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Ep. 12 – Top 5 Social Media Platforms that Will Boost Online Auto Part & Accessory Sales

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Pinterest
    • Many businesses are wary about using Pinterest for business, but you shouldn’t be. If you’re looking to drive more traffic and sales to your eCommerce parts store, Pinterest is one of the social networks you must add to your marketing arsenal.
  • Facebook
    • With nearly 2 million monthly active users, Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform with the most diverse audience.
  • Twitter
    • Twitter has 330 million monthly active users and 36% of which are millennials. This is important because 28% of the automotive segment is comprised of millennials, and it’s said to grow to 40% by 2020.
  • Instagram
    • With over 800 million monthly active users and over 500 million daily active users, Instagram has become a powerhouse in the social media landscape.
  • YouTube
    • One of the biggest trends in the world of marketing these days is video. On average, there are nearly 1 billion users on YouTube. If you are looking for a large amount of traffic to showcase your parts and accessories to, then YouTube is definitely where you need to be.

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Aaron: This episode of the Pitstop, we’ll be discussing the top five social media channels that can help you drive more parts and accessory sales.

Aaron: How you doing, man?

Chris: That’s always great. You asked me every day.

Aaron: I know. I know. I want to make sure you’re feeling good and if you’re not, I got to get you fired up, ready to go, ready to rock.

Chris: Well, if I said doughnuts could actually make the day a little bit better, would that mean you would have to go get me some doughnuts? 

Aaron: We could probably make something happen.

Chris: I’m doing great, but I would like some doughnuts. That could make it a little bit better.

Aaron: Okay. We’ll see what we can do. Can we get some doughnuts? Doughnuts anyone? Anyone? Staff? Thank you.

Chris: Thanks staff. Appreciate it.

Aaron: You’re going to go and get the doughnuts? You rock.

Aaron: I wanted to do a podcast about the top five social media channels to use and utilize to help you sell more auto parts and accessories online.

Chris: Yeah. I guess it can a bit a little overwhelming because there seems like there’s a new social channel that pops up every month, and if it’s not one of the big ones, it’s a small one. 

You’re always wondering should I be on that, you only have so much bandwidth, you can’t be on everything, which ones should you be on, where are your consumers, and what’s going to be the biggest bang for your buck if you’re going to allocate time and resources to being on a channel.

Aaron: Yeah. We’re going to break this down. Top five, starting with number five and hitting up our number one choice.

Coming in at number five. Boom. Number five. What is number five, Chris?

PINTEREST

Chris: Number five, it might come as a surprise to you guys, but I would say Pinterest is number five. I know. I get that reaction. You probably think why Pinterest for trying to sell auto parts and accessories. Are our consumers on Pinterest? People think that it’s very female focused, which it is. There are more females on Pinterest.

Aaron: There are female shoppers.

Chris: But, there is also female shoppers. That’s true, so you have to not appeal to one segment, you need to try to appeal to everybody because it is a big market and it’s more bigger and bigger. More and more females are buying parts and accessories online, also becoming more educated with how to find these parts online without having to go into the dealership, per se. 

Anyway, Pinterest is a great social media platform to be on because it’s very, very strong with images. These images show up very, very well in Google Search. As part of Google Search, there’s Google Image Search and Pinterest is a great way to be found. If you’re uploading photos of your popular parts and accessories on your Pinterest page, it’s a great way to get some referral traffic. 

Since Pinterest is such an authoritative website, it’s ranking right up with the Amazons, the eBays, and Google Image Search. We have clients that are on Pinterest, right now, that are getting hundreds of impressions every week from these images and it’s driving traffic to their site, so it’s a good pond to be in.

Aaron: Yep, so number five. Pinterest.

Chris: Number five. Pinterest.

Aaron: Number four.

FACEBOOK

Chris: Number four. This might be another shock that is actually this far down on the list, but Facebook. Facebook. You guys heard of Facebook before? I mean, it’s pretty big.

Aaron: Number four.

Chris: Yeah, number four.

Aaron: Okay. Okay.

Chris: Not one, two, three. It’s number four. Facebook is great, but I think consumers are starting to shift. They’re starting to use other platforms and-

Aaron: Let me interrupt you for half a second. You said consumers are starting to shift, and remember, and I want to reinforce this top five, we are focusing on millennial consumers. These are the 18 to 34 year olds who are buying at a high rate online, and are utilizing social media when buying auto parts online. We’re giving you this list to plan for it now, as well as plan for the future.

Chris: … Right because they’re going to be a bigger percentage of this market in the future. I believe the stat was 40%.

Aaron: They currently represent 40% of the automotive market as a whole right now, purchasing market. Number four on the list, Facebook with millennials, and consumers are starting to shift, so they’re not spending as much time on Facebook.

Chris: They’re still there, but with Facebook changing their algorithm and all these privacy concerns going on, we’re not seeing as much, consumers aren’t seeing as much content from brands in their feed because Facebook went back to how they started. They wanted to be more social which is good, but from a business perspective, it’s maybe not necessarily the best right now.

It’s still good, but it’s hard to engage on Facebook. It’s hard to get into their micro-communities where it’s easier to get into those micro-communities on some other sites which are future down on the list.

Aaron: Yes, so that’s a great segue, so number three on the list is-

TWITTER

Chris: Twitter.

Aaron: … Twitter. Great for engaging and jumping into conversations.

Chris: Exactly, so where Facebook really lacks and Twitter does an excellent job is being able to target consumers on keywords that they’re talking about. Somebody’s talking about a Honda Civic brake pad, or their car broke down, you can engage in that conversation. That’s something that you can’t do on Facebook. Profiles are private, and you can have private profiles on twitter too, but the great thing about Twitter is that you can engage in these conversations and that is huge.

That is a huge advantage for using Twitter, engaging in these conversations. You get to actually have your finger on the pulse and you can answer these questions that these consumers are asking.

Aaron: You can mine conversations, mind your competitors, and look for people who are talking about auto parts or accessories or specific vehicles, experiences with your brand, or other brands, and jump into those conversations and say, “Hey, you purchased with them, had a bad experience. Well, maybe next time think about us and here’s a promo offer.”

You can really get pretty granular and dig into a lot of conversations.

Chris: You said something very interesting as well, which is another benefit to Twitter is you can mind your competition. You can actually follow your competition and see who’s following them and engage with them, so a world of perfect information right there at your fingertips that you can utilize with Twitter. Twitter is number three on the list.

Aaron: Now, that takes us to number two.

INSTAGRAM

Chris: Number two. Number two is Instagram and-

Aaron: Instagram.

Chris: … you guys have probably been hearing more and more about Instagram because it is crushing it right now, as far as social channels go, especially for millennials. I personally use Instagram way more than Facebook. It’s where I, not only engage with my friends, but I’m checking in on brands and businesses, especially the ones that are putting out valuable content. 

Instagram is another great platform where you can engage with consumers on what they’re talking about. Like twitter, you can locate hashtags and engage with people that posted about they’re having problems with their Chrysler that broke down. You can engage with these people and that’s huge, where as Facebook, you really can’t do that.

Aaron: Then, also the option to purchase. You can tag the-

Chris: Your products.

Aaron: … image with the pricing. You can purchase right there. Boom. Everything become frictionless. I’m a Mazda dealer and want to jump into conversations about Miatas and engage with people there, I can search that information out, and then I’m posting Miata accessories.

Chris: Right. Parts and accessories. 

Aaron: I’m getting in there and I’m saying “Hey, I’m here,” and people see that in that group and they’re like, “You know what, I was thinking about that. I’ll purchase it,” I think I can purchase it just like that.

Chris: You can see the price, you can buy it natively within Instagram, or you can link to the website, so it’s a great way for referral traffic as well.

Aaron: The last one on our list. Number one.

YOUTUBE

Chris: Numero uno is YouTube. YouTube is amazing. I mean, I use it every day. I know you use it every day. Consumers are going there a lot for how-to’s, how to fix stuff, and how to install things. It’s a great resource for you guys. YouTube is amazing and there’s a stat here I have.

By 2019, global consumer internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer internet traffic by smallbiztrends.

Aaron: It’s crazy.

Chris: Boom. Right there.

Aaron: Being able to utilize creating those videos, creating product videos, creating do-it-yourself videos, we create product videos for our clients like these, basically, QVC looking videos. Put one up right here. Ding. [inaudible 00:09:52]. 

Being able to utilize those, consumers are looking for those DYI videos, they see our product videos, and then also from the NSEO standpoint-

Chris: They index. Amazing.

Aaron: … those product videos are indexing. Huge.

Chris: First page of google, usually.

Aaron: First page of Google within minute, if you do it correctly, and we do. Boom, boom, boom. That is our top five social channels. Pinterest number five, Facebook number four, Twitter number three, Instagram number two, and YouTube number one. Chris, thank you, as always, for giving us the rundown on these social channels.

Speaking of social channels, we’ve got some social channels too, right?

Chris: Yeah, we’ve got some social channels. Don’t forget to follow us, you guys, on Instagram @oeminteractive, Twitter, and also don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, and if you like it, hit a like.

Aaron: Yeah. See you guys next time.

auto parts marketing, ecommerce marketing, auto parts agency, selling parts online

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