Six Secrets for Better Engagement

Want to do a better job on social media for your car wash? I’m giving away six secrets for better engagement on social media right now!

Hey guys! I’m Mike Berlin from Slam Carwash Marketing bringing you some new ideas to consider when marketing your car wash. It’s the Slam Six in this episode. These are six tips to getting more engagement on social media for your car wash.

Name of The Game

All right let’s face it; nobody cares about car washes on social media. I hate to say it, but they really don’t. Why would they when we’re just a car wash, it’s not like we’re Nike or Vans or Tesla? Well, that’s the challenge we got to give them—a reason to care and a reason to follow us on social media. The name of the game on social media is engagement. That’s it! I’m talking about likes, comments and shares. That’s truly what we’re after.

Do you know what your average engagement rate is for your car wash on social media? There’s a great book on social media called “Contagious” that I love. The author talks about why things take off on social media and refers to it as social currency, which is really anything that makes you look cool when you create a post. Ask yourself: does it have social currency?

When we talk about followers, let’s say your car wash has a hundred followers. When you post something to your timeline, how many people do you think will see it, all 100, 20 maybe? Most people think that all of your followers see all of your content on your post. Well, they don’t.

All About the Algorithm

Engagement is so important. When we post content that has a higher engagement rate, more people see it. The people that do nothing but post deals and promotions all day on your social media feeds is killing your engagement rate and eroding your audience. Facebook starts to see that nobody likes or comments on your post, so they start to show it to fewer people. It’s no longer apart of the algorithm. If you post content that gets more engagement, Facebook starts to show it to more and more people. You can see why engagement is the name of the game.

1. Make it Interactive

Ask and answer any questions asked by customers! One of my favorites that I see our crew post sometimes is like a shot of a bunch of shot of five car wash employees and they’re all smiling with their hands behind their back and the caption says, “Guess who is holding a free $20 gift card behind their back. The tenth person that guesses correctly wins.”

2. Group Shots

Every month, we study our posts across all of our clients, examine which posts get more engagement, and why our group shots got a higher engagement rate. I thought to myself, “Duh!” Each one of these kids in the picture has a Mom, Dad, Aunt, Uncle and friends. Take those ten likes and multiply it by five. Now you have 50 likes. The Facebook algorithm sees a spike in engagement and begins to share it to even more people.

3. Let Me Take a Selfie

I’m an old photographer and it always drives me crazy when I see people post pictures that have terrible composition. They frame people with their head right in the middle of the shot or take a shot of somebody and show the whole parking lot. Here’s an easy trick: Take selfies with your favorite customers. The framing is great, and everybody knows how to hold up the phone. Put your arm around a customer and take a selfie. It also shows a great connection with your customer and sends a good psychological cue to that audience. You would be amazed at the engagement that you get with good selfies with your favorite customers.

4. Make a Connection

When coming up with an idea for a post, remember that you’re sort of poking at that audience trying to drive likes, comments or shares. We made a post one time that with this sharp-looking kid at the car wash. He held up a card over his shoulder and we photoshopped a heart onto the card. The caption read, “Hey, this is Christian. Christian’s looking for a date for Valentine’s Day.” As you can imagine, it got all kinds of engagement. Everybody wanted to comment, like and share it.

5. Contests and Games

This is one of my favorites. Remember that we’re trying to get engagements; the sky is the limit. These types of posts where you are interacting with your customers are so much fun! They pull in so much engagement and people are more likely to look at your profile the next time you make a post. Here are some examples of interactive games you could use to gain some customer engagement:

• “Can find the hidden monster in the tunnel?”
• “Guess how many gallons of water is in our spot free tank.”
• “How many squares do you see in this image?”

6. Shout Outs

Shout out to the local heroes you know as car wash people. We really should know every high school football coach, scout leader, preacher and band director in the neighborhood. I always like to give shout outs to the teams when they win a big game. You would be amazed by the number of engagements you can get just from the local community by knowing who all the players are and knowing the high school teams.

That’s your Slam Six! There are so many ideas and directions you can take social media. I hope this gives you a new perspective and try some new ideas. If you want some advice or you need some help, email or call us at Slam. We are here to make car washing easy(er)!

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