Social media cheat sheet for your dealership, part one

It can be tricky to navigate social media as a business. There is a balancing act between posting too much or too little, it can be tough to predict what kind of content will best resonate with your followers, and social media algorithms are always changing – so even if you do create a high-quality post that your followers would love, how can you make sure it shows up in their newsfeeds?

As much as social media “rules” are ever-changing, there are a few constants. These proven rhythms allow you to leverage your social strategy as much as possible despite the challenge of keeping up with social media trends.

Social platform-specific best practices

• Facebook sees most of its shares and “likes” on posts between 1-3 p.m., and the most successful days to post on are Thursdays and Fridays. Organic reach is claimed to be “all but gone” on Facebook, which continues to be the most dominant social media platform, so investing in sponsored/boosted posts and Facebook advertising is a huge piece of growing your business page.
• Tweets see the highest click-through rate at noon and 6 p.m., with Wednesdays and weekends being the best days for B2C activity. Twitter has always been an outstanding resource for cultivating relationships, making it vital to engage in conversations with your followers on this platform.
• Pinterest is an underrated platform for retailers. It’s all about saving and sharing images, creating an opportunity for you to showcase your boat inventory and entice buyers. Organize your Pinterest boards by boat type, as well as accessories and parts. You could even create boards with ideas for summer fun on your local lake, tips for reeling in the biggest fish in your region or how-to guides for cleaning and maintaining your units. Take what you know about your customers and cater your pins and boards to their interests and hobbies. Saturdays are generally known to be the best day to pin, with 9 p.m. being the peak time of day.
• As the second largest search engine after Google, YouTube is the place consumers go to watch videos of the boats and other marine products they are interested in. A video of your newest wakeboarding boat in action will sell it faster than any image can. The highest engagement activity on this platform takes place Thursday through Sunday, with engagement rising after the workday ends at 6 p.m. The ability to share YouTube videos on other social media channels is key, because video is only becoming more popular and more important to a successful social strategy.
• Instagram is the newest platform of the bunch, but it’s not a trend – it’s here to stay. For younger generations especially, Instagram is a major player in the world of social. Any day is a good day to post on Instagram – the platform shows consistent engagement all throughout the week. The best time of day to post is between 3-4 p.m.

Read part two of this blog post.

Thank you to research from MarketingProfs for platform-specific statistics.

Lauren McLean is the public relations manager for Dealer Spike, a company that provides innovative websites as well as a suite of powerful online advertising solutions that help marine dealers help increase sales and service profitability. For more information, visit www.DealerSpikeMarine.com or call 800-288-5917.