If you haven’t heard, it’s getting harder for businesses to reach their audiences on Facebook unless they’re willing to spend some money. Estimates are that the average reach for a company post on its Facebook page is around 2-6 percent organically. There are only two ways to increase that. First, by paying for Facebook ads. And secondly, through interaction with your content. The second part is tricky unless you combine it with the first part, as how do you get people to interact with your content if they don’t see it in the first place? The solution to your problem lies no further than your office door: your employees.

Hopefully, you have created a company culture in which your employees are brand advocates. They should be aware of - and interested in - the content your dealership is posting on its social media accounts. Not only that -- you would hope that they would also engage with your content through liking, commenting and sharing that content. Interaction with your posts by your employees accomplishes two very important things. It increases the reach of your post. AND, that reach is typically very effective. You see, whenever someone interacts with a brand’s content on their page, their friends and families are likely to be delivered that interaction in their own Newsfeeds. Chances are good that a decent percentage of your employee’s networks live in your market and these are exactly the people you want your content delivered to. But what’s the benefit of this interaction for your employee?

How many times in your automotive career have you heard the story of a salesperson discovering that their friend bought a car elsewhere, simply because they were unaware that their friend actually sold cars? This is a tale that just about every person in car sales has heard and, more often than not, experienced. Interacting with the dealership’s social media content benefits the employee when they show those interactions and shares to their own personal audience. This could very easily inform their networks that they do, in fact, sell cars and keep that employee top of mind when someone in their network is in market. The dealership benefits through increased reach organically. It’s a win-win situation. But all too often, when you visit a dealership’s Facebook page, there is very little interaction by employees.

You would hope that your employees are proud to work for you and interested in helping the company succeed. However, more often than not, employees don’t interact because they don’t understand the benefits both to themselves and the dealership. Take the time to sit down with your employees and explain how they can help the dealership through simply clicking a like button, commenting, or sharing content through their own personal social media accounts. Interaction leads to more interaction, just like a snowball rolling down a hill increases in size as it goes. Simply going by the philosophy of “If you build it, they will come,” is no longer a viable strategy. Leverage your employees to jump start the reach of your social media content and you may find that your fans increase, your reach increases and you just might pick up some more business because of it.