If you are trying to improve your automotive SEO, it important to start improving you social media campaign.
These two campaigns are becoming so tightly linked that it is impossible to improve one without improving another, and making mistakes in one could lead to mistakes or problems in the other.
Here are ten of the biggest social media mistakes that could negatively affect your automotive SEO:
1. You do not have a defined strategy.
If you do not have a defined social media strategy, you probably do not have a defined SEO strategy, either.
Your strategy needs to be more detailed than simply posting pictures of the vehicles that you sell on your account page.
Do you know how you are going to measure your success?
Do you know what you are trying to achieve?
Do you know how you are going to market your content on these platforms?
2. You do not sound authentic.
This is another issue that could also be systemic.
Social media is, first and foremost, social.
Your customers and potential customers follow your page to get to know you, not necessarily to hear about sales and specials you are running in your showroom.
This means that if you are only ever trying to sell something to your followers, they are not going to be very inclined to interact with those posts, meaning that you will not get the traffic to your website that social media campaigns should endeavor to achieve.
3. You are too diversified.
While you should probably have more than one social media account (not every likes or uses the same social media, so you can catch more of your target audience by being in more than one place), trying to juggle too many accounts could make your life unnecessarily hard and actually make it difficult for your audience to find the information they want about your dealership.
Instead, pick just the platform that is best for you.
Instagram might be a great choice for dealerships that want to post pictures of the people they’ve sold cars too or want to post pictures of their new inventory as it comes in, but Pinterest is probably not a good option, for example.
4. Posting the same thing on every account.
In general, you should not post the same updates on Facebook as you do on Twitter.
This gives you the ability to reach out to different sections of your audience in different ways.
If you think that your Twitter followers are going to be more interested in a certain blog post, don’t be afraid to post it just on Twitter and post something else on Facebook.
As you do this, keep in mind the differences between platforms.
Facebook is becoming more image and video-heavy, for example, while Twitter remains more of a microblog.
Knowing where to market certain pieces of content could make them more effective when it comes to drawing people back to your website.
5. You post something controversial.
If you were a political or religious organization and not a car dealership, it might be appropriate to post something political or religious in nature.
Instead, keep your social media interactions as neutral as possible.
This will help them appeal to a wider audience.
6. All you do is plug your dealership.
If every single post on a page is in the vein of trying to convince your followers to come buy a car from you, you’re going to see the vast majority of your followers jump ship.
This is one of the most major ways that SEO and social media can work together.
Social media should be taken as an opportunity to post informative content that, because of its value, directs people back to your website.
7. You use the wrong hashtags.
Hashtags are a great way to get your content into the feed of someone who might not have otherwise seen it.
If you use the wrong hashtags, however, you are going to be an annoyance, not a welcome addition to the feed.
Use no more than three and make sure they are highly relevant and in good taste.
If someone is searching Twitter for information about how to change a tire, the proper hashtag will provide them with your tweet, linking back to your blog post about this topic.
It works, but only if done right.
8. You do not interact with your followers.
Social media is a great tool for finding blog post topics, for better understanding your potential customers, and for building or maintaining a connection with past customers—but only if you actually interact with those people.
You should respond to their questions and concerns (but do not feed the trolls), and know when you need to shut down a potentially inflammatory discussion.
9. You are not posting links when your followers are most likely to see them.
Especially on Facebook and Twitter, your followers may have hundreds (or thousands) of posts to look at each time they log on.
If you are not posting when they are most likely to be on, they are probably going to miss you.
This is a good reason to research when your demographic is most likely to use their social media account and post at that time.
That’s how you’ll see the highest amount of traffic to your website.
10. You buy your likes or followers.
This just does not work. It has never worked and it will continue to not work.
Google cares about how “real” your audience is on social media and you could see a serious ranking drop if you are trying to game the system by buying likes and followers on social media.