Unless you have been ignoring Social Media, Industry Conferences and Publications for the last year you have probably heard how great Facebook can be for selling cars. At the same time, you are probably thinking the same thing 95% of the other salespeople are thinking – how the heck do I do it? How can I sell cars on Facebook? Great news for you, after reading this article, you will have plenty of information to get started immediately. The best part is what you will read here will cost $0. The only cost will be your time and effort to learn the two rules for selling cars on Facebook. Once you learn the two rules, I’ve included Ten Tips for selling cars on Facebook that when combined together will put you on your path to selling 30+ cars every month.

The very first rule for selling cars on Facebook is that people on Facebook have to know that you sell cars. How can they buy from you if they don’t know what you do? If your only Facebook Friends are real life friends and family, then you are missing a huge opportunity. You must become Facebook Friends with people in your market that you don’t know in real life. DO NOT send them a message immediately after they accept your Friend Request to tell them about the great deals you have on cars today. Instead, engage with their posts on Facebook. Comment on their pictures of kids, pets, food, etc. The more you engage with people, the more likely they are to see your posts. The more they see your posts and Comment or Like, the more of your posts they will see. It is very easy to get to know people with Social Media when you Like and Comment on their status updates and pictures. Share interesting posts from your Friends so that other people will read them. Guess what happens when you Share a post? Your friends see, their friends see, and more people are likely to notice you and realize you sell cars.

The second rule to selling cars on Facebook is to not sell cars on Facebook. This is really a rule for selling cars in general, not just on Facebook. The more you don’t sell, but instead HELP, the more you will sell. Treat every customer like they are your mom or best friend trying to buy a car. How would you interact with your mom if you were helping her find the car she wants to drive for the next 2-3 years? Would you try and trick her into buying right now using cheesy one-liners or would you provide all of the information you can to help her make the right choice for her?

If all you do is learn those two rules, you will increase your repeat and referral business almost immediately. If you really want to be successful and create your own business, learn those two rules and combine them with these Ten Tips:

1. Post Early and Post Often. Please don’t misunderstand this tip. This doesn’t mean you post all day long with pictures of cars for sale. This means post when you wake up every day and post again with a check-in at the Dealership every single day when you arrive. One post per week announcing to your family and friends that you have great deals will probably get you 1 or 2 sales a month, if you are really lucky. Posting every single day that you are at the Dealership will build awareness to your Facebook Friends that you are their friend that will help them get into a new vehicle. After your “Good Morning” post and your “Dealership check-in” post, you will want to post at least four more times during the day. These posts will vary based on your activities but should mostly be your real life happening.
2. When you do include vehicles for sale in your posts, they need to be a unique unit in your inventory. Post the 2009 car with 25,000 miles that just came in as a trade and let your friends know you can get them a great deal on a low mileage vehicle because its older than most cars you have on the lot. Post pictures of the cool Cars, Trucks and SUV’s with the sport packages and joke with your friends that if they come take a Test Drive, you can open it up for them. If you shoot a video, take the hour or two beforehand to learn how to add captions to the video so that people can read what you are saying because a lot of people will watch your video silently in their timeline.
3. Whenever you sell a car, become Facebook Friends with your customer. Have them post the picture of their new car and Tag you. This will increase your engagement and reach to their network and yours instead of just posting on your own timeline for your Friends to see.
4. Add photos and video to at least half of your posts, but if all you do is post pictures of cars for Sale, people will ignore you. The only time you should be posting a picture or video of a car is if you are in the picture or video with the car.
5. Never be negative. Avoid posting long rants about how you’ve been wronged by all of society. You also don’t want people to shake their heads in disgust after they read your post, nor do you want them feeling sorry for you.
6. Be inspiring or motivational only when you have something inspirational and motivational to say. This could be every day, but don’t force yourself to post every day because some days you won’t be “feeling it” and you will find yourself wasting 30 minutes to find something. That 30 minutes could be used in a much more valuable way.
7. Be real and be yourself. There is no reason to be fake, people will sense that and ignore you.
8. Don’t Tag tons of people in your posts. Facebook sees this as a lame attempt to get more exposure, so it doesn’t increase engagement and it will annoy people. Unless you are physically standing next to the person you are tagging, there is no reason to tag them.
9. Don’t create a meme a day. This is the fakest of the fake and a complete waste of time. Everyone sees through this and it brings zero value to anyone. Unless you are a comedian creating funny memes to sell tickets to your stand-up shows, your time as a Salesperson is far too valuable to waste trying to write or find a quote to put on an image every single day.
10. Don’t be political or controversial. It might be tempting to argue with your uncle, cousin or friend from high school, but this will not help you sell cars because half of the people will disagree with you, regardless of your position, and will not want to buy from you.

Now that you have all of the information, the only thing left to do is start right now. Don’t wait any longer because another Salesperson in your market is probably also reading this today. Just remember the two rules and consistently post on Facebook using these tips and you can grow your repeat and referral business to 30+ cars a month. Do it right and you’ll never have to take another up or depend on your Dealer to generate your leads again. You can even get to the point that you take most Saturdays off. YES, Really! Please feel free to contact me anytime [email protected] if you have questions or need any help with selling cars on Facebook.

About the Author

Introducing the latest and greatest technologies to the retail automotive space for almost 20 years as a Vendor, Joe Thistle is constantly learning how to help Dealers sell cars and increase their Fixed Ops business. Joe currently works with several strategic partners to provide Dealerships with complete Digital Marketing Strategies and Solutions. An avid fan of Sports, Movies and Gourmet Foods, Joe is a graduate of the University of Central Florida School of Business Administration and resides in Ormond Beach, FL.