Social Media Marketing

Don’t dismiss Instagram as the Land of the Selfies. There’s actually quite a bit of value in using this social media app to generate leads and new business! Men and women naturally rely on different methods and sources when deciding on their next home improvement project.

Step inside the shoes of a potential customer for a moment. If you were looking to hire a contractor to work inside your home, wouldn’t you want to see previous projects before making a decision? Instagram is a photo-sharing app available for free in the Apple App Store and Google Play store. It also allows users to post videos up to 15 seconds long. Nearly 13% of all Internet users are on Instagram, which equates to approximately 200 million people per month. Though the app is often seen as a place that high school and college students frequent, 15% of adult makes and 20% of adult females in the US are members.

Home improvement contractors can take advantage of this free app by posting before and after photos, a particularly unique project they’re proud of, a video tour of a renovation they completed, and so on! Instagram can also be a great way to showcase office culture and highlight the people that work within your company day in and day out. People who follow you may recognize your receptionist’s name when she answers the phone or foreman when he arrives for the first day of a project just based on your social media posts. This helps build trust and lasting relationships between your company and your customers.

A great company to look to for a little inspiration is Improveit! Home Remodeling out of Columbus, Ohio. On their Instagram feed, @improveithr, they display the perfect blend of completed projects, design ideas, office culture, and a little weird and wacky fun!

One of the best reasons to use Instagram to share photos and videos is because it’s extremely easy to use. As long as you have a smartphone or tablet, you can use Instagram. Photos and videos can be uploaded directly from your device to Instagram, and shared with your network of people. Be sure to use creative descriptions and hashtags to gain even more attention.

 

Having an effective online presence is good branding. It’s also going to be what separates you from your competition over the next few years as social becomes more of a trust factor.

But a solid online presence is also dependent upon understanding trends and expectations in social media. Your online marketing strategy must take into account which social media networks are most popular and which are best suited to your business. In recent years, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ have been the place to be online, but where do you need to be going forward?

Ideally, you would be on as many social media platforms as possible, those listed above plus Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and any number of others. Of course, you need to consider the time and resources that you have to put into your online marketing to determine which networks are most important to your business.

Facebook is the most widely used social media network in the world. It is easy to set up a business page that your customers are able to “like” so that they see everything that you post. When they share your posts, they become visible to their friends, putting your company name in front of hundreds of new prospective clients.

Facebook allows you to create “dark posts” which are visible only to the demographic that you designate, enabling you to utilize personalized marketing messages without inundating your followers.

Log on to Twitter and enter the rapid fire world of microblogging. A company profile will allow clients to “follow” you and view everything you post. Twitter posts are a maximum of 140 characters in length, and it is advisable to post multiple times each day in order to stay on followers’ radar.

Most people are following hundreds of others, and posts fly by, causing infrequent posts to be lost in the crowd. Twitter “retweets” and “favorites” let you see which posts are most effective. You can also use hashtags, and encourage your followers to do the same, to track specific events or topics.

LinkedIn is a social network that is most commonly used by business professionals. A LinkedIn profile has the appearance of a resume, and people are allowed to “endorse” others for job skills that they have indicated that they have.

You can also create company pages that recommend your business and employees can link to you as an employer. Your satisfied customers can post public recommendations, for a personal touch that establishes you as an expert. LinkedIn is the ideal platform to reach young professionals as potential customers.

Google is one of the biggest names online. The Google+ platform is their latest effort to enter the world of social networking. It has taken a few years to take off, but Google+ is finding its niche, especially among entrepreneurs and professionals.

Self-employed professionals, such as writers and designers, use Google+ to connect and share ideas. Features like Hangouts and unlimited photo storage are attracting new accounts each day. Since Google is the most frequently used search engine, it makes sense to have your company profile on their highly visible social media network.

Before creating your company profile on multiple social networks, be certain that you are prepared to properly maintain them and interact with your online friends and followers. A social profile is only an advantage to your marketing strategy if you keep it updated and continue giving people a reason to follow them. Create a schedule of posting and content ideas before creating your profiles to determine that you are ready for the work that it will take to do things effectively.

Quality posts, not just advertising, need to be featured on your profiles. You need to give your clients a reason to follow you and share your posts. That’s where blogging comes in. Getting your message out there on these outposts is what builds your brand over time. Earn your reader’s friendship and trust by sharing and commenting on their posts in return. A well maintained social media profile can increase customer loyalty, increase visibility, and give your sales numbers a boost.

Remember a few years ago I told you social media had the ability to replace testimonials as a serious confidence factor? Well Hubspot did a survey where 80% of the respondents had this to say about Facebook. Contractors who thought Facebook wasn’t useful, take note! It’s costing you business!

 

We launched an online advertising program here at Darren’s at the start of the year which you can read about here, but the 10,000 foot view is that it is a hybrid social media advertising/Google Adwords play that drives a one-two punch of traffic to your site. If you’ve hung out here for any length of time, you know I want you to try it, then if you don’t have time or expertise to keep doing it, that’s when you call us. So today is a quick overview of Facebook dark ads and how you can use them.

If you feel like you are in the dark about Facebook unpublished posts, you’re not alone. Dark ads are worth educating yourself about because they allow you to manage your Facebook marketing posts and avoid clogging your timeline with advertising. Being “friends” with your customers on Facebook is a wonderful opportunity to target marketing efforts, interact with customers, and build brand loyalty. However, those same customers who may be quick to become your friend can just as rapidly remove you from their feed if you flood them with ads and information that is not useful to them. That is where dark ads come into play.

What are Facebook dark ads?

If you are on Facebook – and we know you are – you have seen “sponsored posts.” These are the dark ads that those sponsors have created. These posts allow business Facebook users to create items that show up in targeted friends’ news feeds without filling your timeline with advertising. In other words, these posts show up only in front of the people you have indicated. This allows you to create multiple ads at a time without causing your customers grow weary of your spiel, because each person will only see the posts that you want them to see.

Also referred to as unpublished or invisible posts, dark ads enable targeting ads to certain followers while not appearing to post several ads at once. This is helpful because too many ads can scare your “friends” away.

How do I use them?

In order to create these posts, you may use the Self Serve Ad Manager or Chrome’s Power Editor. Both are somewhat clunky software but not too difficult to use. With a little bit of practice, you can be a pro in Power Editor. In settings, you will need to select to manage pages with Power Editor.

Ads should include pictures that are 1200 x 627 and no more than 20% text. Choose an audience for each ad, and schedule your campaign. Your audience can be customized according to several factors, including gender, relationship status, education, interests, age, location, and language. Quick tip: offer less than suggested by Facebook for promoting your ad. You can always increase it later when you have had a chance to analyze your results.

Making the most of your results.

Looking at your posts’ reach will show you the most basic statistic of your ad’s effectiveness. Based on different times of day and targeted audiences, you can track how many people had the ad placed in front of them. By comparing the reach of different ads you can adjust your marketing campaign.

Along with the ad’s reach, you will want to consider the number of likes, comments, and clicks that your post received. If your post is not receiving the kind of attention that you had hoped for, you can make some changes to your campaign.

Using the information about your ad’s reach and effectiveness, you can improve the ads that you place and create additional posts to target specific prospective customers.

These targeted ads allow you to perform tests to see which variation of an ad is more effective. By writing several versions of the same ad, you can see which receives the best reaction without putting all of them in front of the same people and risking losing them as followers.

Using Facebook dark ads can allow you to find a healthy balance between marketing to your Facebook followers and being a good friend.

 

Sure a contest can provide a quick spike in traffic and awareness, but like just like pricing, if the only way to drive traffic is by giving something away, you diminish your overall value. Stick to growth that is determined by more people wanting more of the stuff you do!