For the last few months, I’ve been enhancing my communication skills by working on Bavarian Auto Haus Reno’s social media accounts. This opportunity came to me because the client is my maternal uncle. Mark Bartholomew just became the owner of the Bavarian Auto Haus and was handed social media platforms. The previous social media manager did not have a clear plan and would often post copy that was misspelled.
Once the account was handed over to me, I had a few goals and ideas that I wanted to incorporate on the Facebook account:
- Profile picture to logo
- Change cover photo for Facebook
- Post more content that is similar or same posts on Facebook and Instagram
- Increase Instagram following – possibly through reels
- Customer Reviews on Google and Facebook
- Facebook business analytics and Instagram insights
- Cross promote Facebook and Instagram posts about facts and recent projects face of business posts posts featuring reviews
I then sent these goals to my client and we talked about the specifics of what he was looking for. Essentially, I was given free reign of both Facebook and Instagram through the Meta-Business Suite.
I started out by updating the Facebook profile picture. Through my research, businesses should use their logo as their profile picture, instead of an actual photograph.
However, my client did not have access to the original logo design, so I took it from their website and recreated it on Adobe Illustrator.
This was a challenging task because I am not as familiar with Adobe Illustrator and its tools. I ended up watching a YouTube tutorial on creating a checkered grid to recreate the flag part of the logo. I then used the color picker tool to select the correct shade of blue to match the original design.
From there I updated Bavarian Auto Haus’ Facebook profile picture and started making posts online.
The posts fell into a few different categories:
- Community
- Promotional
- Fun Facts
Since Bavarian Auto Haus specialized on BMW models and a Mini Coopers, the posts were centered around those types of cars.
I found pictures of BMWs from free use websites like Pexels or Pixabay and incorporated those into my posts. If I could not find exactly what I was looking for, I would use car related photos to accompany my posts.
Below is an example of an earlier post of mine where I did not include a BMW vehicle, but still stayed on brand.
When different holidays came up, I also created shareable posts on Canva with the brand logo.
This graphic below was created for Veteran’s Day. It became the highest performing posts I made. The post reached 130 people, had 9 post engagements, 6 reactions, and 2 shares.
For Thanksgiving, I used this graphic as a way to celebrate the holiday and the post to announce the alternative hours over the holiday weekend. This way, the post was festive and informative. The graphic was also made on Canva with a free use picture I found online.
One of the challenges I had was trying to convince my client to post more on Instagram. When I started, there were only 8 followers and minimal posts. Unlike Facebook, my client did not give me access to Instagram, so I could only post through the Meta Business Suite.
In the future, I would like to put more effort into the Instagram account and grow the following.
Another challenge I had was coming up with consistent post ideas. My goal was to post three times per week; however, I had minimal car knowledge and I was working off-site.
This meant that I could not communicate directly with my client or get content from the shop itself. I needed to be more creative.
I asked my client periodically about any upcoming promotions I could post about. One sale they were having was 10% off any brake service until the end of the year. I used that information multiple times in posts since it was an ongoing promotion.
Overall, I learned a great deal about working with Bavarian Auto Haus as a real-life client.
Firstly, I learned the importance of taking initiative. My client did not have a clear idea of what they wanted and when I waited for their approval, the process was much slower. I came to understand that the client trusted me to produce quality content, so I could do it on my own.
I also learned that I do not need to be a car expert to post quality content for a auto repair shop. I do, however, need to use my understanding of social media to create posts that appeal to an audience of car lovers.
Lastly, it is important to use my resources or holidays to come up with post ideas. Creative burn out is a real issue. When this happened, I would look at upcoming holidays, weather reports, or posts on competitors pages. This would give me inspiration to create effective and unique posts.
I hope to continue working with Bavarian Auto Haus in the future.