How to use social media to attract more customers to your car wash

If you have created a website for your car wash, that does not mean that you don't need to bother with social media. Potential customers can find out all the information they need by visiting your site – but they have to find it first. This is where social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram can be extremely helpful.

Create a distinctive visual design

Your car wash looks modern and professional, and it has a fancy logo too – so far, so good. For engaging social media posts, it's helpful to take a closer look at your customers. Who is using your car wash? If your customers are drivers who do not just use their cars to get from A to B, but who lovingly look after and maintain them, you can offer to take great pictures of the car wash with their car. This way you can ensure that your business is perceived not just as a car wash, but as the part of life that revolves around the cars and their care.

Appealing pictures attract attention

Information is all very well and good, but pictures always attract more attention. If your employees agree to having their picture taken, you can include them – if a person is seen in the photo, it appears more realistic and inviting. So instead of just taking a picture of a poster announcing your promotional offer, you can post a picture in which one of your employees is about to hang up the poster (which is clearly visible in the picture). Images of vouchers are more personal when the hands of the person selling or buying are visible.

Post information on a regular basis

Whenever you launch a discount promotion, not only do you notify your customers about it with posters and on your website, but also via Facebook. Here the likes you receive from friends attract potential customers to your car wash, who to date had not heard anything about you. Ask your followers to share posts as well. You do not have to do a prize draw to get them to do that. Loyal and enthusiastic followers and customers like doing that. In addition, you can gradually point out various benefits that your customers enjoy with you – such as when you partner with other service providers in the neighborhood, or when you sell vouchers.

A supreme means of advertising – videos

An extremely dirty car pulls up on the car wash premises. Two employees (easily recognizable by their shirts) look at him seriously, then roll up their sleeves and walk towards him. In quick clips it is shown how they prepare the car for the wash and how it drives into the car wash. Finally, it drives out again – in slow motion, while the sun sparkles on the shiny, clean paintwork. The employees admire the result and congratulate themselves with a high five. The owner drives off the forecourt with a happy smile. Cut. Set all this to the most exaggerated music possible (threatening/sad at the beginning, fast and repetitive in the middle section and as epic as possible at the end) and you have a video that many people are likely to find funny and memorable.

If you manage to get people sharing your short clips on Facebook, you'll be able to gain a high number of new customers in no time. Even today many high-end smartphones allow you to perform unusual tricks with videos – not just fast and slow motion, but also editing. If this is too much work for you, you can also take before and after photos (for this you and your employees can spend a lot of time on dirty roads with their cars). They look good on Facebook. Without a lot of effort, you can also use it to produce slideshow videos with free programs – i.e. videos in which pictures are displayed one after the other. But in general, if it's moving and colorful, internet users will like it.

Harmless bit of fun

If you want to use social media, you should make sure that you do this on a regular basis and that the posts are more or less consistent. It seems strange when the customers are sometimes addressed formally and other times more casually. Accordingly, it is best if one person looks after the posts. Anyone who does this with humor and charm is usually rewarded on Facebook. Some people even like pages that are irrelevant to them if they do not want to miss the next funny message.

If you have a trusted joker among your employees who can add a touch of humor to your posts, this can increase your reach enormously. You can also post their comments on Twitter. However, you must be careful here that the posts do actually remain factual and a harmless bit of fun. If someone posts things on behalf of your company that offend, discriminate or hurt people, this will soon backfire! Even personal opinions have no place here – the focus of all posts should always be the car wash.

Using social media successfully requires effort

Additional customer acquisition through social media can be done quickly and well, but you will need to put some effort into it for it to be successful. A Facebook page with eight likes, on which nothing happens, won't achieve anything for you and can even be off-putting if a potential customer is in doubt. Also too infrequent or boring posts with uninteresting or blurry pictures do not help. On the other hand, good pictures, bright colors, ideally videos and short, punchy or even witty texts attract the sympathetic attention of many potential customers online.

If you do not have enough time to post articles of your own, or if you need suggestions, just have a look at the pages of car wash manufacturers. On Mark VII's Facebook and Instagram pages you will find many posts you can share or use as a basis for your own ideas.