Sell F&I on Facebook? Dealers make it work

Using Twitter or Facebook to sell vehicles is daunting enough. But using them to boost F&I may seem like a herculean chore. Nevertheless, some dealerships are doing just that.

The key is to post finance deals and aftermarket products right alongside vehicle photos and, most important, customer testimonials on social media sites, say dealers and social media experts.

Mike Milian says he can sell just about anything through social media, including F&I. He owns Corvette Mike New England in Plymouth, Mass. Milian says he sells 400 used sports cars, mostly Corvettes, a year.

On Nov. 29, he bought a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette convertible at auction. He immediately snapped a picture of it, then posted the photo, a description and some special finance rates for the car on his Facebook and Twitter pages.

Within 48 hours of posting the 2007 Corvette and the finance deal on Facebook, a customer called and financed it through a lender Milian found. Then, the customer bought chrome wheels and a service contract when he took delivery.

"I made money on the front end and the back end," Milian says. "The guy never would have seen that car if he wasn't Facebooking."

At Courtesy Chevrolet in Phoenix, building a rapport with customers often equates to an ability to pitch anything, including F&I, says Jason Church, Courtesy's Internet and business development director.

Courtesy sells about 2,800 new and used vehicles annually.

Church promotes some finance deals through social media, and he eventually hopes to pitch aftermarket goods that way as well through customer's testimonials.

"There is a huge opportunity there. We do it a little bit, but there's more to be had," Church says. "The way to do it is with testimonials and video testimonials about aftermarket accessories."

For example, if a person buys a Chevrolet Camaro and orders a custom paint job, then tweets a photo and talks about how good the Camaro looks, Church says that sort of testimonial will get other potential customers enthused.

"If someone goes onto a public site and writes about their experience, I can leverage that experience," Church says. "I can cut and paste it on my Facebook page and post: 'Here's so and so raving about their experience and this product.'"

Church has done some of that using free tools such as Google Alerts that indicates each time his store is mentioned online. He tracks those postings.

"In the old world, the customer would leave the dealership and I'd never see them again," Church says. "Now we can manage feedback."

Getting a glowing customer testimonial is more than just a case of good luck, says Walter Osterman, owner of social media marketing agency Social Mavens in New York.

"You have to pull the conversations out of people by posting on your Facebook or Twitter: 'If you have a good experience, please talk about it.' Or Post: 'Have you bought chrome wheels recently? What did you think?'" Osterman says.

He even recommends asking: "What don't you like about your car?" The answers could prompt a social media dialogue where the dealership can suggest aftermarket products to improve whatever the customer does not like about their vehicle.

Osterman also has his client, Courtesy Chevrolet, videotape all customers after they buy a vehicle and post the positive customer reviews on YouTube, Osterman says.

If a dealer tapes 100 video testimonials, a few are bound to be good enough to post on YouTube. Then the dealer can Facebook post the video testimonials, tweet about them, build a page on the dealership Web site for them and tag it so if someone searches the dealership or other key words, the videos come up.

"And that's small money spent to help the F&I manager," Osterman says. "That's just one more tool to try."