Toronto, Ontario — July 30, 2019
By Josh Dobson
I love social media, but most importantly, I love what it is doing for the collision repair industry. Believe it or not but social media is becoming an incredible tool for technicians. The internet has allowed us to connect with people all over the world, in other words—we are able to expand our network, which allows us to gain access to information we might not have had before.
We can reach out and ask questions to see how other technicians tackle a certain job or get help with a problem that we might be struggling with and receive feedback quickly.
We need to embrace this phenomenon as technicians, managers, and even owners. Instead of fighting it, try using it. The benefits are exponential.
Now, this doesn’t come without guidelines of course. Shop owners and techs need to come together with a game plan and set expectations so both sides can enjoy the success. What we shouldn’t do is ignore this.
Whatever your platform preference might be, I feel they’re all beneficial. Technicians can learn and grow to become better and owners can gain with free marketing for their business and we all know that word of mouth is the best and most powerful way of advertising.
So how do we all come together and change the way we market our industry? This is the challenge for sure, we have so many different opinions on what our expectations are as employer’s and employees that this creates such a huge grey area.
Implementing a shop policy on social media is the best way. This may seem a little gimmicky, but necessary. If we allow those techs the means to show the world their work. With this strategy, we can shed some much-needed light on our sometimes dimly lit trade.
In today’s technology-driven world, we can agree that an online presence is necessary to succeed. With that in mind, if we want to sell our trade to the next generation, then we need to speak their language. Social media is becoming the main source of information for clients, employees, and employers.
