Real Social Selling for Car Dealers (and others) – PART 8

 

Real Social Selling for Car Dealers (and others) – PART 8

TRANSCRIPT: I know what you’re thinking. “Storytelling, Steve. You’re one of those.” Listen, too many social media experts constantly talk about storytelling without explaining what it means. You know why? Because they don’t know what it means. They heard somebody say it at some seminar.

Yeah, you’ve got to be a storyteller. They’ll tell you what it means because they don’t know what it means. See most of them have no idea that storytelling for social sellers is not anything close to traditional storytelling. It’s also not passing down our heritage or some historical social fiction. Storytelling for social is simply talking to a friend. It’s explaining what happened. It’s explaining what is happening and it’s explaining what will happen.

It’s talking about the who, what, when, where and why in authentic terms. Now, both of these posts are from BMW Lincoln. One of them is spam and one of them is storytelling. Take a look at them. Can you guess which is which? Well, obviously the BMW Z4 is spam. It really is. It got no interaction and because it got no interaction, people who like their page, happen to like their business page are less likely to see future posts from BMW of Lincoln because it’s not storytelling.

The one on the right, that’s storytelling. “Wait, Steve. It doesn’t have a beginning, a middle.” Yeah, sure. It does. It’s a story. Snow day, we are open and then there’s a picture. Look at that. They got a comment and they got eight likes. That’s not a lot but remember this is a business page. Facebook doesn’t want to show those kind of things. They posted something that their friends wanted to see and guess what, their friends interacted with it.

Now, you might be saying, “Steve, isn’t some spam okay? Right. I mean, Z4, it’s a cool car, right?” What’s special about it? Is it a good deal? I don’t know. They didn’t put the price, did they? Why should any of their followers care about that? It’s a picture of a Z4. If I love Z4s, I can probably go to this place called the internet and see a lot of pictures of Z4s. I probably see them on the road all the time. It’s not the bat mobile. It’s a used Z4.

In fact, it’s a 12-year-old Z4 or 11-year-old Z4 when this post was posted. It’s not special. It’s got the stock number in there. It’s got the VIN in there. What’s special about this? Would you walk up to someone, why should any of their followers care about that car? Would you walk up to someone at the chamber of commerce meeting and show them that pick? “Hey, did you see the Z4 we just got in. Its VIN number…blah, blah… its stock number blah, blah… It’s for sale.”

No, if it was a good deal, you’d say, “Hey, look at the Z4 we just got. It’s a great price. Here it is. Would you show him that picture? Would you show him the picture of the truck plowing snow? Hey, look at what our guy did last week.” That’s what you would do. That’s the one that’s authentic. When you ask yourself which one is authentic, it’s the one that’s talking about the story. See, spam costs you. This spam post cost them.

If this was a sales person on their own personal page, it might get a little interaction but overtime it would stop getting interactions. Spam costs you views and it costs you interaction. Remember the first rule is don’t get unfollowed but remember there’s more, don’t get ignored. Simply put, when people ignore a post of yours, you’re less likely to show up in their newsfeed the next time. That’s the basics of the Facebook newsfeed algorithm.

You have to drive interaction. If you are going to spam and I don’t recommend it. At least learn from the spammers. These knuckleheads that put a post like type yes if you agree. Like and share if you agree, that gets interaction because it’s a call to action. When appropriate, go ahead and do a call to action. This one on the right, these folks are stealing valor. Somebody took a picture of these troops and they posted on their Facebook page and it was probably an instant post but then somebody else stole that picture because they didn’t take the picture and they wrote share if you would give up your seat to a soldier flying standby #goinghome.

Oh man. It breaks my heart. Of course, I’m going to like, and I’m going to share, I’m going to agree, whatever, but you’re not telling a soldier that. All you’re doing is helping somebody create interaction on their Facebook page so that they can convert it to a business page at some point or profile it at some point and drive some money. Have calls to action. You could ask people to type yes if they agree. Like and share, that type of thing.

You need to do those things. You need to ask for that interaction in order for your post to become viral later and for your post to just to even be seen.