Social media is an invaluable tool for your business. If you’re a business owner struggling to use social media to its fullest extent, you’re not alone. The term “social media” encapsulates a wide variety of topics—sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. We’re here to help you reach your greatest potential. Social media marketing for contractors doesn’t have to be intimidating.

The Three Tenants of Quality Social Media Presence

If you only walk away from this blog post with one piece of knowledge make sure it’s these three keys to a great social media presence:

1.      Driving Business Growth
2.      Creating Genuine Brand Awareness
3.      Attracting Quality Candidates

Get SMART

If you read everything above and thought, “How can I do this?”

First and foremost, it’s important to create SMART goals. SMART stands for:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-Based

You never want to create a vague goal. Let’s say, for example, that you’re looking to gain more followers. We’ve illustrated the difference between an average goal and a SMART goal below:

1.      I want to gain followers.
2.      I want to gain 150 new followers on my Facebook account over the next three months.

Example A is imprecise while example B is SMART. Example B is specific to Facebook, uses “150” as the measurable amount, and has a time-based goal of three months. What makes something attainable or relevant is more personal to your business—gaining 10,000 followers in three months would probably be unattainable in most circumstances. For someone else, focusing on a Twitter account when their Facebook account is the one lacking could be irrelevant.

Understanding your specific business helps you make SMART goals.

Know Your Audience

Once you’ve established a definitive goal it’s time to outline how you’re going to achieve this goal. Do you know who you’re talking to? Answering this question with “customers” isn’t enough! Define your audience by their age, location, needs, challenges, and interests, hobbies, or behaviors.

Most HVAC companies are looking to target 25 to 65-year-old homeowners in their service areas. Their needs are typically different depending on the season (I.e. air conditioning repair in June versus a heater tune-up in December) or your top products and services. When it comes to interests, hobbies, and behaviors, it’s always good to find people who have an interest in home improvement or home repair.

Fine-Tune that Content!

Now you have an understanding of your audiences, they deserve content curated on a personal and authentic level.

First, determine how many posts and categories of content support your goal. How will you balance out the remaining posts to delight and entertain your audience?

The content you post should be captivating and concise. Here are a few ways that you can make the most of what you post.

• Quality: Make sure your grammar, punctuation, and the overall flow of your posts is up to par. Clarity is key.
• Structure: Format your posts so they’re easy on the eye by breaking up long paragraphs.
• Frequency: There is a “sweet spot” when it comes to posting on social media. You don’t want to post too often and bombard your followers, but you also don’t want to post so little that people forget about you. Posting three to four times a week ensures that you’re on the minds of your followers without getting on their nerves.  
• Linking/CTA: If you’re linking to a website or a contact us form, be sure to state a clear Call-To-Action, such as  “Schedule an appointment with our team today!” make sure that the link leads directly to the scheduling window rather than to the homepage of your website. If you’re adding a link to a social media post, make sure that it’s a shortened link so you can utilize your word count to the fullest extent.
• Hashtags and Emojis: Hashtags are a great way to attract people to your page. Make sure the tags you’re using are relevant and site appropriate. The sweet spot for Facebook and Twitter is about 2-6 hashtags while Instagram is about 10-15. Additionally, emojis are a great way to add a playful tone and approachable feel to your posts.

Make the Most of Your Interactions

Don’t stop after you post! Make sure that you monitor your content too. Take about 15 minutes out of your day every day to look through your social media accounts and interact with your followers. Reply to comments, use the “reaction” features on Facebook, “like” posts from your followers, and answer questions or address concerns that have come your way. Do anything to keep the conversation going!

Your social media doesn’t always have to be strictly campaigning either. It’s also great to post about weather notifications, business announcements, equipment recalls, or even employee milestones. The more authentic you can be with your content, the more engagement will naturally rise.

Look Back Over Your Work

We’re taking it back to the grade school basics with this one—always check your work! Using analytics is the best way to get to know your social media. Your ongoing analytics help you track the overall health of your social media through metrics like interactions, likes, followers, and shares.

Your campaign focused metrics will vary from campaign to campaign and depend on the SMART goal you’ve set, but they’re also a great way to measure your success. Understanding your analytics is the best way to ensure that you are posting the right content to grow.

Leveraging Social Media for Omnichannel Marketing

So you’ve built a great social media presence… now, what are you doing with it? Sometimes reaching the right audience doesn’t always give you your desired response. Social media is a tool that can help you fine-tune your omnichannel marketing.

Wondering what omnichannel marketing is? You probably understand the practice but might not know the name. Omnichannel marketing is a method of marketing that focuses on delivering a consistent, personalized, experience for customers across all channels and divisions. The name of the game here is “streamlining”—we’re catering to the customer to generate better engagement.

The opposite of omnichannel marketing is multichannel marketing. Multichannel marketing means that every single channel is different from the others—they work in a vacuum with independent strategies and goals. While this might be easier on the business owner, it’s inferior to omnichannel marketing because it creates a confusing and impersonal customer experience.

Social media is a great tool to generate awareness and consideration for your brand to help drive leads for your business and continue the relationship with your loyal customers. A great social media presence falls in line with your preexisting omnichannel marketing practices. We’ll highlight services and products that are true to your brand and give you a confident and consistent voice.

You can rely on our tech-savvy team of Social Media Specialists here at iMarket Solutions to fine-tune your business. Contact our team today to learn more about the best social media practices.