Powersports Business April 2025 | Page 15

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Powersports Business • April 2025 • 15
• Focus on arming smaller groups of employees with information they need to be better content creators on LinkedIn.
3. SUBSTACK EMERGES AS A LEGIT NEWS AND INFLUENCER CHANNEL
Hanson switched his weekly email newsletter to Substack this year, and many journalists and content creators use Substack to deliver and maintain an audience— with the ultimate goal of paid subscriptions.
Though less social and more of a content-sharing platform, Substack could be a good option for service-focused businesses, passionate manufacturers with a message, or independent consultant types looking to increase a brand following. Substack is today what blogs were 10 or 15 years ago. Quality newsletters on the site appeal to highly engaged readers who want to be part of a community.
Hanson said that Substack’ s paid subscribers doubled from late 2021 to early 2023. Why?
• People want more long-form content in era of short-form
• Continuing layoffs In traditional journalism
• The rise of young, Gen-Z journalists ready to make a splash on their own terms
• Substack now boasts a cumulative 35 million readers of its diverse slate of newsletters, 3 million of whom pay for content
FINAL THOUGHTS In his presentation, Hanson mentioned Unhinged, a social platform I have never heard of. And there are plenty of others. How many of you have marketing departments large enough to handle multiple social media platforms? How many of you even have a“ marketing department?” Smart marketers will focus on one social media platform and use it well. Still, you need to monitor others to see if your audience might be there.
Hanson did not mention Facebook. And personally, I’ m trying to use the site less, though that’ s not easy when so many companies use FB for event scheduling. Plus, Facebook Marketplace can be a good outlet for used vehicles or equipment— either for selling or buying. It’ s not going away. And that could be the closing message for this whole trends piece. Many marketers once
asked,“ should I use social media for marketing?” You can’ t ask that anymore. Today, it’ s which social platform should get my time
and attention? The only constant is change, and your assignment is to stay on top of it. We’ re here to help.
4. X( FORMERLY TWITTER), THREADS OR BLUESKY?
Meh, says Hanson. He sees no real winner when looking at the void in“ real-time social media”( since the changes at Twitter that reduced its user base by 25 % or more).
I’ m not sure the powersports dealers, manufacturers, professional users— need realtime social media. Still, Hanson advises any business owner to grab your relevant handles on all three of these social platforms and monitor if you’ re interested. Bluesky, with a reported user base around 20 million, is the smallest of the three, but the fastest growing since the 2024 election.
PSB and OPE + have abandoned X / Twitter. Personally, I’ ve enrolled on Bluesky and am monitoring it. No Threads yet; I see this as a tool Meta( Instagram) is pushing hard without much traction.
5. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT BECOMES A SUPERPOWER
Social media consultants like Hanson and others have long advocated for the type of“ community engagement” that includes responding to all comments made on a brand’ s social media post. In 2025, it should go further than that. What Hanson is talking about here is brands searching out accounts to follow and interact with brands commenting on the social posts of their fans, as mentioned in the Reddit commentary above.
Think about a brand or company you follow or like, and you post a thing on Facebook or Instagram sharing a good experience. Then that brand comments back to thank you, amplifying your profile. That can be big, turning first-time customers, for example, into fans, and boosting fans into advocates.
This is often referred to as“ active listening” in social media circles. And it can be more than just responsive. Brands can and should search for brand mentions and then comment accordingly. Companies can also use social media platforms to— subtly or not— ask for such posts from customers and fans. This goes way beyond the old product giveaways where a company asks you to like and follow in hopes of winning. This is about creating opportunities for conversations and connections.
Introducing RFID Physical Inventory
By placing RFID tags / labels on inventory and assets, dealers can cycle counts or conduct physical inventory with one or two employees anytime. RFID reader terminals do not require line of sight, so counters don’ t need to bend down under partitions, climb shelves, or position each item to be visually seen to be counted. RFID physical inventory provides accurate, up-to-date data leading to better analytics, improved asset utilization, and reduced lost sales.