You’ve probably heard that social media marketing for home services contractors is a critical part of doing business. But what exactly is social media marketing and why is it so important?
Today we are going to define social media marketing, give you some examples, and show you why social media marketing is so important. We are also going to talk about the most popular social media marketing platforms and the best types of content to post on them.
What Is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing refers to social media platforms and websites that are used to promote any given business’s product or service. It is a method used to connect with a brand’s audience on a more personal level to drive more traffic and increase sales. Many small businesses use local marketing software or other local marketing tools to perform their social media marketing more easily.
Examples of Social Media Marketing
At present, the most common social media marketing platforms are Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest. There are others, but these are the most popular right now. Using these platforms, businesses can build a business page, run ads, or use other business promotion options as the platform allows.
Why Is a Social Media Marketing Presence Important?
The benefits of social media marketing are immeasurable.
- Social media will help build your brand’s authority and reputation by building relationships with the public and connecting with consumers.
- Social media marketing increases visibility and enables businesses to connect with consumers 24/7/365 in a more personal way.
- Social media marketing helps businesses educate the public on any given topic. This creates brand authority, brand loyalty, and encourages and builds personal relationships.
- By providing your audience (current and potential customers) with valuable information (education), they will perceive your brand as an authority and with a higher level of trust. This is because the more you give freely to your audience, the more familiar and trustworthy you become.
Social media marketing is beneficial because even if someone isn’t ready to purchase or signup for whatever it is you’re offering today, your brand will be at the top of their mind when they are.
Why? Because you have spent the time to build a relationship with them using a social media platform full of other like-minded people. These people will contribute to the social proof people most often use to decide what’s relevant to their needs.
Translation…whether or not a person will decide to buy, subscribe, or even consider any given business, product, or service, is often based on the opinion of others (social proof). In fact, 71% of consumers’ buying decisions are influenced by social media.
2021 Statistics of Social Media’s Influence on Buying Decisions
- 54% of social media users use their social media research findings to make a buying decision.
- 29% of social media users will make a purchase the same day they researched that product or service on social media. Meaning they perform their research then immediately click on the social media link to the business to make their purchase.
- 62% of consumers stated they broadly share their bad customer service and product/service experiences on social media. That’s why it’s so important to do it correctly. On the same note, if the consumer has an exceptional experience, many will broadly share that experience as well.
- 81% of peoples’ product or service purchases were significantly influenced by their friends’ social media posts.
- 53% of the world population is on some form of social media.
- As of 2019, almost 91% of Millennials, 78% of Gen X, and 48% of Baby Boomers were active on social media. Those numbers are no doubt much higher now.
- Videos get the most ad clicks on Facebook.
- More shocking statistics here.
Now that you are convinced social media marketing for home services contractors should be a huge part of your marketing campaigns, let’s talk about the best methods for creating effective social media content.
What To Do Before Developing Your Social Media Marketing Content Strategy
Before developing your social media marketing content strategy, it’s best to do a little research first. Start by determining your social media goals, KPI’s (key performance indicators), and thoroughly research your target audience. You should also define and study your direct competitors, choose your social media platforms, create your brand content guidelines, and come up with a consistent social media handle to use across all platforms.
Now make sure you have a dedicated team, a local marketing platform, or some other type of resource to effectively develop and implement your ongoing social media content strategy on a consistent basis.
Now let’s talk about the best methods for creating effective social media content.
The Top 6 Methods for Creating Effective Social Media Content
1. General Education
Providing general information to your audience in a variety of formats is one of the best ways to build brand authority, brand trust, and to show your industry expertise. You can do this by writing how-to guides and educational articles.
Research trending industry topics and most frequently asked questions. This will give you ideas for the content you need to write your articles and guides. Then you can develop these ideas using your small business marketing tools or other options that might be available to you on whatever small business marketing platform you are using.
2. Informative Content Blogs
Writing informative content is like providing general education as discussed above. The best way to do this is to add a blog to your website and consistently add new blog posts to it. If you are providing great content, your blog posts might rank high on Google and be linked to by other people, creating a viral effect. This will boost your website and page rankings while helping to drive more traffic to your website.
3. Q&A Content
You are probably familiar with the Google Answer Boxes found near the top of every search page. Including a Q&A (questions and answers) page or section on your website is a great way to land your content in that box. Your content being in the Google Answer Box will provide your website with loads of exposure while driving significantly more traffic to your website and branding you as an expert as well.
4. Interactive Polls
Interactive polls are another great way to use social media marketing. Polls are engaging and can be very eye-opening. Interactive polls will help you give your audience the content, products, and services they want by polling them to find out what that might be. It is also a great way to help you determine any change in direction your business might need to take. You can develop polls using downloadable apps like Poll Everywhere or something similar.
5. Videos
Videos are a great addition when trying to add variety to your social media marketing content. People love videos. Let me ask you this…when was the last time you watched a YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or another video? Exactly!
Additionally, Facebook’s algorithm actually prioritizes video. With smartphone cameras, videos have never been easier to make. Yes, you could spend a lot of money having a video professionally made. However, a raw mobile phone video will feel more familiar to the people who frequent social media.
Don’t forget that your social media marketing videos can be posted to more than one platform. You can post your videos on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Vimeo, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter, and even LinkedIn. That’s a pretty broad reach!
6. Ebooks
Ebooks (electronic books, digital books) are a longer form of content that can be used for your social media marketing campaigns as well. Ebooks generally provide more detailed information. An eBook will help you demonstrate your industry expertise and expand your marketing reach.
People searching for knowledge about a topic will often look for a book to purchase and/or download for free. That means you could capture the traffic searching for a book rather than just those doing a general internet search.
Additionally, you could publish your eBook to Amazon, put it up on your website as a free opt-in gift, and, of course, you can put it on all your social media pages also. And, eBooks provide you with some great exposure too.
What’s Next?
Find a local marketing platform that will eliminate all the things that are causing you to spin your wheels.
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How would you like to—have a local marketing platform that would provide you and your team with a single sign-on view of literally everything! A data-driven marketing intelligence platform that seamlessly aligns your branding and messaging to online and offline touchpoints as people move through the customer journey.
Now you can and here’s how…
Attend a Surefire Local Marketing Platform Demo
Check out the Surefire Local Marketing platform demo. No more duct-tape solutions that lead to frustrating results. You will also find that it also helps eliminate data silos from your organization while giving you a 360-degree perspective on your ROI.
If you are still not sure, just remember one thing…
“If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will keep getting what you’ve always gotten.”
You will love having small business marketing software. A local marketing platform is extremely valuable, especially when social media marketing for home services contractors is such a critical part of doing business.