My worst mistakes with auto repair shop social media marketing

If you want to see a 40-year-old mechanic look like a total idiot, just ask him to film a TikTok dance in front of a busted F-150.

When I took over my dad's shop, I assumed we needed a massive online presence to survive. I got sucked into the hype of auto repair shop social media marketing and wasted a lot of hours. Here are the biggest mistakes I made.

• Posting hyper-technical content: I used to post long, detailed explanations of complex transmission rebuilds. I thought it proved our expertise. Instead, it just bored regular drivers. The only engagement we got was from other mechanics in different states. I stopped doing that. Now I just post simple photos of filthy cabin air filters. That actually gets people to check theirs.
• Hiring an "aesthetic" agency: I paid a local group to make pretty graphics for our Instagram. It looked nice, but it cost $1,200 a month and brought in zero bookings. Regular people do not want to see stock photos of pristine engines. They want to see real, dirty hands. I fired them and started taking raw, honest shop photos on my phone.
• Booking through DMs: I tried letting people schedule appointments through Facebook and Instagram messages. It seemed convenient. But I would miss notifications while under a chassis, leading to angry customers. It was a mess. Now, I keep socials strictly for showing our face, and route bookings to our main line. I handle all of our customer texting and status updates through fixyflow.com.

The fix that helped us the most was realizing nobody searches Instagram when their brakes are grinding. They search Google. Focusing on getting real reviews from real local customers did more for our shop than any social media trend.