status. A very strange thing will happen after you’ve done a few Facebook Live events that generate engagement: You’ll become a local celebrity! Be prepared. People will walk up to you in restaurants and ask, “Are you Joey? I just love your videos.” This is when you know you’ve reached the status of Social Selling Warrior. Be genuine and authentic (just as you are online) when asked these questions; and be sure to ask for their business (I mean, they already like you, right?).
- It’s about referrals. Never forget your goals when you’re engaged in social selling; it’s about generating sales, and sales from social will come mainly from referrals. So, ask for referrals; and if your state allows you to pay bird dog fees, then advertise and celebrate this in your posts, where appropriate. Without paying for referrals, your social audience will be much smaller, because people won’t be working for you. Your network will share more of your information if there are dollars involved.
- It’s your brand. Be friendly, be approachable, be funny, be self-deprecating, and be honest. Your social profile (who you are online) is your personal brand and only you get to decide what that is.
Good (Social) Selling!
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Don’t like to read? You can learn all about Real Social Selling in this free 49-minute recording of a live video webcast: Real Social Selling – How to Sell Cars on Facebook.
