I was chatting with a social media marketing buddy of mine in Dallas earlier today when he told me a funny story. He knows that I'm in the automotive industry and he found it humorous that two dealers in his area shared the same image onto their Facebook pages at the exact same time. He followed both as he follows many local businesses and checked to see who posted it first and who reshared it.

To his surprise, it wasn't a case of one dealer liking and sharing the content that another dealer posted. It was a simultaneous post of the same image by two different dealers in the same metro.

This is awkward.

This is lazy.

Clearly, they were using the same social media vendor. Clearly, the vendor didn't believe in posting different content to different pages. He also noted to me that the image was cut off, so "add sloppy to my list of complaints," he told me.

I received what equated to a lecture about how "my" industry was doing it wrong. I assured him that we would never do something like that, not because it's a big deal but because we don't believe in automating our clients' interactions. It makes it impersonal and lowers the credibility level of any dealers who are pulling from a content pool, particularly when they're in the same city.

There's nothing wrong with sharing content that you find on the internet. There's nothing wrong with sharing another dealer's content; if it's interesting and relevant, Facebook is the perfect place to share and reshare. We do it all the time.

However, make sure you're not sloppy about it. Make sure that if you're having a vendor do the posting for you that they're not pushing the bulk send button on your behalf. Your goal is to stand out on Facebook, not act as a group posting the same thing that countless other dealers are sharing.

Be different. Be original. Don't settle for posting the same tired content just because your vendor has a lot of other dealers to post for as well. You deserve better.