Ep. 648 - How New York’s Largest Auto Group Dominates Social Media, with Brad Gelber
In this episode, my guest is Brad Gelber, the Digital Media & Content Marketing Manager at West Herr Auto Group—New York’s largest privately-owned dealership group and one of the biggest in the country. But here’s the kicker… they’re not just big in size. They’re dominating the digital space in ways most dealerships haven’t even thought about.
Now, let me ask you something… Does your dealership’s online presence actually stand out? Or are you just another brand blending into the endless scroll of sameness?
Here’s the brutal truth: Most dealerships treat social media like a digital billboard, and it’s killing their engagement. But Brad? He gets it. He’s built a brand that doesn’t just post—it actually connects with people. And in this conversation, he’s breaking down exactly how he does it.
We get into:
Why storytelling is your biggest marketing weapon
The truth about AI in marketing—is it a powerful tool or just a shortcut to soulless content?
How to build a brand voice that actually means something instead of regurgitating the same old “best deals in town” phrase
The one type of content that consistently gets massive engagement
Why perfection is overrated—and how scrappy, real, behind-the-scenes content will outperform a polished, overproduced video every time
If you’re tired of dealership social media being boring, transactional, and ineffective, this episode will challenge you to think differently. Because the dealerships that win online aren’t just shouting about deals—they’re building brands that people actually care about.
Episode Brought To You By FlexDealer
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Episode Transcript
MC: 0:00
(Episode Sponsor)This episode is brought to you by FlexDealer.
Hey auto industry. What's going on? In this episode of the podcast? I'm sitting down with my pal, Brad Gelber. He is the digital media and content marketing manager at West Herr Auto Group. We're going to be talking about how you can effectively market and position your dealership online, specifically on social channels. Brad, thanks so much for joining me on the Dealer Playbook.
Brad: 0:35
Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
MC: 0:37
I mean tell me if I'm wrong the largest privately owned dealer group in New York. Is that right?
Brad: 0:43
Yeah, we often get that as like a surprise. I think a little bit, just because you know people well, I guess maybe they assume downstate just because of population. But if you think about it like from a geographic standpoint, just where do you put all the stores? I think it's the problem downstate. Yep, you're correct, we're number one in New York and actually one of the largest groups in the country, we're all. So yeah, Before I worked here I wouldn't have thought that was located in our area of New York Buffalo primarily. But we're across three cities now in upstate New York Buffalo, rochester. We have one point in Syracuse, so we're pretty regionally condensed, which is a little bit unique for a group of our size. But yeah, number one in New York.
MC: 1:26
So Bro, the bills though. Like what is going on, dude.
Brad: 1:31
Yeah, I don't know. People may know that you know Josh Allen and we have a couple of guys here that are part of what we call Team West Her, which is our kind of spokesperson football related endeavor that we embarked on several years ago. Steve Tasker also for the OG fans here has been a longtime member of Team West tour and it hurt. It hurts a little bit more when you're close to it and you get to know these guys on a human level. But yeah, we're kind of in morning mode still right now. We're trying not to talk about it too much.
MC: 1:58
You're doing it well with a smile on your face, but I can't. I'm like bro Alan. You get no more discounts on vehicles, bro, come on. You were playing like you didn't want it. What's going on?
Brad: 2:09
you know what I'm saying I'll let you say that, and I'll just yeah, I'll say it.
MC: 2:13
I'm in texas, I'm far enough away. I was rooting for them, man.
Brad: 2:19
I was rooting for them cheating chiefs anyways, everyone other than people in Kansas City. I think we're rooting for them.
MC: 2:26
So yeah, that's fair. That's interesting. You bring that up. I might want to revisit that, though, later on. Not the game, not the bills, but the advocacy, the program that you guys have built to reach deep into the communities, especially around something that is as charged as football. How did you get into the car business?
Brad: 2:44
I often tell people it wasn't on purpose. I'm originally from Western New York. I went away to school in Boston, actually, and while I was in Boston I would come home to Buffalo for the summers, started doing internships, primarily at ad agencies on the more traditional side account management stuff like that and I just stumbled across social, which I know isn't what you asked me exactly, but kind of social was at this point, was just kind of taking off. I'd say it was back in you know 2011 time period. So at that point I had ended up working at a social agency in Boston. That one of the accounts actually my main account that I worked on was for Sonic Automotive, which is even bigger than West Church. So at the time it just ended up being what was available to me. So that was kind of my first full-time gig was working, just happenstance, in automotive.
Brad: 3:43
And then, when I moved back to Buffalo, I joined a local startup here in Buffalo which at the time there wasn't a lot of people doing social for businesses. And when I joined there, even though we were small, it was myself the owner and one graphic designer working out of the owner's kitchen at his house. True startup, I'm not kidding, it was legit hardcore startup which was super cool and I learned a ton, but one of. Again, there wasn't a lot of people doing this, so businesses in the area had to rely on, like a startup to to help them with social. So one of the bigger auto groups, who's actually one of our competitors now. I was the primary point person for them for their social media bat, you know in 2014 or so, and again just kept falling into automotive.
Brad: 4:28
I always say, well, again wasn't like hey I want to work in automotive or I want to work for a car dealership or anything like that. And then once I have kind of a mixed background on like broadcast media side, I've done some stuff with tv and radio and things like that on the sports side of things. So my world always kind of kept colliding back together as a common theme. But after I dipped my toe in doing that stuff a little bit full time, I decided I really wanted to be back in marketing and I had reached out to several businesses locally that I thought I might be able to help them. I just, you know, I'd heard the names, I saw some stuff. I thought, you know, maybe I could lend my expertise, if you will, to what they were doing.
Brad: 5:10
And West Shore happened to be one of them. And I sent Scott Beeler, who's our CEO, a email directly and I told him they weren't hiring, there was no job post. I just told them, hey, I, like you know, I love what West Shore is doing. I think I could help on the social side. And people listening or watching might be familiar with a good friend of mine, matt Lasher, who was the marketing director at Westchester at the time, and Scott forwarded the email that Matt and I ended up getting coffee, I think four or five times and just completely hit it off. We're still on the same page social marketing, everything content related, wise, and they actually created a position for me at West Chair to come on and help them with their social, with content, kind of finding their voice online. And then I've been here almost eight years now, so it's just one of those things where you took the trust fall.
MC: 6:00
Yeah, you took the trust fall into the industry and then you ran with it.
Brad: 6:04
So I understand what you're saying now, that you kind of did it on purpose, like it was on purpose but it kind of wasn't yep, it just kept kind of coming up and it was like this common theme and now it's like it's really what I've known now at this point I gotta say too, while we're on the topic of matt, one of one of my favorites in the industry yep, I don't know if he can be anything other than who he authentically is Totally Right, he's the same, and that is something that I think is so rare in our industry.
MC: 6:33
That I appreciate so deeply resonates deeply with me. Did he teach you how to solve a Rubik's cube?
Brad: 6:38
Well, no, I actually just saw him about an hour ago Cause, funny enough like his office is still right down the hall from me, even though he's now with Streamline full time and you know I don't get to see him as often, but I still see him and I was giving him a hard time because I saw his post on LinkedIn and I was like dude, I've never seen you solve the Rubik's cube. I didn't know you could even do that. So you learn new things about people all the time, no matter how long you've known him.
MC: 7:02
His kid was giving him a run for his money. He was like, oh crap, there was a minute there. He's like, oh dang, I'm out. Yeah, you said a couple of things I want to touch on helping them find their brand voice. I think this is something that gets so overlooked, especially in the dealership industry, where most of the time it's a marketing agency that's doing some sort of cookie cut or something and everybody sounds the same. It's very transactional Totally. What do you recommend somebody be thinking about who's in a similar position as yours, to help build out or find that brand voice for their dealership?
Brad: 7:39
Yeah, and honestly I've been on both sides of it, because when I not to put anyone down or what they do, but when I was working at that agency out of school, that's what it was Like. It was working for this mammoth, you know, sonic Automotive, but it was essentially there was four or five of us on the account and we just our goal was just to get something posted, like it was like completely cookie cutter, like you're saying, and this templatized thing was you got to do one review, posted it this day and you got to do post this day. So when I got to West Shore, I was super fortunate that they have such a strong community presence and such a strong vision for who this company is culturally, who they want to be ethically. It's just radiated down from Scott Beeler and the leadership team, and so for me here it was really taking things they were already doing and just finding a way to showcase that through where people were finding their content. At the time, facebook was the primary driver, but then Instagram came along and TikTok came along later, and so you just kept having various channels. You know that grew over the time, but it really wasn't creating the voice as much as it was taking what was their legacy, wise, and finding the right way to communicate it to the people and I think that's probably the case for a lot of auto groups or dealerships is, you know, not to plug anyone or anything, but you know, the More Than Cars series has been awesome. West Tur was on that series.
Brad: 9:05
But I watched these dealerships and everyone has their own story to tell, however big or however small you are. So it may not be to the scale of Scott Beeler and West Tur, because that community wise, I don't know anyone that's running at the speed Scott's running, but everyone's doing something and I think that's what makes you special. Whether it's a dealer or whether it's non-automotive. Everyone has their own story to tell. So I think it's just finding and that's your point being immersed in it every day or being part of the company. That's so much easier. And, again, not putting down agencies or outside vendors, because they do great work too. But it's a lot more challenging to be able to tell those stories if you're not immersed in the company every day. So on the inside, I think some of it's just helping tell those stories of what's already happening every day.
MC: 9:55
Yeah, you've brought up a couple of, I think, really important ingredients to call out. First is the affinity that you feel for the group's leadership. Right, that definitely is for me, just the thought of people waking up in the morning going to work for a company and or an individual that they have no affinity for makes it difficult Totally. So that's a critical ingredient. And then I see the spill off of that in culture that you want to be there. You are in a position mentally, as a result of the culture and the leadership with which you are open, to seeing the story. Sure, yeah, is it possible? If you're in a position where you're like, ah, but I got to do my job, and like, what do you recommend to those individuals? Because we know they're out there, we know they're probably listening or watching, what do you say to them? Maybe a hopeful sentiment that's like, yeah, but you can still get something out of this, even if you don't want to be there right now, like that's the thing, right, like even, yeah, ideal world.
Brad: 10:59
We all love our job or we all love where we work, but again, not super realistic. I think that doesn't mean there aren't stories to tell our good people at your company. So one of the things I find has always been so important is you know, again, I bring up Matt Lashler a lot, but he'll be like dude, you didn't have to plug me this whole time, but basically, like I love, it, because it's one more reason why he's going to share this episode out for us.
Brad: 11:21
The thing if anyone follows him on linkedin or anything, he's like people over everything, right, like that's always like his moniker, so like. But it's true, like the end of the day, people are a driver of this emotive response. We feel like, if you see, I always tell people I was talking to, uh, advising this local business ethics organization today that we we do some work with on their social media, and I was telling them like they were like, you know, if we post this award, we can just post the company's logo and say they won the award, and I said, or you could get the leader of the organization to take a picture, a video, with the award talking about why it's important to them. Like seeing that face connects it just a little bit further.
Brad: 12:02
So, similar to what you asked, like maybe they don't love the company they work with, but maybe there's a really good man or woman who's been there 30 years who, like has a really cool story to tell. Like maybe they view the company through a different vantage point because they've been there forever and they know stuff that the person in marketing or social media doesn't know about the company. So like there's still, I think, to tell stories or post engaging content without being in love with what you do. I think that's what makes us talented marketers sometimes Because, look, I love Western, I love working here. But I think every day, we always Everyone has challenges in their job, even if they love it or not, and there's difficult things. Maybe leadership wants you to make the logo two times bigger, right?
MC: 12:46
And you know it's got to be bigger.
Brad: 12:48
But you run out of room to like storytell the rest of that, whether it's graphically or through copy or through in a video, they want it to be twice as long and you're like no, please Like. So you know, there's always going to be those moments where it's not perfect, but I think that's where creativity, that's where, like honing, your craft comes into play and you can still, you know, tell those stories, even if it's not your dream job.
MC: 13:11
What I love about what you're saying here, man, is not once yet have you said it's about the lighting, it's about the camera, it's about the platform. You are saying no like. Here's a thing that is readily available to you, no matter your circumstances. It is finding the story and telling the story, which, to me, is just a signal that you are a creator through and through. Like you, you are a creator because you can find the thing that you want to talk about and you understand the power of storytelling. So I hope those listening and watching are picking up on that. That's available to you right now.
MC: 13:47
But I know there are people thinking, yeah, but Brad, just tell what's the platform that's popping right now? Does the platform matter if the story is sound? What's your take?
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Brad: 14:29
Yeah, I mean it does and it doesn't To your point. I agree. I think the story comes first. Always, we can always tell, we can find ways to tell the story on the appropriate platform. I guess that's what I would say. Right? It shouldn't be necessarily like look, if you're a one man or woman band and you don't have the capacity to have a team and you don't have editors, and you don't have graphic designers and you can't do everything customized, I would tell you like find the right story first and that'll connect with people, no matter the platform. But if you do have the capacity or you are a little bit more advanced in some of these things, we try to hone the story to the platform. So if it's TikTok, it's going to look a little different than it does on Facebook, than it does on Instagram, than it does on X or wherever we're posting LinkedIn, but at the end of the day, the story is still the story. So if we do something kind of like out there, that's a little bit more funny or it's a little bit more trendy because it's relevant. On TikTok, we could probably find a way to clean it up a little bit and make it a little bit more connectable to an older demographic on Facebook. So the story, the root of the story, might still be the same, but just how we're telling it might change a little bit.
Brad: 15:39
So I always tell people you know I do a kind of bi-monthly workshop with sales folks here at West Tur where we talk about like how do I leverage social media and what is social media and like should I be on every platform? And you know we get a whole different range of people in these workshops. We get out some people who have no idea anything I'm saying is completely foreign to them. And then we get people who are like on Instagram and TikTok all day long and they're like this is like 101, like way underneath my learning skills, but I try to hone it to like everyone.
Brad: 16:14
But in that workshop we talk about like best ways to utilize social, not just from like a salesy, like hey, come on down today, $2.99 lease deal special, but more of like an authentic connection to people that might one day want to buy a car if they know you work at West Her. So like. I try to give them that understanding that it's a lot more than just this like sales tool, which is sometimes surprising to people because they think like, hey, I just post this picture of a car online and I'm going to get 10 leads tomorrow and I'm going to get a bunch of shares and engagement and that's how it works, and I'm like, no, not really it's not quite that way, but it's a really interesting workshop and people ask a lot of good questions and stuff. But yeah, I think it's just one of those things where you can educate to a degree, but at the end of the day, the platform is a platform and the story is the story the day.
MC: 17:08
The platform's a platform and the story's the story. There's so many ways I want to go here and I'm having trouble deciding which way I want to go. I hate that. I'm going to go here. Let's breeze past it, shall we? Sure AI people are sitting there going ah, here's this thing that'll be able to tell the story for us and stitch it together. Does that rub you the wrong way? If so, for us and stitch it together. Does that rub?
Brad: 17:27
you the wrong way? If so, why does it not? If so, why? Yeah? That's a great question, honestly, and it's something I think about a lot in my role now with having a team here of primarily younger folks. I still think I'm young in myself, but as you get older, you work with people who are even younger than you. So, yeah, but wait a minute.
Brad: 17:44
You did say Facebook for the older crowd and I instantly was like well, you know, facebook was my first primary platform too, but I think, when we talk about AI, here at least and I know every organization is different and again, ai might be a godsend to people, like I said, that are by themselves in a department or a team that just don't have the resources to do everything. Yeah, absolutely, but I view AI, and everyone I've talked to here, as a tool that can help be more efficient, but not replace what we're doing. So you know, when I actually went to the Asodu conference last the most recent one and we brought a couple of our team members here and I brought with me our in-house videographer, who does a lot of these cool car features and he actually was a freelancer for us. We loved his work so much we brought him on full time. His name's Jason Great guy but super talented.
Brad: 18:39
But I remember I was sitting with him at a SOTU and we were talking about, you know, one of the sessions was on AI and content creation through AI and even how there's a lot of really great companies out there right now that are leveraging AI to create video.
Brad: 18:53
Now that looks completely realistic, and him and I had a very transparent conversation afterwards just about the future of content creation and is his job a risk and that whole sort of thing? And I think for me to him it was like I will never replace you. Your artistry and your craft is like different from what a computer will make, like that's great and there's value in it because it can cause, you know, while it might take him several hours to shoot and edit a video, ai can do it like that, but that doesn't mean that it replaces the artistry of what he's creating. So I think there's room for both, as I would hedge it that way. I know that's not a transparent answer, but I think like there's room for AI to make you more efficient. But I don't think at least here we're looking to replace the artist with that right now.
MC: 19:47
Yeah, interesting, as I'm taking notes and I'm thinking about this, like, what are the aspects of the work that just, I think will never be replaced by artificial and I know this might sound dumb, dude, but it's called artificial for a reason sure, yeah, it's like here we are right now.
MC: 20:05
I feel like 2020, tail end of 24, now moving into 25 authenticity is something that's at the forefront of all of our minds, probably because of the undertone of artificial intelligence coming, making its way, but it just kind of shows that the human appetite is for real. It's we want authenticity. Sooner or later, it's going to be revealed how many people didn't put any effort into anything anymore, and I think that's going to ruin the social deposits into the, you know, into the social bank accounts that we all kind of unofficially have in our souls. And and to tell a story with emotion, in a way that we, using our human senses, know will connect with an audience, I think is pretty powerful that we are built, I believe, divinely by a creator who instilled not artificial intelligence in us, but intelligence for sure.
Brad: 20:59
No, no, I think that's like that's a great way to put it, and I think that you know you see all this stuff now, like Hollywood soon, we're not going to need actors or cinematographers or anything, cause people are just going to be able to do it all with AI and stuff, and it's like there's still a level of having a craft that connects with people, and I think the way you and I are having this conversation, like you still want to connect with another human being who share, teaches you new things, or you connect with them on a common interest, and I don't think we're at a point where computers are just going to take that away from from people. I don.
MC: 21:34
I don't think so. I think even like look at what happened with the whole, uh, marvel cinematic universe. At first it was new and exciting and Holy smokes, look at all the action and the bup. But it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it it. Gun maverick slips in and because you know that they were all sitting in that aircraft flying at supersonic speeds, and because of the mission impossibles where you know he's doing his own stunts are like human nature kind of leans into that, it becomes more exciting knowing that he wasn't wearing a pajama suit with all the dots you know in a puppet head. There's something about that authenticity that I think shines through and again, you know the undertone of everything that I'm picking up from you, brad, is the authenticity storytelling. It's all readily available to you. What do you say to those that are holding off because they're like I bet you he's got the fanciest p McKinnon-esque Canon 1D Mark, whatever, shooting everything, I don't have the fancy mics, I don't have the fancy camera. Like, what do you say to those people?
Brad: 22:43
Like honestly this isn't just me saying this for to you know, refute what you just said. We have nice equipment here that we work with at times, but often the stuff that we just shoot right on this thing here, our phone or whatever, now like connects better with people. It honestly just ties back to what you just said about authenticity, because sometimes we do the full production thing with the mics and the lights and the cameras and we share stuff and it feels like we're like feeding them like a commercial, like it's like a produced piece that like is like like I need to see another car commercial right. So it's like sometimes the raw stuff you just take a picture on your phone in the moment I was saying today to group, I was telling you about the, the fx board, like sometimes, like I've noticed now and not to put video down because I love video and stuff, but like the old school just like posting a still photo on social media like cuts through the noise a little bit now and it works really well still. So it's like sometimes you don't need all that.
Brad: 23:40
It's again, and I already said this like comes back to the story. But if you have a really good story to tell it doesn't always have to feel like slick and produced, like there's still space for that stuff and it like works really well in certain areas. But other times I think people feel like you're just being authentic with doing it right on your phone or, you know, on a non-fancy camera you will. So I don't think it's about the equipment. At the end of the day, I truly believe, like I keep saying, that it's more about the story you've had to tell or the company you're representing those sort of things, instead of just what camera you shot it on.
MC: 24:15
Okay, I'm going to ask you this question. This is the question that the OG listeners wait for, because they know it comes at the end. After all, the ADD people dropped off at 12 minutes, at 17 minutes, at 20 minutes. How do you know what makes a good story or not?
Brad: 24:37
I think honestly, it's if you, if you feel something when you hear it. I've I've seen a lot of stories on social media. Um, you know whether it's LinkedIn is a great example? Right Cause I feel like LinkedIn is a unique space because people tend to tell a lot of the same stories. It's always like the hustle, the grind, like why I was successful in my business endeavor because I did X, y, z for this many days a week, type of thing. You get a lot of people trying to coach other people on success or business tips and things, which is all good, great. If that's where your success lies, then awesome.
Brad: 25:15
But I think, like we keep using authenticity, and something we say a lot here too, is this reciprocity sense on social media, like it's not just about telling your story, it's also about listening and engaging with other people's stories, and that's where the authenticity comes from. So, for me, if I see a story on social media or, you know, online somewhere, and I feel like I'm driven to engage with it, like you're liking something, sharing it, commenting, sending it to your friend in a DM, like that to me is compelling because it did something, it made you look on it. We didn't just swipe by it Right. So like to me that if you feel something or you feel compelled to do something with that story, that's the top way I could say. That story drove you. For me at least.
MC: 26:16
I love it. I mean, it makes so much sense to me. Did you feel something? And nine times out of 10, bro, if you didn't feel something, why are you so cold? You know who hurt you? No, I'm just kidding. Hey, man, I've enjoyed this so much. I am so excited that we got to share some time. How can those listening and watching connect with you?
Brad: 26:33
Yeah, pretty much on every social channel, as you would imagine. But you know I'm on LinkedIn is probably, professionally, the easiest way to connect with me. You know West her, we're on everything too. So if you want to kind of follow along with our journey, what we're doing, you can find us on your network of choice. But yeah, like I'm always looking to engage with other people in the industry. Like I said, reciprocity, learn from them, hopefully, learn something from me. And I'm always looking to engage with other people in the industry. Like I said, reciprocity, learn from them, hopefully learn something from me. And I'm always down to connect.
MC: 26:59
Love it, man. Thanks so much for joining me on the Dealer Playbook Podcast.
Brad: 27:02
Appreciate you having me.
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