Motorcycle Site Facebook Management
Choosing a Social Media Manager
In today’s world, using your motorcycle site’s Facebook well is not optional. Below, you can learn how to maximize the value of your Facebook (FB) marketing efforts. More importantly, you can learn how not to lose money on Facebook.
* 70% plus of American adults use Facebook (Pewresearch.com).
* 34.6 minutes per day is the average amount of time US users spend on Facebook (Hootsuite.com).
If your FB marketing manager isn’t an expert in several areas, you might need to find another one. Now, that might sound abrupt.
However, your Facebook results will be mediocre without the areas of expertise noted below. And using Facebook to market your motorcycle business has too much potential value to waste the opportunity.
Now, let’s get to the basics of social media management (SMM) – it is often defined as creating a social strategy, publishing posts, and analyzing the results. In addition, this article answers a common question – How does a biker company make money and get value from a Facebook page?
Biker Facebook Manager’s Knowledge
First, your Facebook manager must be an expert on Facebook in general. The other area that is a “must” and that is too often disregarded is expertise in the motorcycle world. So, what expertise does your Facebook marketer need? Below, I break it down into four areas:
- Product Knowledge – Your marketing manager must know about your product(s) or service(s) to create accurate and convincing content. It is better if your marketer has or uses the product(s) or service(s).
- Target Audience Knowledge – Your FB person must be able to identify your best target audience. If your marketer targets the wrong audience, it will waste your time and money. Notably, it is better if your FB marketer is part of your target audience.
- Industry Knowledge – A SMM agency manager must know the motorcycle industry. Working in the industry is better, as they will know more.
- Riding Experience – Your success on Facebook will be much higher if your marketing person rides. In particular, this gives your FB person a unique perspective that is shared with riders/your target audience. This translates into better Facebook content that convinces people to buy your product(s) or service(s).
Your Facebook strategy will be off even without just one of these items. Note that these are the same qualifications that an Instagram marketer needs. Additionally, these qualifications help you contact motorcycle world influencers to help with your social marketing.
Problems with a Non-Rider FB Manager
A person can only learn so much sitting behind a desk, even if they work for a business doing social media management. Your company sells products or services to riders, and it is easier to create compelling content if they ride. Many riders in your target audience will recognize it if your SMM doesn’t ride. As you know, many bikers don’t want to learn about a product from a non-rider.
Yes, a generalist Facebook and SMM consultant can do research. And research is essential. But you don’t want to hire a generalist marketing agency. A good analogy is that you don’t take your Harley to a Hyundai mechanic for performance upgrades.
Imagine if your consultant told a rider about motorcycles when they only had research experience. It would be apparent that they knew little about motorcycles or bikers. Therefore, marketers with miles on the road are essential to creating profitable Facebook strategies.
Also, first impressions matter, and Facebook posts by non-riders won’t create a good first impression. Now, what about non-riders who do cookie-cutter/template-style Facebook posts? By this, I mean they use the same format for every FB post.
Template-style posts are okay for a very limited niche in the biker world. However, this background doesn’t qualify someone to manage most motorcycle Facebook accounts.
Bad Facebook Marketer Example
Years ago, I met an “expert” in Facebook marketing. She was very nice, but she didn’t ride. Now, she had six years of Facebook marketing experience and is an expert in many areas. Her employer is also one of the world’s largest Facebook and Instagram agencies.
So, I created a hypothetical client to see if her marketing experience alone could work in the motorcycle industry. My hypothetical client sold skull and flame-style biker t-shirts.
She stated what she thought the target audience was. It included both males and females. Also, she said the target audience included people 18 years old and older. Noteworthy was that she did not include an age limit. Her audience also included anyone who liked motorcycle accessories, motorcycles, and clothing.
The problem was that her target audience was too broad and even worse, it was way off the mark. At first, I didn’t know what to say. But I eventually said, “Probably an 80-year-old grandma who likes clothing like dresses isn’t the ideal target audience.”
She said, “Well, I can learn as I go.” This meant, “Money can be thrown away while I create social content that turns off your target audience. And that gets you zero sales until I hopefully learn about the motorcycle world.”
After that, she said she was an expert in Facebook’s technical tools. And maybe she was. But who cares if she creates great reports with colorful graphs showing her horrible results?
Then, I wanted to know what she would post on this hypothetical shirt company’s Facebook page. And the first thing she said was, “Maybe a pretty picture of one of those neat three-wheel motorcycles that you sit in [a Slingshot].” And she said the text would be “Something like ‘bikers are the coolest.’”
No, I didn’t laugh or try to explain. I just thanked her for her input and changed the topic. For the above reasons, you can see that even a desk jockey with expert Facebook marketing experience doesn’t always work. And especially if they don’t ride. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if your social person has been a desk jockey in the motorcycle world. Riders on a Facebook page will quickly recognize that they don’t ride.
Technical Knowledge of Facebook Ads
Next, another absolute “must” is to have your SMM agency be an expert in the FB ad platform. And when I say the “ad platform,” I’m not talking about simple boosts. The best option for advertising on Facebook is using the Ads Manager. This is because the ability to target is much better. And if your targeting is incorrect or too broad, it wastes money.
Facebook Ad Platform Expertise
Again, let’s start with another example. A few years ago, I talked to the longtime Facebook manager for one of the top five largest US motorcycle rallies, which are the Sturgis Rally, Daytona, Laconia Motorcycle Week, Leesburg, and Lone Star Rally. I started talking about how awesome Facebook’s ad platform was for dialing in the rally’s target audience. At first, she agreed and nodded, “Yeah, yeah.”
Then she started getting a slightly concerned look and asked questions. The first was, “How can I better target riders on Facebook?”
And the second question was, “How does Facebook’s ad platform work again?” Then the third question was, “What are Facebook lookalike audiences?” These were great questions. However, the problem was that she had no idea about Facebook’s high-tech ad platform.s
So, this is an example of an online marketing person who knows a lot about riders. She knew about Facebook in general, motorcycles, the biker world, and rallies. However, her Facebook technical marketing knowledge was average. Of course, if she had been an expert, it would have increased engagement and decreased the cost of ads.
If she had known the Facebook Ad platform, she could have increased site traffic, etc. It wouldn’t be surprising if she could have improved the rally’s attendance by 10% or more, which would have raised the rally’s and vendor sales.
A good thing for her was that the rally owner knew nothing about social media. Also, the owners were used to only okay results because that is all they had seen. So her job was not at risk.
Overview of a Facebook Manager
Finally, as you’ve read, a Facebook social media manager in the biker world must know a lot. Also, it takes expert knowledge of both the biker world and Facebook. Plus, riding is a huge factor. Notably, Revolution’s biker background and marketing skills make us the only agency with what it takes to make your Facebook successful.