Blue Helm

Photo By:Graeme Weatherston

If you follow social media blogs, you read time and time again that content is king. You’ll continually see statements like, “You must provide interesting content your customers will value!” This is all well and good, but how do you come up with content that’s worth publishing? I see so many individuals and businesses that open a Twitter account, start a Facebook Page or publish a blog, but post content that is really dumb, boring or, worst of all, disingenuous.

So what do you do? You own a business or you’re in charge of marketing and you keep hearing that you need to be a part of this huge social media craze, but you just can’t think of anything great to post.

Never fear! Blue Helm is here to help. We decided to create The Brain Storm, a blog series that illustrates ideas and suggestions we hope will enhance the quality of the content on your social media sites. The ideas will be wide-ranging and can be applied to a blog, Facebook, Twitter, Friend Feed, Flicker, YouTube or any other social media account. Each week we’ll come up with a number of content ideas for a new type of business. We’re open to requests and hope you will comment and add your own ideas.

This week I decided to focus on how to enhance social media content for a small auto repair shop. From what I can see, there aren’t very many repair shops in the social media sphere. I found a few, but most were not using their tools very well (I thought Favour Auto Repair in Greensboro, NC ran a pretty good Twitter page @FavourAuto). But for most auto repair shops with a social media presence, it boils down to really bad or limited content.  So without further ado, here are ten social media content ideas for an auto repair shop:

1. Give repair and car care tips. You can tweet or post updates about what to do when your car overheats or when your clutch feels too tight or too loose. What benefits are there to using a higher octane gas? How often should I get my fluids checked? You get the idea.
2. Post special deals on Twitter or Facebook. You could offer a discount for an oil change or tire rotation. Running specials will increase your followers and get more people in your store.
3. Refer your followers to businesses that do things you don’t. Maybe your repair shop doesn’t do body work, but you know of a really good shop down the street that does. Sharing information like this shows your customers that you care. Not only are you developing a better relationship with your customers, but the other shop will appreciate the business you’re sending them and they may even reciprocate.
4. Provide testimonials from customers. There’s no better way to prove your company is the best than through a satisfied customer.
5. Post pictures. Update photos of your employees, the work space, the newly-decorated waiting area, customers using your WiFi, etc. These pictures will not only show the human element in your shop, but what is available at your shop.
6. Run contests to invoke more participation from fans. Some ideas for contests include:
   1. Who has the best before-and-after pictures of a car they fixed up?
   2. Who has the craziest ‘my car broke down’ story?
   3. Who owns the prettiest/ugliest car out there?
7. Try a giveaway. You could give something free to the first person who comes into your shop with the answer to a trivia question you asked on one of your networks.
8. Comment on current events. Post your perspective on things happening to car companies in the bad economy (just make sure to keep your posts politically neutral and without controversy).
9. Generate discussion, particularly on your Facebook Page. You could have employees write about their favorite type of car or why they got into the car repair industry. Ask your customers and fans to include their opinions.
10. Run a “Hottest Car” tournament. Every week you could compare two cars and have your fans vote for which one they think is cooler. Put the winner against a new car the next week.

Do you have any additional content ideas for an auto repair shop? How about requests for future posts? Let me know!