Do you own a trade based business, and want to know how social media has the power to exponentially grow your business, particular to your industry?
It can be a tough slog keeping up with social media when you’re busy running your business. Carving out time to figure out how it all works, where and what to post, how often, what pictures etc. is not high on the to-do list. I get it.
However, with 59% of consumers using social media daily, in every industry it really is the way forward in generating new business and becoming more visible. Is it time you jumped on the bandwagon? We think so (is there a better time… COVID?), but rest assured we’ll give you some tips so the transition isn’t too taxing.
One objection I’ll address right off the bat is that YOU don’t need to like or enjoy social media to use it to grow your business. If you’re a hater don’t be fooled into thinking everyone is like you, they are not, nuff said.
How can social media boost your business? Well, apart from giving you more visibility (simply being seen), credibility (you look legit), you can showcase your work, through images and words is the best way to do just this.
This guide is here to help, with tips that will make social media a breeze and how it has the power to exponentially grow your trade business.
Tip 1- Contact information is up to Date
It is extremely important that your contact information is up to date, this includes the services you do, where you are located and a phone number or website for clients to contact you. Some people use Facebook now like Google, they search for a business and contact them directly from the social media platform.
Tip 2- Visuals
Trade businesses using social media for marketing is an excellent way to show potential customers the work you do. They want to see the craftsmanship, quality of your work, depth of your knowledge, and that you know what you’re doing!
Having appealing visuals can be anything from pics of the site you are working on, before and afters, images of products you use, the team working on the job, or detail shots to highlight certain features of a job. Don’t have visuals? Borrow some from free stock photo sites such as unsplash.com.
Tip 3- Schedule posts once a month and save time
Let’s make life easy, spend a couple of hours each month scheduling your month’s work of social media posts. Use a tool like Hootesuite or Later that will allow you to upload all your pics, write captions and share them across FB and Instagram at the same time. If you can’t spare that time, outsource it to someone who knows what they’re doing, even better.
Tip 4- Answer comments as they come through
Social media is a great way to build a connection with potential customers. Now that you’ve got your posts for the month scheduled, you don’t need to worry about posting new content. If an enquiry or message comes through – you will be notified on your email or phone, and you can just jump in and answer the question, book the call, sell the product, do what you do best. It is important to answer questions as quickly as possible so the client stays hot.
Tip 5- What about paid advertising?
Organic social media posts (anything you post on Facebook or Instagram) are great for credibility, showcasing your work, staying relevant, and becoming visible. In terms of getting NEW leads, it’s a very common misconception that this will generate new leads. It usually doesn’t. Some sobering news: the number of people that see your posts are about 5% of your current following. Got 500 followers? Only 25 will see your post. Likely they already know about you so it won’t be a new lead. So, we pair this organic posting with Facebook and Instagram advertising to reach a NEW audience of people that DON’T know you.
We send these new people back to your page to check out your work (because you’ve got great organic posts going up regularly), or your website, and they can make an inquiry. With advertising, we can target a very select group of people on Facebook, say, females, in their 40’s with kids (for example), or males, 35-65 who live in Queensland, like BMW, you get my point. Facebook Advertising allows you to pick the age, gender, location, and different categories to filter down to whom you are targeting to. This means that you know that your advertising dollar is not wasted reaching the wrong people.
