Twitter is a social tool used to keep followers up to date with short updates, comments, or thoughts in real-time. Being limited to only 140 characters, it is a quick and easy way for people to connect to the world around them everyday. In fact, for most, it is becoming part of their daily routine, which is a great bonus for your dealership.

On average, there are 255 million active users on Twitter each month, so the chances of you reaching your target audience is huge. You will be able to not only share news and updates about your dealership, but you will also be able to receive customer feedback and address their needs. Staying relevant on Twitter is key to your success on this platform, so be sure to use it to be personable, break news, announce sales, and respond to follower comments quickly.

It is also a great way to stay informed with what’s happening in the industry and network with others. Whether you follow industry leaders, competitors, and/or manufacturers or you’re actively searching for particular topics, using Twitter enables you to be up to date with real-time current trends or events, as well as seeing what your competitors are doing.

Below you will see a few tricks for tweeting!

• Be active. If you are following someone and they post something you like, retweet or reply to it. Be sure to respond to or favorite tweets mentioning you, especially if they are asking a question about something you posted. And respond to tweets from your followers quickly! Studies show that 72% of users expect a response from companies within an hour of tweeting them.

• Use hashtags. Hashtags allow you to get in front of particular audiences, as well as track how a particular event/sale/product is doing. Use them, but limit it to 1-2 per tweet. Too many hashtags prove to be less engaging. Have you seen our #constructionnews posts? #hashtagsrock

• Be current. Keep a calendar of any major events, such as holidays, sporting events or breaking news, and be sure to tweet about them. For example, the 2013 Super Bowl saw over 230,000 tweets per minute! Make sure you are part of that trend, and don’t forget to hashtag it. You can also be current with local events, keeping you engaged with your community.

• Use Images. With only 140 characters, you don’t have much space for explaining via text, so take advantage of images to do the explaining for you. Like the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words!”

• Be frequent. As we mentioned above, twitter is a source for real-time updates. Just make a sale? Ask your customer if you can tweet a picture of them in front of their new equipment. Storm coming through? Take a picture and tweet it out asking followers how they prepare for bad weather. Tweeting frequently keeps you in front of your followers.
  

Check out our Twitter page for inspiration and opportunities for content. We would love to see you follow us!

Does your dealership have a Twitter page? If so, how have you used it to interact with your followers and potential customers?