Six kinds of post, in a weekly rhythm: arrivals and walk-arounds; deliveries with permission; the service drive; the people; plain answers to buyers' questions; and community. Paid social carries inventory, service and finance campaigns, the last under Meta's financial products and services category. Every figure follows the ad rules, every staff or creator post discloses the connection, and the count is appointments and sold units.
Two things to stop: posting the manufacturer's assets as if they were yours, and writing “$299/mo” in a caption without the disclosure beside it.
Post 1: Arrivals and walk-arounds
A short vertical video of a car that just arrived, shot on the lot by a salesperson who knows it: the trim, the color, three things worth seeing, and how to book a look. One a day is sustainable at most stores, and the car's stock number in the caption lets the BDC answer the comments with the live listing. The price may appear if it is the real price; a payment appears only with its disclosure (next section).
Post 2: Deliveries, with permission
The customer with the keys is the most persuasive image a dealership has, and it needs written permission for the photo and the name, and nothing offered in return for it. If a customer is given anything for a post or a review, the FTC's Endorsement Guides require the connection to be disclosed, and Google's Maps content policy forbids incentives for reviews at all. Ask every buyer for a review at delivery with a direct link and no incentive, and reply to every review in a person's words; BrightLocal's 2026 survey, summarized by PinMeTo, found 80% of US consumers are more likely to use a business that replies to all its reviews and 50% are put off by templated replies.
Post 3: The service drive
NADA's 2026 mid-year data counts more than 136 million repair orders at US franchised dealerships in the first half of 2026, and the service drive is the richest content in the building: a technician showing a worn brake pad beside a new one, what a check-engine code means, when tires are done, a recall explained, and a tour of the shop. These posts bring owners who bought elsewhere into your service lane, and they build the trust the sales floor draws on later.
Post 4: The people
Introduce the advisor, the technician, the salesperson and the porter, by name, with what they do and something true about them. People buy from people, and a dealership's turnover makes the current team worth showing. When staff post about the store on their own accounts, the FTC's Endorsement Guides say employees who endorse their employer's products should disclose the relationship; a line in the post or the bio does it.
Post 5: Plain answers to buyers' questions
How does a trade-in work here? What does certified pre-owned mean at this brand? What is the difference between leasing and financing? What happens at the end of a lease? What should I bring? A thirty-second answer from a person at the store, one question per post, is the content people save and send, and it is the same content that search engines and AI summaries cite when it also lives on the website. Keep every answer free of a promised rate or payment unless the full disclosure is in the post.
Post 6: Community
The team at the school fundraiser, the sponsored youth team, the charity drive in the showroom. Post it as news, not as a sales pitch, and let the community tag the store. It is the content that makes a dealership a local business in the feed instead of one more advertiser.
The rule on every figure: payments carry their disclosure, prices are real
A social post or ad is an advertisement. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Regulation Z requires a credit ad that states a down payment, the number or period of payments, a payment amount or a finance charge to also state the down payment, the repayment terms and the annual percentage rate using that term, and Regulation M requires the lease equivalents, including that it is a lease and the total due at signing, when a payment or capitalized cost reduction is stated. The Federal Trade Commission's advertising guide says advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive and claims need evidence. In Ontario, OMVIC counts social media as advertising and requires an all-in price except HST and licensing. In practice: a caption that says a payment carries the disclosure in the caption or on screen, legibly, for as long as the figure shows; the creative is built with it from the start; and a post with a price shows the price a buyer pays.
Paid social: inventory, service and finance, under the platform's rules
Three paid campaigns earn their budget: inventory ads from the feed by model line and rooftop, service campaigns on seasonal jobs in your market, and finance offers. The last runs under special rules. Meta's Special Ad Categories documentation, updated 21 May 2026, says that from 14 January 2025 the “Financial products and services” category is required for such campaigns by advertisers based in or showing ads to the United States, that the credit ads policy continues to apply to audiences in the US, Canada and certain parts of Europe, and that under the category age is generally fixed to 18 through 65+, gender to all, lookalike and saved audiences are removed and the location radius is set to a required minimum. A finance offer in the wrong category is rejected or worse; the audience limits are the trade for running it at all. Our paid social page covers how we run all three.
A weekly plan that a store can keep
Seven days, shot on phones by the people who are there:
- Monday: an arrival walk-around and a service tip.
- Tuesday: a plain answer to a buyer's question.
- Wednesday: a delivery with permission, and the review ask that goes with it.
- Thursday: a person on the team.
- Friday: an arrival walk-around and the weekend's service availability.
- Saturday: deliveries and the lot as it is.
- Every day: the BDC answers every comment and message within the hour, from live inventory, within the rules on calls and texts.
How to measure it
Count, each month and by rooftop: messages and comments answered and the appointments they produced; test drives and sold units with social as the source in the CRM; service bookings from social; the cost per appointment and per sold unit from paid social; and reviews asked for and received. Followers, likes and reach are context. Our guide to car dealership marketing ideas lists the campaigns to run around the content, and our guide to AI for car dealerships covers answering the comments and messages fast.
If you want it run with you
PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. Our social content and paid social campaigns pages cover the work we do for dealers, and our car dealership industry page list the sectors we work with. We hold no OEM certification and name no dealer client here. This guide is general information, not legal advice.
Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.