Must My Dealership Be on Instagram?
Instagram is a social media platform that has grown and taken over digital marketing. It is a popular platform with more than 600 million monthly users. It has upgraded from a content sharing platform used for posting life updates to a full-fledged digital marketing platform used by brands and businesses. Your dealership absolutely needs to be on Instagram. As a dealer, you are positioning yourself right where your customers are, and it’s important that you have an Instagram page where current and potential customers can find your business. Instagram is all about photos and relevant content, which are both key to building brand awareness and creating relationships with loyal customers.
Reach Car Owners and Enthusiasts
You already know Instagram is a hot spot for marketing products, but did you know car enthusiasts are also top users of the platform? The automotive industry is booming with car enthusiasts and car owners on Instagram. They are similar in some regards, but the way you’ll market to them is different. Owners will be more than happy to share pictures of their car to their followers, while enthusiasts may be more keen on sharing photos of their dream cars.
Both will be highlighting their favorite features of their cars and make sure to take a photo that reflects the car’s design and features. These enthusiasts include males and females between the ages of 18 and 34, with males making up more than 75 percent of those enthusiasts. This is an ideal audience for you to focus your digital marketing efforts on because they’re either ready to buy their first car or are looking to upgrade their first car. By targeting and creating content for your intended audience, you’ll be marketing your dealer as the one to follow.
Cross-Posting for Consistent Branding
Instagram is owned by Facebook, which makes it easy to link your Instagram profile with your Facebook Business Page (another social media profile your dealer should have). Whether you choose to link your profiles on the two platforms is up to you, just be sure that when you share content to one, you are also sharing it to your other social profiles as well. If you’d like a refresher on the proper image dimensions to use for each platform, please be sure to check out our blog post on image sizing. Building your brand awareness is essential if you want to grow your dealer.
Establishing your dealer’s identity on Instagram is one way to do that. Your Instagram profile is all about the nine-photo grid layout. You can have fun planning out a theme for your dealer’s grid or just go with the flow and share content that is eye-catching, relevant and useful to your followers. Keep in mind that your photos need to be high-quality, not necessarily high resolution, though the recommended size for feed photos is 1080p x 1080px.
Content and Hashtags are Key
Since Instagram is all about the grid, you want to make sure that your content is planned out and ready to be shared with your followers, so you’re not scrambling to post each day. For more spontaneous posting, be sure to use Instagram Stories to your advantage. These are vertical photos, short videos and even live feeds that are available to your followers for 24 hours. Instagram Stories is a great marketing tool to figure out what your followers enjoy about your dealer and what they’re interested in when it comes to cars. It’s important your grid reflect your dealer but also appeal to the audience and customers you’re trying to reach. Hashtags are useful search tools that will help customers discover your posts. There are many popular hashtags that auto lovers frequently use and you should too.
They are case insensitive and easy to add onto any caption. Some of the most popular ones include: #CarsofInstagram, #Carstagram, #Carspotting, #Instacars, and #CarLifestyle. You can also use your own hashtags, which you would include on all your posts, so followers can start associating you with your dealer’s hashtag. You’re allowed a maximum of 30 hashtags per post caption, but it’s best if you use 5 to 10 to avoid your captions looking clogged and spammy. You can also choose to add additional hashtags for discoverability in a separate comment on your post, that way you can make sure to reach as many new followers as possible.
Utilize Instagram and Increase Brand Awareness
There are many ways to use Instagram as a marketing tool for your dealer, but the most important one of all is establishing your company as the one to follow and trust in the automotive industry. Start by posting at least once a day and be sure to include relevant hashtags. Instagram is essential when it comes to building your dealer’s brand awareness and it takes thoughtful marketing planning and execution to be successful on Instagram.
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