In the second half of our webinar with Ben Fewtrell from Smash Social we asked the question, what channels should you be using and the best way to know where people are is to look at the statistics.
Facebook is the favourite platform, followed by Instagram. Facebook and Instagram are owned by the same company so you can run your ads on that platform, and you can also post to both platforms through the Facebook planner. When you log into your Facebook business page, there is a bunch of tools in there that you can access, and one of those is a planner. It just opens as a calendar and from there you can post away. You can create your posts in advance, schedule these and by ticking a box it allows you to post to both platforms at the same time.
Messenger, although not really a social media tool, comes in as the third most favourite thing that people use, it’s part of Facebook and Instagram. Same with WhatsApp. They’re both messenger tools. And then Tik Tok, Snapchat and Twitter are the next three.
If you are going to be anywhere, you need to be on Facebook and Instagram, they’re the key to ones.
If you are serious about your marketing strategy online, you might include creating a YouTube channel to put videos up, it’s a very powerful platform
Next is LinkedIn, this is important for those of you that are targeting things such as commercial work and fleet work. If you’re looking for professional connections, LinkedIn can be a good way to do it.
Facebook, in Ben’s view, is the first place you should start out. Now the good thing about social media is once you’ve got one platform set up and working well, you can then use that same content and repurpose it onto other social media platforms. Once you’ve got your strategy clear and you’ve decided how you’re going to generate your content, what type of content you’re going to generate, how often you’re going to post, you can get it onto Facebook, and then you can start thinking about adding other platforms.
Facebook is the nonnegotiable. There are far too many people on. Ben often hears “my customers aren’t on Facebook.” Yes, they are, the reality is they are there and when they are there, they’re more relaxed and they’re more accessible because your customers can be hard to get through to when they’re at their office as there can be all sorts of gatekeepers stopping you accessing them
Instagram is easy to add to your mix once you’re doing Facebook. It’s a little bit different, the size of images needs to be made a bit different for them to work nicely on that platform. Instagram and Facebook both have a component called stories. If you enjoy using Instagram, I suggest maybe even making it your number one and then move to Facebook because Instagram stories work well for people in the collision repair industry. Instagram stories are very easy to do using your smartphone, it is just very short snippets of things going on around the workshop. It could be anything or it could be masking a car, it could be mixing paint, it could be unboxing a spare part that just came in, as much as that sounds boring to you, social media followers love the behind-the-scenes stuff, and Instagram Stories is a great way to do that.
LinkedIn would then be the third one for collision repairs. LinkedIn is a place where there’s a lot less people on there, but the people that are there are more professional. It is a great platform if you are looking to connect with people on a professional level.
Then there is Google Business Profile, it used to be a listing on a Google map, now it’s more of a dynamic profile where they want to see updates, they want to see photos, they want to see links, they want to see reviews being left. It’s important that you optimize your Google listing, Ben has a free guide for that as well. You need to have your Google Business Listing up to date so it’s easy for Google to find you and to know what it is that you do when people are searching for your products and services. Google My Business is a very powerful part of marketing now.
Where do you start when it comes to digital marketing?
Here’s three choices.
The first choice is to do nothing, which is what a lot of people are doing, you could do nothing and nothing’s going to change that.
The second thing to do is to learn how to create and implement your own strategy.
Or the third thing you could do is to leverage off somebody with experience and a proven track record.
Now if Ben was getting his car repaired, if he had an accident, he has the same choices. He could do nothing. He could learn how to fix it himself or he could bring it to you and get it repaired properly.
Same thing applies to pretty much everything in life.
Now if you do nothing in digital marketing, your competitors are already taking advantage of social media, you might feel like you’re saving money or time, but you have got to ask yourself, What’s the true cost of doing nothing? If you do nothing, somebody else in your industry is going to be doing great. And they’re going to end up just railroading you somewhere down the road. So that’s your choice.
The second option there was to DIY, which is do it yourself, you can invest your own time and money and try and work out what works. Once again, you might feel like you’re saving money. But what is the true cost?
The third thing is you leverage off somebody, you hire someone to take care of it for you. Whether that’s internally or externally is totally up to you, you leverage off their experience, they know what they’re doing, they have the knowledge. You can focus on what you’re good at, which is running your business & repairing cars.
When Gavin invited Ben to do this, he wanted to give you guys the opportunity to get a special offer and that special offer is that you can get started for free.
By scanning the QR code, you will be directed to Ben’s calendar, and you can book in for a 15-minute call. Ben will have a chat with you about how they can get you started for free.
Getting you started for free means that they’re going to do your social media strategy development, which means his team is going to go through all your social media platforms and do a strategy for you, which is a few hours work. Then they’re going to do your social media account setup. and that includes your Google My Business listing, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, get all the accounts set up properly. You’re then in the position to be able to make the most out of those, make sure they’re optimized, make sure that you’ve got all the right tabs set on your Facebook business page, make sure your ad account is set up and make sure your Facebook pixel is installed on your website so you can track visitors.
They are going to do all of that for you, they normally charge $1299 just for that but you can get started for free today and you will then need to come on board as a Smash Social Client. This is where they manage your social media marketing for you. That’s a $699 a month commitment for a minimum three months.
If you’re not sure about whether your business is right for social media, or whether Smash Social are right to help you with it, you’re still welcome to book in and have a chat and you can have a look at it together. It’s a 15-minute call, no obligation.
Ben as developed a product specifically for the collision repair industry and they will make sure that you’re consistent. Consistency rewards.