What an Auto Shop Needs to Post on Facebook to Increase Reach

Today we talk a bit about:

- tips and tactics

- being authentic

- standing out from the crowd

- consistency

Franklin: [00:00:15] What'sgoing on, guys? Welcome back to The Marketing Natives, and today on Episode 8we're actually going to talk about what an auto shop needs to post on Facebookto increase their reach. And we're going to take this in a couple of differentareas and a couple of different ways that you can look at this. Possibly tipsand tactics, being authentic, and trying to be unique and funny whenever itcomes to actually posting your content on Facebook. So how are you guys feelingabout this actually today? Like, how do you feel whenever it comes to actuallytalking about this particular subject? Aaron?

Aaron: [00:00:53] Okay.Since you're looking right at me. I mean, I feel like we're pretty capable ofanswering this question since we work with a mechanic shop, and we have alittle bit of hands on experience not just some theoretical experience.

Christian: [00:01:08] Ilike that. So, Aaron's saying theoretical because I was the one who said, youknow, we should probably split this into two things. Number one, some practicaltips and things that you can do right now and apply to your businessimmediately. Theoretical I think will be more of, you know, things thatliterally any other business should be applying on Facebook. And I think we'regoing to dive into these two main categories and show you, you know, whatyou're supposed to be doing on Facebook.

Franklin: [00:01:35] Now,I'll go ahead, and I'll start with like what we would consider to be somethingthat is actually practical, something that you can apply right now, and that'dbe tips and tricks. I mean, tips and tactics. Tips and tactics, okay? Meaningthat these are things that you can do by teaching someone how to actually goand do it. Like changing your oil, changing, like, the brakes, and changingout, like, specific fluids that are in your vehicle.

Christian: [00:02:04] Dude,even tires. Like, think about this, like, a lot of teens that are now justgetting started driving. They don't know how to change a tire. You know?

Aaron: [00:02:13] Iwould say even adults. Like, we did a survey or somebody did a survey in anetworking group who was a mechanic once, like, last year, and then he had themraise their hand. Like how many people in the room actually know how to changetheir tire? I would say it was like 30 percent of the room, and which wasastonishing to me because I guess, I don't know, I just know how to do that.But it was- most of the room does not know how to change a tire.

Franklin: [00:02:33] Completelymind blown right now.

Christian: [00:02:35] Yeah,I believe that now. Yeah. So yeah, even the things that you think, like, oh,nobody cares about changing a tire. Like why do I need to make that video onFacebook? Everybody knows how to change a tire. No, there is definitely ademographic out there that doesn't know how to change a tire.

Aaron: [00:02:49] Andif you're listening and you think that you don't need that, hey AAA doesn'talways show up at 3:00 o'clock in the morning while you're driving home on someroad trip in a random town, okay? I know you're in the metroplex probably orsomething, but you need to know how to change your own tire so you're not stuckon the side of the road.

Franklin: [00:03:04] Exactlywhich makes it the perfect particular type of content that a face- that an automechanic mechanic shop should be posting on Facebook. They should basicallystarted a series where it basically walks you through steps on how to change atire, change out your brakes, change your oil, check your transmission fluid,windshield wipers. Oh my god, windshield wiper blades are probably one of themost-

Aaron: [00:03:29] Thoseare hard. Those are very hard.

Franklin: [00:03:31] Well,okay. For some people, they would be hard to change out, but like- but to- forme, I'd never- you never really know exactly when you're supposed to take thosethings out because they will scratch your windshield.

Christian: [00:03:42] Yeah,that's too late. And they're starting to- if they're scratching your windshield,you're too late. That's- I mean, there's- Wow.

Aaron: [00:03:48] Youbetter get a call, like, Safe whatever they are.

Christian: [00:03:52] Safelite,I think.

Aaron: [00:03:53] Safelite.Yeah.

Christian: [00:03:54] Theychange the windshield.

Aaron: [00:03:54] Youcall them. No affiliation there by the way there, guys.

Christian: [00:03:56] No,but yeah. Just tips and tactic and do it yourself and tutorials, and obviously,you know, a big drawback to this is that you're eventually going to run out ofideas. So you, you might have a set number of videos because, I mean, wedefinitely recommend you to do videos on these and I think someone put here,yep, put around 40 videos. You know, set out 40 ideas that you want to dothroughout the whole year and rotate throughout those, you know, 40. You canrepost them. You're going to reach a different audience every single time.Obviously, you can have some overlap with some of your audience, but not, Imean, if you think that you posted this video on January and maybe around Junemight be a good idea to repost that video again. Maybe something has changed ormaybe you find out a better way to do it. Just redo that video.

Franklin: [00:04:45] Exactly

Christian: [00:04:45] Andpost it on Facebook.

Franklin: [00:04:46] Exactly.

Aaron: [00:04:49] Yeah.So I was the one who said the videos part, and really what I would say for thisand it's kind of like we have it down at the very bottom, but putting them outconsistently. So don't try to, I guess, the first week put out four tutorialvideos and then next month or the first month. The second month you don't putout any video. Like stagger the videos. I know that that sounds kind ofobvious. If you're listening to this and thinking that is obvious, we've raninto people who would ask that question so I wanted to bring that up and pointthat out. All right. So let's move on to authenticity. Wow, if I can say theword.

Franklin: [00:05:25] Thereyou go.

Aaron: [00:05:26] Thisis probably the biggest ROI. It's about building a brand which is huge, butit's also great for an auto mechanic shop because these are people that youhave to trust to wash- I mean, to wash. To change your oil, to work on yourcar, and it seems close to like the car salesman industry. If I could talk. Itsounds very sleazy. Like, somebody can come in there and say, oh, it's time foryou to do your motor flush. It's time for you to do some kind of, you know.

Christian: [00:05:55] Windshieldwiper fluid.

Aaron: [00:05:57] Right,exactly, and that's $50. So if they don't know you by name. I don't know.There's a trust level there. Like I don't just let anybody work on my car andthen say, oh, you know, this week it's 800 bucks and then next month for yourother car, it's going to be $300. And I don't know. I just- you can't-

Franklin: [00:06:17] Well,I mean, I completely agree with you. If I can talk. If I can get my words out.Just like those- that electrical company that you see, Milestone Electric. Yousee that commercial on all the time, but the guy is so personable that you seehim, his bald head and that same shirt that he wears in every commercial. If Iwere to walk up to him on the street or if I had an electric problem at home,and he came away, I'm like oh. You know, hey.

Aaron: [00:06:46] Christian'sshaking his head right now. Why is that, Christian?

Christian: [00:06:49] Becauseyou should be using Puckett Electric.

Franklin: [00:06:51] Ishould be. You know what< I'm probably going to get- Yeah, I'm probably goingto get chewed out.

Christian: [00:06:57] I'llmake sure that everyone in the Puckett family listens to this podcast.

Franklin: [00:07:00] Justmake sure that you actually, like, cut this part out.

Aaron: [00:07:03] Ifyou're not in the Dallas area, this is relevant to you. If it's not, then youshould know who Pucket Electric is. This has no affiliation. But really, goingback to this creating a video around the owner. If you're the owner of thisbusiness, and you're the face of the company, you need to be on video. So doesyour manager. So does your crew. They're the people who are checking out yourcustomers. If your customers are paying you money, they need to be able totrust you, and then two, if you own the business, they should know you by name.Like, oh, that's John up the street at, you know, Billy Bob's Automotive Shop.If you have that, it's going to go a lot farther, and you're going to get a lotmore referrals and really grow your business compared to somebody else who justgoes to Google and is like, oh, who has the cheapest oil change today?

Franklin: [00:07:49] Right.They'll want to spend money with people that they know versus people that theyjust see online.

Aaron: [00:07:54] Orif they're going to spend the money, they feel like they're not getting, like,taken basically.

Franklin: [00:07:58] Right.Right.

Christian: [00:08:02] Yep,agreed. Yeah, so I guess some of the other things that we wanted to talk aboutare things that you can apply in any other business and sort of things that wepreach that, you know, a company should be doing on Facebook, and I think thenumber one thing is, and I know we say this a lot but, being unique and usinghumor.

Franklin: [00:08:24] Yes.

Christian: [00:08:25] Asa way to play into people's emotions and, you know, get to like, comment,engage, and eventually, you know, do business with you.

Franklin: [00:08:33] Exactly.

Aaron: [00:08:36] Wehave some examples, right? I mean.

Franklin: [00:08:37] Right.

Aaron: [00:08:38] Orwe wrote down some. So.

Franklin: [00:08:40] Like,I know from meeting you two, like, one of my favorite commercials that I'veseen that was humorous and funny has definitely been the unicorn commercial forSquatty Potty. Like, it's extremely funny. It's extremely personable, and like.

Aaron: [00:08:58] Twoout of the three people here have a Squatty Potty.

Christian: [00:09:01] That'strue.

Franklin: [00:09:02] Yeah.I don't. I don't have one. I'm that guy so that you should know who has one,but the commercial makes you laugh. You don't forget what the product is, andit's shareable. That's one thing I like about it. That things that are humorousand personable, they're shareable even though- yeah, like, we were talkingabout an auto mechanic shop. Certain tips and tricks, they would be shareable,but in, like, specific situations, like, if you needed to know, Aaron, how tochange your windshield wiper blades and there were a video online, I could grabit and send it to you. That makes it shareable. With something that is funnyand humorous, you can just click the share button as soon as you see it andlaugh.

Aaron: [00:09:42] Right.And I would say 99 percent of the time throughout your week you're not going toneed those services. So staying relevant to your audience is like, okay, well,if they don't remember us then they're going to go with somebody else. You haveto put out something that's different than just selling your business andsaying, hey, oil change, oil change, oil change. Well, my car goes 5,000 mileswithout needing an oil change, so I don't need you for four or five months, butyou still want to be in front of that audience and doing that with a unique andfunny way, let's you- I mean, you kind of create a relationship with the brand,and then you also kind of stay top- You don't kind of. You do stay top of mind.

Franklin: [00:10:20] Right.

Christian: [00:10:22] Yeah,and I mean, with that, the unique and funny and using humor, comes somethingthat Aaron talked about a little earlier which is the consistency and again issomething that we preach every single day for every business owner out there.To consistently posts on Facebook. You know have some kind of calendar, somekind of content calendar where you know, okay, on Mondays, I'm going to beposting a video. On Tuesdays, we're going to do know the mechanic. So it's apicture, an image of, you know, some of the crew members. The next day, I'mgoing to actually do a long post written out about maybe some kind of storythat I encounter because I know mechanics and auto shops have some really crazystories.

Aaron: [00:11:11] Doyou guys remember? Well, we had that one where this car was maybe like a yearold and there was a packrat that put, like, M&M's, like, a pillow. Therewas, like, I don't remember what all was in there, but that's like somethingstory worthy right there.

Franklin: [00:11:26] Isaw that. Whenever I was looking at that video and going through it, I said Ido not believe that a rat did that, but then I went back through their feed andthey've posted images of other rats doing that. I'm like, that just blows mymind.

Christian: [00:11:43] Thatwas shocking basically.

Franklin: [00:11:44] Right.

Aaron: [00:11:44] Ithink Christian didn't believe it at first. He went no, they placed that inthere for the pictures. I think I showed it to Brianna, and she told me- shegoes, that was staged, and I said no, they didn't take half-eaten M&M's andput them in the car.

Christian: [00:11:58] Yeah.Yeah, that's pretty crazy. So that's another thing I guess if you're going fora unique, funny, shocking will be another, another great tool or tactic to usein order to get more reach. But anyways going back, we're talking aboutconsistency so making sure that you have that plan set and that, you know, youschedule ahead of time and you post that consistently. And that will definitelybring you more reach. Facebook is obviously an algorithm so the more you share.Not the more share, but the more quality things that you share, the more peoplewill see you on Facebook.

Aaron: [00:12:36] Allright. Anybody have any last, any cool ideas?

Christian: [00:12:41] Imean, the other thing is, you know, once- you're going to reach a limit. You'regoing to hit a plateau. When we're talking about organic things, you know, thenext step after would be to spend some money. Spend some money on advertising,and use these same things that we told you here in order to get anadvertisement. When you do advertising, don't go for the old, boring you know,ads that you see on TV all the time. Social media, it's a whole differentmonster, and some of these tactics and things that we talk about today alsowork for, you know, ads. So implement those things when you're doingadvertising, and you will definitely see an increase in your reach.

Aaron: [00:13:21] Right.If you already have a good burning fire, this is like throwing gasoline on it.

Franklin: [00:13:25] Exactly.

Aaron: [00:13:27] Allright. So thank you, guys, for giving us your ear. I stole that from Gary. Weneed to think of a cool outro. I want to say like, you know, sayonara orwhatever, but just so we have a consistent outro and maybe you guys can help.Leave a comment or something. All right, and do us a huge favor. UsuallyChristian says this at the beginning. We forgot, but go ahead and click thatsubscribe button, and if you are on an iPhone, go ahead and click those threebuttons on the right-hand corner. It will pop up, and you can share this withsomebody. If you have somebody who is owning a mechanic shop or anotherbusiness owner, this works for them too, share it with a friend who owns abusiness, and they will thank you later.