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Car buyers spend more of their research time on a screen than anywhere else, and a growing share of it goes to social media rather than to your website. UK adults are online 4 hours 30 minutes a day, and YouTube alone reaches 94% of them.
Multiple automotive brands and auto dealerships are growing their marketing efforts. So, how do you stand out?
This guide covers what actually works in automotive social media marketing: which platforms earn their place, what to post, how to advertise, and how to measure the result in vehicles sold rather than likes.
Role of content in the buyer journey
Car buyers no longer start at the forecourt. Cox Automotive's 2025 Car Buyer Journey Study found buyers spend 7 hours 11 minutes researching online, across an average of 4.6 websites, before they buy. In the UK, buyers use around four car search sites and take 48 days to choose a vehicle.
Something else has shifted: total shopping time is falling as digital tools get better. Buyers are moving faster, which puts the reward on being in front of them at the right moment rather than simply being everywhere.
So the job of content is to answer the question a buyer has at the moment they have it, and to be there when they go looking.
You can only do that when you understand what buyers need at each stage and use those insights to create content that resonates. Done well, content builds familiarity and trust long before anyone fills in a form.
Apply the power of social media to automotive content
Valuable content is just one part of the overall marketing puzzle. It needs distribution through the right channels to encourage purchase.
That's where social media comes in.
Social media gets customers to not just 'see' content but to 'interact with' it or 'take action' on it.
For instance, you can use social media to amplify your web content across key social channels. Post an infographic from a blog to your social account to promote the piece.
Another way to use automotive social media is for feedback. Customer engagement or comments on your posts give you insights into their preferences. Leverage it for creating content that reflects customer preferences for the web (such as a blog or guide). Or, you can use the feedback to improve existing social media content.
You could also use content to specifically build a community around your brand or product. Take Ford's example. The brand has its own page but also runs a social media account dedicated to the Mustang, with two million followers. It's aimed at Mustang lovers and owners and becomes a space for them to hold purposeful discussions about the car.
Why automotive social media matters
Social media is where a large share of brand discovery now happens. 30.1% of internet users say they find out about new brands through social media ads.
It also works as a research tool in its own right. The same data shows 62.8% of Instagram users, 56.2% of TikTok users and 53% of Facebook users use those platforms to research brands they are considering.
Research across European markets found 26.3% of UK car buyers use social media in their search, against 8.6% in France. Cox Automotive measures much the same in the US at 26%, rising to 28% among new car buyers.
In the UK and US, that is more than a quarter of buyers reaching you before they have settled on a brand.
That makes social the most valuable top-of-funnel channel you have. You can use social platforms to:
- Follow the customer during their buying journey
- Drive engagement from lead to sale to post-purchase
- Promote your vehicles
- Engage with existing customers
You also have the flexibility of choosing from multiple social media channels and formats, including:
- Short and long-form videos
- Stories
- Quizzes
- Images
- Carousels, and more.
The next important question we answer is this: which social media platforms work best for you?
Automotive social media platforms that drive results
Car buyers visit multiple social platforms during their research. But the top-most ones are YouTube (41%), Facebook (37%) and Instagram (21%).
Let's see how you can bring these platforms into play, plus a few other popular options.
1. Market videos with YouTube
Video is where the money is going. UK video ad spend reached £9.3 billion in 2025, up 20% year on year, making it the fastest-growing major digital format at 23% of all digital ad spend.
YouTube is the engine behind much of that. It reaches 94% of UK online adults for an average of 51 minutes a day, rising to around 88 minutes among 18 to 34s (Ofcom, 2025). It is also the second most-visited website in the world after Google.
So, what can you do with YouTube?
Source: Volvo, YouTube
Influence potential customers browsing through the platform, looking for options. You can create videos on:
- Product walkthroughs
- New vehicle launches
- Auto events and meetups
- Brand or influencer partnerships
- Reviews from influential experts
- Resources for frequently asked questions (FAQs)
- Authentic customer testimonials
Consider creating both long and short-form videos. YouTube Shorts can bring in engagement with interactive and bite-sized content.
Don't miss the comments section. This is a chance to get insights into the market's perception of you, their preferences, and common problems with a particular aspect of your process or to engage with them.
If you have previously created content that addresses their FAQs, direct buyers to these resources.
2. Reach target consumers on Facebook
Meta remains the largest social advertising business in the world. Meta reported 3.60 billion daily active people across its family of apps in June 2026, and Facebook alone has an advertising reach of 2.39 billion. A large audience translates into more opportunities for reaching the right one.
You can target audiences whose research falls within your space. Plus, you can connect with them via Messenger in real time, improving the response time and capturing more leads. You can also use Meta lead ads with native lead forms, so users submit their contact details without leaving the app, with fields pre-filled from their profile.
The gains here are real and measurable. Renault UK and agency MG OMD moved from website forms to native Meta forms with Driftrock validation, cutting cost per lead by 68%, with the switch live in five days. BMW combined native Facebook and Instagram lead forms with Driftrock lead capture and dealer lookup, for 56% lower cost per lead and 2.8 times the lead volume.
Meta's automotive inventory ads are another useful format, focused purely on in-market car buyers. They use your vehicle catalogue, the Meta pixel and on-platform behaviour to show inventory to people showing purchase intent, across both Facebook and Instagram. You can optimise them to reach and retarget buyers by location and behaviour, which makes them particularly useful for hyper-local and service-focused campaigns. It's straightforward to set up, and you can build a catalogue of your offerings rather than individual ads.
3. Engage car buyers on Instagram
For Instagram globally, the largest age bucket is 25 to 34 year olds at 34%, followed by 18 to 24s at 27.6% and 35 to 44s at 16.6%.
That shift matters. Instagram is no longer purely a youth platform, it now skews towards people in their late twenties and thirties, which is much closer to the average new car buyer. Since the audience distribution and content formats differ for Instagram, you need a tailored strategy.
Firstly, set up a professional account. Instagram now groups these as Business or Creator accounts, and automotive brands and dealers want Business. In the app, go to Settings and activity, then under For professionals choose Account type and tools, then Switch to professional account. This help page walks through it.
Instagram is all about striking visuals and eye-catching content. Keep it transparent but aspirational. Incorporate a quirky or humorous tone to tell your brand story. Above all, avoid selling directly.
Source: Ford, Instagram
Another way to keep it real is Stories. Instagram has multiple options to make your stories interesting. Use Q&As, quizzes and poll stickers to connect with potential customers. Their responses may also act as valuable insights and feedback.
Since Instagram is popular for hashtags, add relevant and branded hashtags to your posts. Also, tag each post's location and associated accounts to increase discoverability.
4. Let authority take centre stage on LinkedIn
LinkedIn offers detailed targeting options. You can reach other businesses in the industry, fleet and procurement decision makers, and company car drivers choosing their next vehicle.
For fleet and business buyers in particular, LinkedIn is the one platform where you can target by job title, company size and industry, which no other social channel offers with the same precision. Also, consider the platform for running targeted ads using first-party data. You can do this using LinkedIn's custom segments for specific interests.
5. Drive discovery & consideration with TikTok
TikTok has become a serious research channel for car buyers. Research by Escalent with TikTok, fielded in late 2025 across the US and Canada, found that among vehicle shoppers who use TikTok, 80% used it as part of their research and 75% for discovery. More striking: 81% said it raised their interest in brands they had not previously considered, and 78% in specific models they were unfamiliar with.
It also drives local action. Some 38% searched for local dealerships on the platform, 40% explored dealership promotions and 41% engaged with test drive reviews. TikTok auto shoppers were also markedly more likely to consider electrified vehicles, with 51% considering an EV against 35% of non-TikTok shoppers.
Of all the automotive social media platforms, TikTok presents unique opportunities to create content with trending audio or sounds. It can also be a creative outlet, providing a breather to customers amongst intense competition between automotive brands.
You can also refine targeting on TikTok using first-party data to build lookalike audiences.
6. Use lead generation forms to capture first-party data
Lead forms are one of the most effective methods to collect contact information and first-party data from potential buyers. You can sync their details straight to your CRM, housing their information and preferences for all future campaigns.
All major social media platforms offer lead generation forms. They can be attached to multiple content formats, organic and paid, and most offer a pre-fill feature so buyers submit their details without retyping them.
The pre-fill that makes these forms convert so well will also let the occasional typo or throwaway number through. Validating at the point of capture is what turns that volume into pipeline: around 10% of the leads flowing through the Driftrock platform are caught as invalid before they reach a CRM, so dealers only ever see buyers worth calling.
Speed matters just as much. Foureyes' 2026 dealer benchmarks, drawn from 1.4 billion dealer website visits, found 61.2% of buyers close within three days of their first enquiry, while 62.8% of leads go uncontacted for the first 24 hours. Reach them inside the hour and you are ahead of most of the market.
Social media content ideas to engage automotive buyers
The beauty of social media strategy is that you can explore multiple content formats and ideas. Here are 12 different ideas for automotive social media:
1. Product videos
Naturally, your product takes centre stage. Showcase all the vehicles you sell, in individual or combined videos; that's up to you.
If you're a car dealership, you could post 'car of the week' or 'car of the month' videos to highlight multiple automotive brands and vehicles. Or you could exhibit a particular car's special features like this post from Tesla.
Remember to always pair product videos with a CTA.
2. Social proof
Testimonials from real customers establish trust among prospective buyers. You can amplify these reviews as video and image posts or even stories.
3. Car buying tips
Share resourceful information on purchasing a car for a particular segment or from your business. Educate the buyer on the steps involved in the purchase process, what questions they must ask, and more.
4. Car financing tips
Source: Chevy Dude, YouTube
Financing plays a key role in the buying process. Buyers generally seek information on 'how to get credit' or 'financing your dream car'.
Any resources you share will be considered valuable and show your expertise.
5. Car maintenance tips
Create short, easy-to-understand tutorials for small fixes (which may not need a visit to the service centre or can help during an emergency). Post these as short or long-form videos, carousels and stories.
6. BTS or sneak peeks
Source: Mercedes-Benz, YouTube
Post behind-the-scenes video snippets and stories of:
- What goes into making a particular car
- Manufacturing facility
- Tour of the dealership (even cute pet pictures get traction)
- How you run the dealership
- Car selling process
Behind-the-scenes content builds relatability by showing the non-corporate side of the business. Keep it authentic and customers feel more connected to you.
7. Customer deliveries
Post videos, images or stories of happy customers receiving their car. It spreads happiness and encourages prospective buyers to imagine they'll be next.
8. Trivia
Hold trivia quizzes or Q&As specifically on stories to increase engagement.
9. Bust myths
Change isn't easy to accept and with social media's wide reach, it's easy enough for myths to swirl around specific brands or products. Bust these myths with your content. Check out this 60-second video by Vauxhall and carwow for inspiration.
10. Occasions and events
Source: Lockhart Cadillac, Instagram
Include your customers in celebrating occasions or special days. You can also share updates on new launches, community meetups, and car meets, among other events. It builds an empathetic connection with them.
11. User-generated content (UGC)
When followers and customers post their social media content and tag you, reshare the post (provided it's relevant to your business). You can incentivise them with offers or discounts.
12. Interviews
Share snippets, full-length videos, carousels, stories, images, and links to articles of interviews with key figures in your organisation. These could be the C-suite, brand ambassadors and lead designers or engineers, among other important persons.
Social media advertising for the automotive industry
Social media platforms know they play a consequential role in the buyer journey, and they offer a deep set of advertising options as a result.
The money has followed. Social media took £11.5 billion of UK ad investment in 2025, roughly 28% of all digital ad spend and up 21% year on year.
Below are the different advertising formats you can choose from:
- Image ads
- Video ads
- Carousel ads
- Stories ads
- Lead generation form ads
- Message ads
- Product ads
- Text ads
The temptation to go overboard with automotive social media ads can be strong after seeing so many options. However, too much of anything can have a negative impact.
Follow these best practices to set up an effective social media strategy for advertising:
- Agree your goals, target audience, segments, platforms, budget and metrics before running each campaign, and define what a good lead looks like up front, so the platform optimises towards buyers rather than form-fillers.
- Conduct A/B testing for each campaign. You can experiment with multiple elements: image copy, image visuals, ad copy, CTA, and more.
- Rotate ads within a campaign to avoid creating ad fatigue for customers.
- Customise ads for each social media platform and audience preference. For instance, humour works well where customers go to relax or entertain themselves, like Instagram and TikTok, while a platform like LinkedIn needs a different approach.
- Stick to high-quality visuals, interesting stories, educational videos and engaging elements in the ad content.
- Where you send traffic to a website, use a relevant landing page rather than a homepage. These pages could showcase your intended or full inventory of automobiles. It induces consideration.
- Whenever possible, create dedicated landing pages for each campaign. Visitors don't have to search for specific information amongst other content on the website.
- Make the most of custom and lookalike audiences to refine your ideal customer profile (ICP), and pair paid search with social targeting to catch buyers already looking for you.
- Retarget people who have shown interest, but maintain an optimum gap between subsequent retargeted ads and suppress anyone who has already enquired.
- Study your competitors' social media content. Find out what works for them and what doesn't. Incorporate adjustments into your campaign wherever needed.
While you can set up the best-performing campaigns, none will come to fruition if you don't know what metrics to chase.
Measuring social media strategy success
Choose the right set of metrics for you to understand how you fare with automotive social media marketing (organic and paid). We've listed metrics for you to consider:
1. Leads and sales
Track leads coming in from social media and the conversions that follow. Use lead management software like Driftrock alongside your sales team to follow a buyer through their journey and attribute the sale back to the campaign that created it.
2. Valid lead rate
What share of your social leads pass validation. Cost per lead only starts to mean something once you know the leads are real.
3. Time to first contact
Measured in minutes, not days. It is the fastest win available to most automotive teams: no new budget, no new creative, just a shorter route from form to phone call.
4. Cost per booked test drive
Not cost per lead. The test drive is where interest becomes intent.
5. Return on investment (ROI)
ROI signifies how much revenue you generate from social media compared to the costs incurred.
6. Engagement
Includes comments, likes, shares, reactions and number of followers.
7. Reach and impressions
Reach shows how many people viewed your social media posts. Impressions show how many times these people viewed your content.
8. Follower growth
If more people follow your brand over a specific period, you're doing something right.
9. Response time
Shows the average time you take to respond to messages and comments on your social accounts. Better response time helps build a better social community.
10. Referral traffic
It's the website traffic generated from social media. Referrals show you if your social media content is nurturing the leads successfully to conversion.
11. Net promoter score (NPS)
NPS shows how likely existing customers are to recommend your business to others. This data can be collected from online feedback and survey forms.
12. Audience sentiment
Reflects how your customers perceive you. It could be positive, neutral or negative. A social listening tool can give you in-depth insights into audience sentiments.
13. Share of voice (SOV)
SOV determines your brand's ranking in comparison to competitors. You can use marketing analytics tools or platforms like Similarweb to find this out.
Automotive social media marketing campaigns in the real world
Are you inspired to create new social media campaigns or upgrade your existing ones? Pick some cues from these real campaigns.
1. BMW: Born Electric and the refresh
BMW launched 'Born Electric' alongside its BMW i sub-brand in February 2011, and marked ten years of BMW i with a social media campaign in 2021.
Rather than focusing on selling, the brand engaged consumers using content beyond cars, aiming to build an emotional connection through consistent messaging. It wasn't just the brand, either. Dealerships promoted the range on their own social accounts.
BMW has also used celebrity appeal for its electric flagships, most visibly the Super Bowl spot for the BMW iX in February 2022, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Salma Hayek Pinault.
Then, after fourteen years, BMW moved on. 'The first of a new era' launched at IAA Mobility in September 2025 for the iX3, the first series-production Neue Klasse model. Consistency built the equity, and knowing when to refresh protects it.
2. BMW: Capturing TikTok audience in Spain
BMW ran another successful social media campaign, this time in Spain. Working with agency Alma Mediaplus and Driftrock, BMW Spain ran TikTok lead generation ads for the BMW 1 Series M Sport.
Why TikTok? Because short-form videos on the platform are popular amongst all age groups today.
BMW used an eye-catching video linked to TikTok's Advanced Lead Form, which collected interested buyers' details using the pre-fill option.
As a result, BMW improved its lead quality and achieved 47% lower CPL than other social lead formats.
3. OMODA & JAECOO: launching two brands
OMODA & JAECOO launched in the UK in August 2024 as two brand-new names with no existing awareness. Working with Driftrock, they went live across nine marketing channels in two weeks, generating more than 15,000 leads in 90 days.
Just as importantly, over 2,000 low-quality leads were filtered out before reaching dealers, saving an estimated £66,601 and 3,557 hours of wasted follow-up. For a new entrant, protecting the dealer network's time is as valuable as the leads themselves. Read the full story here.
Leverage CRM data collected from social media for future automotive marketing
To excel at social media marketing, it's not just about developing current campaigns. Use social insights to build stronger marketing strategies in the future.
Sync your CRM with social media campaigns to collect details shared by leads through lead generation forms automatically. Leverage this first-party data to refine your content goals, targeting and messaging.
Use this information to retarget leads through personalised emails or display and search ads. You could also use the insights to create content that matches specific pain points. Amplify these through segment-specific case studies, review videos or resource videos.
Finally, you can seamlessly follow up with interested prospects to schedule test drives or consultations.
Driftrock's lead management platform helps automotive brands capture, validate, route and measure every lead from social and every other channel. We process over two million automotive leads a year across 35 or more brands in 32 markets. Get in touch to learn more ways Driftrock can boost social media marketing.