Best Practices

A Sneaky Way to “Like” the Competition!

A sneaky way to follow your dealer competitors in one place

Ok, maybe it’s not really sneaky, but it helps you spy on the local dealers and competition on facebook without having to “Like” them.

 

1. Do a Google Map search for local car dealerships and your direct competition. This gives you a quick reference to all the dealership in the area.

google maps dealership search

 

2. Log into your facebook account for your dealership and start searching for all the dealerships.

At the bottom of the left sidebar of the dealerships fan page, you’ll can find a Subscribe to RSS link.

image of Facebook RSS Link

Using this option, you can then subscribe to all of your dealership competitors fan page status updates in your favorite RSS reader (I prefer Google Reader OR Newsrack for Mac/ipad). Remember, using this method means you don’t have to “Like” the page to see what their dealerships latest updates are. Plus it removes the need constantly to visit multiple pages to check on their updates.

The only downside of this is you’re only getting the updates by the fan page itself, and not updates posted by fans. Either way, it’s still an easy way to monitor your competitors’ without having to keep visiting their page routinely.

NOTE: If you don’t mind getting hit with text messages, you also have the option of subscribing to updates via text. I’m not sure I would do this to keep an eye on the competition. BUT if you’re overseeing the facebook pages for a group of dealers, this is a great way to instantly monitor the updates.

Facebook Text Messages

 

Do you have another sneak way to monitor the competition on facebook?

Founder of DealerRefresh - 20+ Years of dealership Sales, Management, Training, Marketing and Leadership.