Millions of people in Australia use social media every day. By January 2016, around 15 million people were registered users on Facebook, and nearly 3 million Australians were using Twitter. As such, these popular social networking sites offer a significant opportunity for businesses to interact with their customers. As a fleet owner, it's important for you to understand that your vehicles can help you connect with customers on social media, but you need to know how to do this effectively. Perfect your social media strategy, and avoid the following mistakes that other fleet owners make.

No social media strategy

Social media has several potential benefits. You can use social networking sites to find new customers and/or build better relationships with existing customers, but you need a social media strategy to help you meet these aims. Randomly 'putting stuff out there' probably won't get you results, so you need to carefully consider every part of your social media strategy – including your fleet signage.

By adding social media icons to your fleet signage, what do you hope to achieve? In some cases, you may need to spell it out. For example, instead of just saying, 'Follow us on Twitter' on the side of a vehicle, you could decide to say, 'Follow us on Twitter for the latest deals and offers.' With the second message, your customers have a clearer reason to follow you, which means you can then also start to integrate these visitors in your marketing and advertising campaign.

Bombardment

There are dozens of social media sites out there, and, realistically, you cannot reach out to customers through every single outlet. As such, you need to carefully decide which social media sites you will include in your fleet signage. In most cases, you should aim to include no more than two sites in your signage, and one is often all you need.

For example, Twitter lends itself to short, sharp, and fast interactions. As such, prompting customers on the move to connect with you via Twitter is often a good choice. Once people follow you on Twitter, you can post links to your website, to Facebook and to other social media outlets, without having to include multiple social addresses in your fleet signage.

Confusing detail

Effective fleet signage makes it easy for customers to find the information they need. For example, if your company contact details appear in small font in the corner of the panel, most people will struggle to get in touch. The same principles apply for social media information.

If you remember that most people will only get a quick glimpse at your fleet signage, your social media information needs to connect with customers instantly. The easiest way to do this is to display a large logo or ico, with a simple message inviting customers to connect with or follow your page.

Don't display your social addresses in full. Just let people know they can find you on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Social media devotees know that they can simply search for your business via the search bar. All your fleet signage needs to do is alert people to the fact that you are on these social sites.

Brand dilution

Unless you own and run a social networking site, it's important to keep a clear distinction between your business and the social media outlets you use for marketing purposes. As such, you should never dilute or attempt to integrate social media icons and images within your own brand.

For example, most people recognise the blue bird that forms a prominent part of Twitter's livery and brand, so you may decide it's a cunning idea to use images of this blue bird throughout your signage to alert people to the fact that you have a Twitter account. In fact, this could easily confuse your customers who may wonder what the blue bird actually has to do with your products. As such, you should keep social media icons and branding separate from your own, even if you want to make these images prominent for your customers.

Social media now forms a crucial part of any company's marketing strategy, so it makes sense to include details in your fleet signage. For more advice about how to make this work for your business, talk to your local fleet signage specialist from a company like Perth Signcraft & Graphics.