Companies of all sizes are utilizing the powerful tool of social media to grow and expand their business. In fact, studies show that social media, a marketing strategy recently used primarily by larger companies, is increasingly becoming part of small business’ marketing strategies as well, following closely behind email and website campaigns.

And we’re not surprised.

We find that social media is a powerful tool that allows you the opportunity to expand your business ten-fold for a variety of reasons, as outlined below, which means an increase in contractor leads for you and your contracting business.

So why do we think social media is a smart and powerful tool to gain contractor leads?

It’s Low Cost. Most social media sites are free to set up a profile, so the Return on Investment (where there often is no investment) can be huge. In addition, advertisement pages and other options to market your contractor business are often offered for a relatively low cost through most social media sites.

Everybody’s Doing It. And we mean both, businesses and individuals are using it. FaceBook has more than 500 million users alone and 50% of these users log on daily! That means there’s a massive audience to market your services to. Be it Twitter, FaceBook or LinkedIn, three of the most prominent social media sites, be sure to use these sites as part of your contractor marketing campaign to advertise and grow your lead base in a relatively short period of time.

It Gives You the Option to Target a Particular Niche. What’s great about many social media sites is your ability to develop a page that targets a particular market or niche. This is a great way to hone in on a specific group of individuals or niche you’re already focused on marketing to, or it can give you the opportunity to look for a new niche for which to market you contractor services.

You Can Create Synergy with Other Internet Marketing Strategies You Currently Utilize. When you use social media sites, you can create synergies with your other marketing tools, such as email or your website. For example, you can include a link to your website on your social media sites and vice versa, add your social media site fans to your email subscriber list, or share newsworthy content in email, social media sites and your website all at the same time.

Social media helps with your search engine ranking. Because social media sites have feeds that rank high in the search engine results, when someone searches for your services or for you specifically, you will likely show up higher in the Internet search engines than if you only have a website.

Social media is a powerful and growing marketing tool that any contractor would be wise to use to grow and expand their business. You don’t want to miss this opportunity, so join in on the Internet social media frenzy and watch your contractor leads come flowing in.

Chris Marentis has written 115 articles on this blog.

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Chris Marentis, is the Founder and CEO of GenNext Media LLC, and the creator of the Surefire Social Marketing System, a lead marketing system for local small businesses using social media and other Web 2.0 applications to leverage online visibility and generate quality, long-lasting leads. Chris's Google+ Profile

Tags: contractor leads

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.