Some industries seem especially well-suited for social media marketing, and the building industry is one of them. Since personal recommendations are so important for builders’ sales and contracts, the personal touch of social media is an ideal landscape for finding new customers and instilling people with confidence in your brand.
In this blog post, we’ll look at several tips and tricks builders can use to improve their social media marketing, expand their audience and reach new networks of potential customers.
Together, your website and blog are the engines that power your social media marketing. All of your marketing should lead potential customers back to your website where they can learn more about you and ultimately contact you for more information or for a quote.
Therefore, your website and blog need to be polished and professional. They offer people a powerful first impression of your organisation. Does your website currently give people the kind of impression you want to give? If not, make the necessary changes.
For instance, ask yourself:
Improvements to your website and blog will greatly improve the results you get from your social media marketing campaigns.
Builders frequently turn to social media for marketing because that’s where their potential clients are. With so many social media channels out there, however, you’ll need to be careful about which networks you choose.
If you’re just starting out, it’s wise to keep your number of active social media accounts to two or three. This will allow you to focus your efforts and be more effective. If you spread yourself too thin, you’ll quickly burn out.
Since you’re just choosing two or three social media channels, be deliberate about your choices. Do some research to find out where your target audience is most likely to be spending time. For builders, this is often LinkedIn, Facebook and possibly Instagram, but you’ll need to do some investigating on your own to be sure these are the best choices for you.
One of the most intimidating aspects of marketing for builders is that it seems to require so much time and effort, especially if you want to have a significant presence on one or more social media networks.
With all that is required of builders during the day, it can seem impossible to work in time for social media. Fortunately, there are tools you can use to schedule your posts ahead of time. You can actually schedule weeks’ worth of posts in one sitting and then focus on your other responsibilities while your social media marketing goes on autopilot.
Scheduling your posts ahead of time gives you several advantages. First of all, you can keep your accounts active without having to be logged on constantly. Secondly, you can coordinate your posts with seasonal or holiday themes or highlight events that you’ll be participating in. Your social media marketing becomes more intentional and less haphazard when you calendar your posts ahead of time.
Research shows that posts that include images and videos are much more likely to be shared than posts that contain simple text. Some social media platforms, like Pinterest and Instagram, are primarily driven by images. But even when you’re posting on platforms that have traditionally been more text-centric, like LinkedIn or Twitter, be sure to include images if you want to encourage engagement.
Quality images can go a long way toward improving your brand recognition. Get in the habit of taking high-quality photos of your building projects, and use the photos regularly on social media. If your company does remodelling projects, be sure to get before and after photos, which are particularly popular on social media.
If you really want to use your time and marketing resources wisely, you’ll track your metrics and analyse them to find out what kinds of posts give you the greatest ROI. As you look at your metrics, pay attention to reach and engagement on different social media platforms, comments and mentions, and the amount of traffic flowing from different social media posts back to your website and blog.
Once you find out which kinds of posts are the most effective at increasing traffic back to your website, use those posts as models for future posts.
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