Are you responsible for social media posts for your car wash(es)? Do you wish or feel you could do better? You can always up your game by following a few standard content marketing tips.

Content Calendar. The marketing gurus will tell you that you need a content calendar. A content calendar is a written plan of ideas and topics that you will post about over a period of time. Think of it as a “to-do” list. The time you spend making a content calendar makes it faster and easier when you need to create a social media post. You can be ambitious and plan for the entire year or you might choose to do one month at a time.

Post frequency. How often should you post? Well it depends. Are you the car wash manager and have only 30 minutes a week to think about social media posts? Are you the full time marketing manager of your carwashes? Once again the marketing gurus will give you varied opinions. It is more important to commit to regular posting. Being organized and planning ahead (remember the content calendar) will streamline the posting process. You may find that one post a week will easily become three  or four posts a week.

Social media platform. Where should you channel your energy? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, SnapChat, Pinterest — the possibilities are endless. Checking platform statistics, Facebook has 2.45 billion users and Instagram has 1 billion users. These two platforms are probably a good place to start.

Timesaver when posting to multiple platforms. If you are posting to two or more social media platforms, can you post to multiple sites with just one post? Of course! Social media management platforms like Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social, Agora Pulse, Sendible and many more give you the ability to post simultaneously across multiple social media platforms. There are free versions and paid plans. For most carwashes, the free or lowest priced plan will be a satisfactory option. These platforms offer the ability to schedule out your posts so you could theoretically create all of your posts one Saturday afternoon.

What kind of posts do better? Once again, it depends on your audience.

  • All marketing research validates that posts with images always do better. Which type of image to use becomes trickier. Some research articles will say a person in the photo is good. Another research will say that no person is better. There is even research that states a portion of a person in the image is best. The only consensus is that the image should be eye-catching and make the reader stop and take note of your post.
  • Posts can be newsy, fun, informational, polls. Not all types of posts will match the needs of your type of car wash
  • Don’t forget to use hashtags which may increase search results and engagement

The 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule indicates that 80% of social media posts should be useful to your audience — meaning, it educates, entertains, or offers a solution to their problems — and only 20% should explicitly promote your business. People don’t go on social media to see advertisements. They log on because they’re bored and want connection, entertainment, inspiration, or information that can improve their life. (from https://www.brandmuscle.com/resources/the-80-20-rule-explained/

 

Tired of reading the “tips” that many marketing sites will write about? Okay, let’s look at March 2021 and create a content calendar for a car wash. Remember, not all posts or ideas will apply to your car wash operations. The methodology outlined is not what everyone uses and it may not be the “best” for you. The goal of this article is to help you get your creative juices flowing and find your own social media voice. Here is one way you might think about creating your March 2021 content calendar:

sample content calendar for a car wash – March 2021

 

Step 1: Download a blank calendar. Alternatively you can create a content calendar on an excel spreadsheet or as a document.

Step 2: Search for any national holidays or special days. There are many sites that list holidays – here are some that you may want to review:

Step 3: Pick a few that you may want to highlight and fill in the calendar. Here are the ones I chose for March 2021 (notice that I wrote in the hashtag if available):

  • March 2 is National Read Across America Day / Dr. Seuss Day
  • March 14 is National Pi Day / Albert Einstein’s birth date #PiDay
  • March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day #StPatricksDay
  • March 20 is the first day of Spring
  • March 23 is National Puppy Day #NationalPuppyDay
  • March 26 is Live Long And Prosper Day (Leonard Nimoy’s birth date) #llap
  • March 31 is National Crayon Day

Step 4: Write down some themes that might be relative to the month of March. I thought of the following:

  • Green – the color
  • Green – green practice, environment
  • Spring colors
  • Spring cleaning
  • Baseball (major league season starts April 1, always good to look a little beyond the time frame you are planning for)
  • End of winter

Step 5: Brainstorm some ideas that you might have about the special days you selected. For this calendar I am tying in a promotion for those days. You don’t have to run a promotion for every special day. These are just ideas that will hopefully spur some awesome creative activities by you!

  • On March 2 – celebrating Dr. Seuss
    • Post images of team members with their favorite Seuss book
    • Post an image of someone reading a Seuss book as they enter the wash
    • Offer promotional pricing or package upgrade is someone posts a photo of themselves and a Seuss book
    • Post images of team members wearing Cat in the Hat top hats
    • Try a poll of favorite titles
    • Every wash is a contribution to a local literacy project
  • On March 14 – national PI day
    • Wash cars that have the numerical digits 314 (in that order) in the license plate for free
    • Cross market with any local pizza restaurants who may be doing a PI day special
  • On March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day
    • Wash any green car for free (Stu Mandel used to run all sorts of fun promotions like this at Gas House Express Car Wash)
    • Wash any car driven by someone named “Patrick” for free
  • On March 20 – first day of Spring
    • Post image of new landscaping
    • Post image of colorful triple foams
    • Remind customers to “spring clean their vehicles” – come in for a wash
  • On March 23 – National Puppy Day
    • Free or upgraded wash for customers who have a puppy in the back seat
    • Contribution to the local dog shelter for every customer with a puppy ibn the back seat
    • Coupon for discounted interior cleaning if they bring a puppy to the wash
    • Dog treats on hand
  • On March 26 – Live Long and Prosper Day
    • Run a promotional time where everyone who brings in their car to be washed and gives the attendant (yes you will need to put out an attendant) the Vulcan hand sign – gets something instantly – money, coupon for free wash – something that makes them ‘prosperous’
  • On March 31 – National Crayon Day
    • Just like every other marketer, I’m a little low on ideas right now. However, I will leave it on my calendar because I might think of something in a few days.
    • Maybe a poll post would be interesting.

Step 5: Brainstorm some ideas for posts to fill in the blank spots. Use your theme ideas to help you. Some posts can and should be run every month. Here are some of my ideas:

  • Highlight a team member
  • Green car wash practice – using a professional carwash is better than washing a car in your driveway – saves water, keeps our water system cleaner
  • Green car wash practice – if you use reclaim compatible chemicals, you are doing your part to reclaim and reuse water
  • With everyone staying home for remote work – maybe taking the car for a wash can be someone’s guilt-free “me-time”
  • Baseball is around the corner – maybe you will have a fundraiser associated with some local little league teams and give proceeds for cars washed on a specific day.
  • Don’t forget about traditional posts that include images of your car wash, wash packages, hours, etc.

Step 6: Think about how simple your images can be and plan to take the photos. Many can be done ahead of time.

  • Suess day – image 1 is a team member with “Green Eggs and Ham”
  • Seuss day – image 2 is a different team member with “Horton Hears a Who”
  • Seuss day – image 3 is a group photo of team member wearing cat in the hat top hats
  • PI Day promo image 1 – use a graphic with the PI symbol
  • PI Day promo image 2 – pizza or pie slice
  • PI Day promo image 3 – mock up a license plate with 314 in it
  • Patrick’s Day image 1 – is your name Patrick (collage of famous stars named Patrick)
  • Patrick’s Day image 2 – green leprechauns
  • Patrick’s Day image 3 – green car
  • National Puppy Day images – anyone with a puppy in the back seat
  • Live Long and Prosper image 1 – Vulcan hand sign with car wash in the background
  • Live Long and Prosper image 2 – team members giving the Vulcan hand sign
  • Live Long and Prosper image 3 – photo of customers giving the Vulcan hand sign
  • Charity Event – for some social media posts you can use the same image over multiple days. Simply changing the tint of the photo will make it look different. You can also create a different colored background for your message.

Step 7: Write draft posts. Answering the old “who-what-where-when-why” is a good way to start drafting posts. The more often you write social media posts the easier it gets. Every car wash will have their own social media voice.

  • On [date] [carwash name] will be [doing what]. Customers [write in the conditional description] will [what do they get]. Plan to wash your car at [car wash name].
  • On [date] [carwash name] will be [doing what]. For every customer [write in the conditional description] our wash will be [description of donation or charitable action]. Thank you for supporting [recipient organization].
  • [date] is [special day name]! On [date] [carwash name] will be [describe what you are doing]. #hashtag

It takes time to create a monthly content calendar. It can be fun and easy when you have more than one person brainstorming some ideas. Once you have a content calendar don’t be afraid to change or add to the calendar. Things happen, both good and bad, that can alter your posting schedule. Bottom line – start by creating a content calendar, try to follow your plan and then evaluate if your social media marketing made a difference. Happy posting!

 

Lori Vertin | Marketing Director, Ver-tech Labs | lvertin@ver-techlabs.com