You may already be well immersed in uploading your photos to Facebook and Twitter after a night out, but have you thought about how it could help your business?
People are seeing more and more recommendations coming through social media. In fact, www.constructaquote.com recently found that 42 per cent of self-employed tradespeople rely on social media when it comes to advertising themselves.
We’ve pulled together a handy guide to help you make the most of the channels available.
Use a number of platforms
There are many social media platforms out there to use, all of which can help tradespeople extend the reach and reputation of their business. Not only are they free to set up and use, they are a great place to showcase work. Here are our top choices:
- YouTube
Use different content
Every channel has different rules and restrictions on what can be uploaded, e.g. Twitter has a 140 character limit on all tweets, including links and pictures (it has recently announced that this could change, so keep your eyes peeled for updates). This means you will need to tailor content to each channel, which sounds time consuming, but is worthwhile. We suggest the following content for each channel:
- Facebook – this can be used as an ‘all round’ tool. You can create company pages to upload images and videos of your work, engage with customers and share all the latest industry news. The site is also less restrictive on character counts
- Twitter – this platform is best suited to engaging in conversations with customers as it has such a small character count. Creating an online presence for current and potential clients can position your firm as an industry leader and helps make you more approachable. Twitter is also a great place to engage with brands who may influence your sector
- Instagram – this is a picture based site that many people go to for inspiration, so before and after images for example, would work quite well. Your Instagram account can be linked with Twitter and Facebook, further increasing the amount of people who see your content
- YouTube – this is the ‘go to’ site for looking up quick tips or how to videos. This is where you come in! Sharing on-site snippets of projects, or uploading how to videos, will really help to prove the high quality of your work
All the sites can be linked back to your website too, helping you stay at the top of Google search pages!
Engage with industry forums
Joining forums, such as DIYnot’s trade section and The British Construction Equipment Forum can help tradespeople build up valuable relationships with each other. As well as sharing all the latest news, forums help create communities of professionals who go on to recommend each other’s work, raising profiles of their peers through word of mouth.
To keep the jobs coming in, it’s definitely worth keeping your social media channels up to date!
For more tips and inspiration, follow the Jewson social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
