I am becoming more and more skeptical over the use of Facebook fan pages for contractors. Not only will most people never return to your fan page after maybe liking it the first time, but they forget you even existed the second they hit the like button. Watch the video for more proof Facebook is over-rated as a marketing tool for contractors! Can’t see video, click here.
I know I have been on a couple of rants lately; Angie’s List, Service Magic’s high-jacking free listings and selling you your own leads, and Facebook.
Ah Facebook….
While most of my rants were aimed at companies that I think are doing it wrong for construction marketing, my problem with Facebook hasn’t been Facebook, it’s been the way contractors are using Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg is worth a couple billion dollars because we drive traffic to his site instead of our own (yeah, I have a fan page too).
But I didn’t know how bad it was…
Until I read a stat a week or so ago that claimed that the single most popular advertising method for local businesses online was creating a free profile on a social network. And 65.7% (to be exact) used FB to create a free page for their businesses.
Now, understand the difference, creating a FB page isn’t necessarily advertising, but when companies then pay for offline marketing that promotes a FB fan page instead of their own construction website or specific landing page, I lose my mind.
I don’t want you to believe the hype
Here is what I am asking…in fact begging you to do. Don’t promote a FB fan page in your offline marketing. Instead, send people to your own site. And if your own site isn’t converting, then let’s fix it. But stop giving someone else your traffic, who then serves your competitor’s ads against your page. It’s like having people show up at your shop or store, walk through the showroom, out the back door and into Home Depot…to learn about your business.
Does that make sense to you? Yet you are paying for exactly that when you promote your Facebook fan page offline!
Just wondering why anyone would promote their Facebook fan page in print advertising. If you can give me a good reason to send people to a site that you don’t own or control versus a targeted landing page on your own site, I will buy you your next coffee! And I will let the other readers decide in the comments below.
Are you guilty of driving prospects AWAY from your own company website to a Facebook Fan Page they will never visit again? Maybe it is time to revisit this Facebook thing? Maybe it is time to start sending people back to your own homepage, and not to Facebook, I mean why give them the content, links and prospects since you know they are going to serve ads against your content!
Pay Attention – If you are NOT going to retire in the next five years, you need to pay attention to this post, because each day you ignore the warning I am about to lay out for you, the further behind your contracting company falls.
Sound like a lot of hot air?
Let me ask you a question, how many fans do you have on Facebook? How many followers do you have on Twitter? How many people have found your YouTube channel? If the answer is not many, you better get moving, and not for the obvious reason, which is potential clients or customers.More
Signs or ads stating “Follow me on Facebook” usually have to include a key piece of data to be effective. The key bit of data I speak of is your friggin’ Facebook handle! You can’t expect people to try and figure out what your page is on Facebook, yet I see about 3 ads a day from companies that expect you to be Inspector Clouseau. If you are one of these companies…please stop this practice immediately!
I shot this video towards the end of last year and I just dug it up after forgetting I did it. I wish I had remembered it because I think the content makes a lot of sense to contractors who are on the fence about the value of using social media. In the video I make it easy for you to find an ROI for your social media activities using your existing advertising as our baseline.More
Many business leaders and successful people have adopted a common phrase, “Hope is not a strategy”, well no shit! However, many construction contractors are still relying on nothing but hope, prayer and a little luck with their construction marketing strategy. They are hoping that their latest radio ad or television spot will pull in some new leads. Or they hope that the 1,000 postcards mailed out last week will produce a response. Don’t fall victim to this type of mentality.
Instead of relying on hope, develop your strategy
Think of a marketing plan as a new building. You have to first test and prepare the site. Then you build a strong, stable foundation. Next comes the framework and roof of the building. Finally, the interior is completed.
In marketing for contractors, the testing and preparing phase is finding out which services people are looking for. Then you need to build a foundation of communicating with customers across multiple platforms. A website, blog posts, Facebook account, YouTube videos, Flickr photos and Twitter messages are some examples of different ways to reaching prospective clients.
After making the initial contact the work doesn’t stop. You have to continually stay in touch with people. Sending out alerts about new promotions, or helpful tips, or even a quick question about how to improve service are different ways to keep in touch with people and stay in their mind until the day comes that they either need your services directly, or can recommend you to someone else.
In the end, just as it takes time to build a new office or home, it takes time for your marketing efforts to pay off. Consistent and prompt communication, focused on a particular segment, will yield better results than simple “hope.”
Photo Credit: Anil Jadhav