Online Tradies Get More - The Tradies Online Essentials: Getting More Customers With Social Media
To be successful in business today it is essential to provide your customers multiple ways to find and communicate with you and your business.
This is especially true for tradies as every tradesman has the ability to start their own business with very little up-front capital, fierce competition and a challenging economy.
If you have been following this series you will already have set-up your professional email addresses, aggregated to your smart phone, have your web hosting and website up and running online and you recognize this is a key part of your business marketing investment.
Assuming you have a good amount of content on your website you now need to start learning strategies for driving traffic to your web site so it can generate new customers and ultimately revenue for you and your growing business.
Often tradies will have limited (or non-existent) marketing budgets but as a businessman that understands the importance of maximizing return on investment, with a lean budget, and investing in personal relationships with customers, suppliers and complimentary businesses you have some great free resources you can start using today.
Do More With Less Time Of course we mean social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube - The Big 3 -BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE, whilst it does not cost you anything to join or participate with these services so far as zero subscription and sign-up fees there is a significant cost to the small business owner...
time.
Remember time is the only resource that once spent you can never get back so you have to manage your time working in and working on your business effectively.
Social media can drain your time like the pokies on a Saturday night drain your pay packet.
Unlike some of the other articles in this series we are not going to show you how to join these services as they are so easy, but we will show you how to use them to maximise their impact on your business.
Systemise & Save We recommend having a systematic approach to your Social Media Marketing Plan.
Try allocating different days of the week to each social media platform you will participate on or set-aside a time slot each evening for each website.
For example you may assign Mondaynight as your Twitter night, Tuesday as your Facebook and Wednesday as your YouTube and then rotate through the rest of the week.
Alternatively you may set aside from 7-8pm for Twitter, 8-9pm for Facebook and 9-9:30am for YouTube.
Most important for all social media is regularity of contribution and contact so stick to your schedule if you want to get results.
Get Personal and Clean Up Your Act If you already have a personal account with Twitter, Facebook or YouTube consider starting a new one just for your business presence.
This is a decision you will be able to judge best.
If for example you have already started to tell people about your business using these social media and you don't have any 'unprofessional' posts or pictures then you are probably OK andcan start migrating the tone of your accounts.
What I mean is instead of talking so much about how much beer you drank on Friday night, start contributingmore about the interesting places you have seen whilst working, people you have met or new projects or installation methods you are doing that will be interesting to your social audience.
Ultimately you want to use the social media platforms to listen, join, engage, network and profit by building awareness and relationships.
Social media for your tradies businesses is a way to:
This is especially true for tradies as every tradesman has the ability to start their own business with very little up-front capital, fierce competition and a challenging economy.
If you have been following this series you will already have set-up your professional email addresses, aggregated to your smart phone, have your web hosting and website up and running online and you recognize this is a key part of your business marketing investment.
Assuming you have a good amount of content on your website you now need to start learning strategies for driving traffic to your web site so it can generate new customers and ultimately revenue for you and your growing business.
Often tradies will have limited (or non-existent) marketing budgets but as a businessman that understands the importance of maximizing return on investment, with a lean budget, and investing in personal relationships with customers, suppliers and complimentary businesses you have some great free resources you can start using today.
Do More With Less Time Of course we mean social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube - The Big 3 -BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE, whilst it does not cost you anything to join or participate with these services so far as zero subscription and sign-up fees there is a significant cost to the small business owner...
time.
Remember time is the only resource that once spent you can never get back so you have to manage your time working in and working on your business effectively.
Social media can drain your time like the pokies on a Saturday night drain your pay packet.
Unlike some of the other articles in this series we are not going to show you how to join these services as they are so easy, but we will show you how to use them to maximise their impact on your business.
Systemise & Save We recommend having a systematic approach to your Social Media Marketing Plan.
Try allocating different days of the week to each social media platform you will participate on or set-aside a time slot each evening for each website.
For example you may assign Mondaynight as your Twitter night, Tuesday as your Facebook and Wednesday as your YouTube and then rotate through the rest of the week.
Alternatively you may set aside from 7-8pm for Twitter, 8-9pm for Facebook and 9-9:30am for YouTube.
Most important for all social media is regularity of contribution and contact so stick to your schedule if you want to get results.
Get Personal and Clean Up Your Act If you already have a personal account with Twitter, Facebook or YouTube consider starting a new one just for your business presence.
This is a decision you will be able to judge best.
If for example you have already started to tell people about your business using these social media and you don't have any 'unprofessional' posts or pictures then you are probably OK andcan start migrating the tone of your accounts.
What I mean is instead of talking so much about how much beer you drank on Friday night, start contributingmore about the interesting places you have seen whilst working, people you have met or new projects or installation methods you are doing that will be interesting to your social audience.
Remember you're doing this so your audience feels connected with you and gets a sense of who you are.If however you have been using any of these social media as an outlet for your aggression, crazy party photos or relationships, then best to start them all afresh and invite your'filtered' list of friends and followers along with you.
Ultimately you want to use the social media platforms to listen, join, engage, network and profit by building awareness and relationships.
Social media for your tradies businesses is a way to:
- Listen to what your prospective, potential or possible customer are saying
- Join the conversation with them by offering free (useful but incomplete teasers) advise from an expert
- Engage with them directly via directmessaging (DM) and commenting on their posts, pictures and videos
- Network with them and their friends by following and friending them and ultimately...
- Profit from this relationship by directing them, in the course of your engaging and networking phases,to your website and the tools you have implemented online to generate business leads.
( look to future posts for more information on these tools and methods)
Source...