With the increase of consumer preference to use online channels for communication, it’s crucial to devote attention to who might be best equipped to handle these valuable customer relationships. Today’s social media is marketing, PR, sales, and customer service all wrapped up into one. Your social media manager should possess the specific, unique skills to ensure the dealership’s digital reputation is protected.
“Hiring the best is your most important task.” –Steve Jobs
Who exactly is the best person to speak for your store?
It’s not a simple answer. After all, their job duties encompass so many different aspects of visibility in the customer’s journey. A customer’s experience is unique to each individual and it must be managed globally using the “new” marketing funnel:
1. Awareness
2. Engagement
3. Consideration
4. Purchase
5. Adoption
6. Retention
7. Expansion
8. Advocacy
Quite simply, “customer experience” is the sum of all experiences people have with your store, which includes a customer’s behaviors, attitudes, and emotions about you.
A savvy approach is mandatory to navigate the nuances of each online property and it’s not a job that just anyone can handle. Many dealerships leave their digital reputation susceptible to digital destruction.
It’s surprising to know that many dealers haven’t put much focus on this social media manager position. Some haven’t designated someone to manage all of the components of their online marketing, thereby leaving their digital reputation vulnerable.
Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking your digital reputation is “just fine” without your attention. Believing it’s not necessary to go to the expense or trouble of making sure your reputation is protected is a great way to ensure that it’s not.
Managing conversations is key.
Conversations about your store should be monitored and managed accordingly. Someone must make sure responses are thoughtful, informed and a mirror of the customer experience delivered in real life. Leaving this to chance with an inexperienced team or person is dangerous and leads to lost sales.
If I’ve done my job at this point in the article, I’ve convinced you to employ someone to oversee your online assets. Before you make a decision on who that will be, it’s crucial to identify the ideal skills they should possess.
Here are 10 traits of an extraordinary social media manager:
1. Social Media Savvy
- She/he should be a regular user of social media personally and should be well-immersed in the social environment.
- She/he should be able to tell a good story. If they have a blog or write for online media, check out what they’ve written. It’s a great way to observe their skills and decide if their personal brand fits the company’s criteria.
2. Branding and Marketing Experience
We’ve talked about how social media is equal parts marketing, branding, sales, PR/crisis management, reputation building, and data analysis.
I can’t tell you how many employees I’ve met who’ve been put in charge of a dealership’s social media that have ZERO branding and marketing experience.
Social media is simply a channel(s) with which to engage customers and deliver key messages that are relevant to their needs, concerns, and challenges. Experience level is evident in your message and your results.
3. Ability to Focus
Focus is fast becoming an essential marketing skill. Amid the many distractions facing social media managers, the ability to concentrate has become increasingly complicated.
We lost our focus on social media, which has made interruption an art and science. The very medium we work in has provided so many distractions that it’s a gigantic task just to keep track of what we were doing 15 minutes ago.
From meetings to content creation to compliance training to social community management to Facebook ads, the sheer deluge of interruptions is enough to make even the most Zen person turn and run.
Until there is a unified answer to this onslaught, focus remains an individual skill the modern marketer must strive to master.
4. Emotional Maturity
- A social media manager must have the ability to maintain perspective and above all, not take things personally.
- The ability to understand and manage one’s emotions supports your dealership’s healthy online community.
- Here are the signs of emotional maturity:
- You maintain a positive attitude
- You’re independent
- You’re truthful
- You’re responsible
- You’re accessible
- You’re gracious and giving
- You notice and verbalize (with composure) when you’re wrong
- You’ve created a space between feeling and reacting
- You’re compassionate to yourself and others
- You know when to quit and when to persevere
- You know when, who, and how to ask for help
- You’ve realized the more you know, the less you know, and you’re OK with it
- You seek self-mastery
5. Empathy and Patience
Empathy is the key to great customer service and make no mistake, social media IS customer service. The act of putting yourself in your customers’ shoes helps a great deal with understanding their needs and addressing them accordingly. During tense crisis situations, where there’s an audience watching, a social media manager may not always deliver a solution, but she/he can always deliver empathy.
Empathy is also vital in creating high-quality social media content and ads. Content hits the mark when the customer is left thinking, “Wow, that was meant just for me!” Empathy is what allows a social media manager to create such content.
“Patience is not passive. On the contrary, it is concentrated strength.” – Bruce Lee
- Sometimes, customers will be angry with you.
- Sometimes, customers will need extra attention to understand things.
- Sometimes, things will simply be difficult.
The worst thing to do in these situations is to lose your cool.
Impatience not only impedes our ability to enjoy life, but it makes us worse at doing the difficult things (like being an extraordinary social media manager). Understanding the addictive nature of anger, irritation, and outrage helps prepare for crisis situations. The more unhappy customers feel these emotions, the more likely they are to keep feeling them, so keep your cool. Listen, empathize and use your strength to diffuse their energy.
6. Clear, Concise, Professional
When customers engage with your store, they expect (often subconsciously) proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. This is an easy point to forget – so don’t.
User-generated content (content that customers produce, such as online reviews) is representative of the experience another buyer can expect. Prospects examine reviews to become knowledgeable about the business and your review responses are included in their perceptions. Poorly written review responses or robot-sounding “corporate speak” will work against a dealership’s digital reputation. These can damage any goodwill you’ve earned because it looks like you don’t care.
7. Ability to Recognize Leads
Social media, including online review sites, are places where people share their experiences and opinions. Often during those conversations, questions will arise. A social media manager’s job is to monitor for those questions and recognize them as opportunities to bring a customer closer. She/he must be able to distinguish a lead and treat each as though the person were physically in front of them.
Pro Tip: If you are asked a question (typically they appear in the comments of your posts or on Facebook Messenger), make every attempt to answer their question. Then, pose another consultative question that will help them think through their purchase decision and ultimately guiding them to the appointment. These are the tenets of consultative sales but to the buyer, it’s advocacy.
8. A Sense of Humor
First, let me note that humor is not for amateurs – it should only be attempted by those who aspire to master it. And by master it, I mean that a reasonable person would laugh or find humor in your content. That said, I’ve included a sense of humor in my list here because you don’t have to be funny to have a sense of humor. I have many friends who can’t tell jokes or write funny posts, but they laugh at funny stuff.
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. Laughter is a universal means of communication. Humor can humanize a business. In social media (and all marketing), people pay big bucks to reduce the distance between people so if you can master it successfully, humor rules.
9. Auto Industry Experience a Plus
While it’s an added bonus that a candidate has experience in the auto industry, it’s not a requirement. An overview of operations and an immersive trek into company culture will go far. With a high empathy quotient, she/he will quickly get up to speed on how the industry works.
10. Ability to Resolve – Not Inflame
The capacity to balance a timely response with a reasoned response fosters resolution. Inflammatory remarks and/or behavior will not resolve anything. A social media manager may often be working on their own without supervision, so a calm approach to any conversation, including conflict resolution, should be in their wheelhouse.
Bonus Tip: A social media manager must have authority.
An empowered social media manager takes responsibility and becomes accountable to see every issue through to the end. With authority, they can escalate an issue, follow through with the players involved, and respond to the customer in a timely, respectful manner. Without authority, they are crippled and the customer receives a poor experience.
Your social media speaks for your organization. Develop a sensible social media strategy to manage your digital reputation effectively and secure it all by choosing the right person, with the right skills, to maintain it.