When it comes to engaging in social media, every business should be doing it as part of their contractor marketing strategy. At the same time, many don’t know where to start or have the time to make it happen. Outsourcing some or all of your social media marketing activities to generate contractor leads might make sense…

Per the 2012 Social Media Marketing Report, only 30% of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing, which is only a slight increase from the 28% reported in 2011. At the same time, this is up by 128% compared to the 14% reported two years ago in early 2010.

Given that social media can be a very powerful marketing tool to generate contractor leads, we encourage all businesses to actively engage in the platforms that fit into their overall contractor marketing strategy. And because social media engagement can be very “personal” and business specific, it’s important that a company engages directly within social media networks.

At the same time, time and knowledge can be a hindrance for businesses to make the most out of social media for their business. In these instances, because social media engagement is so important, businesses should consider outsourcing at least some elements of social media.

When might it best for you to outsource social media activities as part of your contractor marketing strategy?

You have the money, but don’t have time. If you’re strapped for time, and many business owners are, then paying a knowledgeable Internet marketing firm or consultant who specializes in social media to help you makes sense, but be sure you do your due diligence before you choose just any business to help you. For helpful tips in hiring a reputable Internet marketing firm, read 3 Questions to Ask BEFORE You Hire an Internet Marketing Company.

You have someone who completely understands your business and your culture’s “personality”. The perfect scenario would be to outsource to a business or individual that has a background in your industry, and even better, with your organization, This will make it easier for someone to truly represent your “voice” via social media. At the same time, a good social media marketer will be able to ask you the right questions and do their own due diligence to ensure your brand image and “voice” shines through.

You’re just getting started and you find yourself clueless. The Internet is a powerful marketing tool… if you know how to use it. Hiring an expert who can help you get started and provide guidance to help you effectively engage in social media to generate more contractor leads for your business is smart business.

You might also choose to simply outsource certain aspects of social media, such as social media analytics, design, and content creation. But for a business to get the most out of social media, they should also directly participate to optimize contractor lead generation and online visibility.

For more helpful information and statics, check out this post by HubSpot.

Contractor marketing companies are often told they can greatly benefit from social media, but get lost on identifying where exactly it fits in to their overall marketing and contractor lead generation strategy.

With so many social media networks coming up as an option for business owners to use to promote their business, it’s understandable some confusion arises when trying to decide which ones to choose and how to fit it in effectively. Below are 3 pointers to give you a good place to start to make social media work as part of your overall contractor marketing strategy.

Create a social media strategy. Before any company jumps into a social media network, it’s good to have a strategy in place. You want to 1) set clear goals on what you expect and want to achieve from social media, 2) identify who will be the point of contact to oversee the social media activity, 3) conduct research to determine which social media networks will meet your goal for your contractor marketing company, 4) determine which analytics you’ll use to evaluate progress and Return on Investment, and 5) create a road map and plan on how to achieve your goals.

Reward behavior and social media interaction. Consider identifying someone in your business that can monitor your employees’ and clients’ social media activity, and reward them for it. It could be as simple as a shout out on a social media network, or a tangible reward, such as a gift card or discount on services. You might even create some form of competition, such as offering a gift card to the employee who gets the most mentions for your business on their social media network.

Make it everyone’s business. You want to educate everyone in your firm about social media and how to use it effectively to promote your business. You also want to encourage them to use it and provide some guidance and ideas on how they can appropriately promote your contractor marketing firm using the social media tool(s) you choose.

For some more great tips on using social media for contractor marketing, check out How to Work Social Media Into Your Daily Biz posted on Smallbiztrends.com.

So, how does all of this “social media and new age contractor marketing” translate to enhance my bottom line?  Well, as with many things in life, unfortunately, it’s not as clear as 2 + 2 = 4.

Let’s face it, it is getting harder and harder to run a small, local business AND do all the work yourself.  The up side to this is that there are thousands of free tools and the monetary investment to get this up and running is small.  The downside is time, but only if you bite off more than you can chew (and yes, we contractors tend to do that!).

So, let me break it down for you. Why does your home services contractor business need to be involved in the social media community? Here are a few reasons:

1. Legitimacy. Social media and online marketing gives your customers and clients piece of mind that you are in fact who you say you are.
2. Customer Service. Though some see it strictly as contractor marketing, I find the social media portal a valuable interface into my customer’s lives without being an interruption. We can communicate in a flow of information, and share links and data rapidly and with a simple copy and paste!
   
3. Expectations. Contracting today is all about managing expectations. The more information and contact points, (through contractor marketing channels, or social media hubs) the easier it is to share information and resources to fully vet out ideas and confirm what clients want. Remember: the cloud is coming, and if you’re not in it, you’re going to get rained on!

Looking at these potential “benefits” of social media marketing, you can see how it is becoming even more difficult to run a small local business marketing strategy AND have the time to do your REAL job.  The up side to this is that there are thousands of free tools and the monetary investment to get this up and running is small.  The downside is time, but only if you bite off more than you can chew (and yes, we contractors tend to do that!).

Working as the Production Manager for Save Energy Co., I can attest to the success social media networking has brought to our Bay Area home services business. Like you, we’ve started small, and have been increasing our time and money commitment, and now, our web footprint is growing…and so are our leads. Let me give you the hard data: In the past 6 months, we’ve taken page rank from 2000 to under 50 in all but one of key words.  Our cost/lead has gone from $300 to $200 and we expect it to drop below $100 while increasing lead quality. It really is amazing and it really does work..

So, here are three tips I’ll leave you with if you’re considering using social media and contractor marketing to move your company forward…

1. DO IT! Stop studying and analyzing and dreading, pull the trigger already, your competitors already have.
2. GET A COACH! As most like-minded contractors, “Oh, it’s not that hard, I’ll just do it myself.”  Yes, you can and have to do it yourself, but there are too many pitfalls to navigate and far too many tricks out there that save you time and boost your performance with minimal effort.
3. BE PATIENT! This is a long term commitment.  If you start blogging twice a month and you’re expecting to start seeing leads after your first blog you are going to be sorely disappointed.  Stay the course, be disciplined, and in the scripted words of Kevin Costner “If you build it…they will come!”

So…what are you waiting for? Start building your online community today…before it’s too late…

If you’re a home service contractor, then generating leads for your business is likely a top priority for you for sustained ongoing success. One tool to have in your toolbox to generate leads for your contractor business is social media, including three of the primary social media sites, FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn. With more than 500 Million users on FaceBook alone (more than 50% log on daily), social media can generate leads for you very quickly and efficiently at a relatively low cost. In fact, many social media sites are free to use, so you want to take advantage of them as fully as possible. However, there are some pointers to keep in mind to drive people to your social media profiles to maximize lead generation.

Fully complete profiles on at least LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter. You want to be as professional as possible, so be sure to fully complete your profile on these three key social media sites at a minimum. You want to ensure your target audience is clear on what you do and offer, and keep in mind that this is a professional profile vs. a personal one, so be selective when posting information for your audience to view and read. Keep the majority of your personal news for your personal pages, and post mainly business related information on your professional page.

Create powerful content. After fully completing your profile, you want to make sure you create powerful content for your readers. Share information that’s newsworthy and informational. If you’re a plumber, you may share an article or tips on do-it-yourself plumbing, or you may provide safety tips if you’re an electrician. Regardless of what you share, you want to appeal to your target audience so they keep coming back and refer others to you and your site, as well. Plus, utilizing keywords in your content will help you come up higher in the search engine sites, so keep this in mind when creating the content for your site. It’s also a good idea to link to your blog when utilizing social media, or you may even opt to make your social media site a hub for your blog.

Provide incentives for fans. To increase leads for your contractor business, provide incentives for your target audience to become a ‘fan’ or ‘follow’ you on social media sites. You want your fans and followers to feel like they are part of an exclusive group, so offer free information, discounts and other incentives for your target audience on your social media sites. Also, it’s possible to target a particular audience on some social media sites, so take advantage of this whenever possible to make sure your being as selective as possible when targeting your audience.

Social media is a powerful and effective tool when used correctly as part of your Internet marketing campaign to generate leads for increase business as a contractor.

Aside from the tried and true tactic of building high-quality, content-based backlinks to your website, contractor marketing experts are always looking for ways to leverage social proof to get more leads online. Social proof sounds a lot like “everyone else is doing it” and includes everything from testimonials to “likes” and “follows” on social media sites. Like getting a referral from a friend, social proof helps people feel a lot less nervous about doing business with someone they don’t know directly.

Social search is a newish development that could be important for contractor marketing purposes… unless it tanks.

What is social search? It’s the brainchild of the marriage between Bing and Facebook. The union between the two made it so Facebook searches incorporate Bing’s search results. Now the pair will turn that around the other way and make Facebook data appear in Bing’s search results. Integrating with a user’s social connections, this will make it so the search results are influenced by the “likes” of your network.

In other words, with this contractor marketing setup, data will be gathered from your friends and connections and show up when you go looking for products and services online. If you’ve got a friend who’s made any opinion of a product or service public, it’ll show up when you search. It could be the ultimate in personalized search.

Or people could hate it.

Feedback from the field varies widely. Some users say this contractor marketing enhancement will make it even easier for excellent businesses to succeed. As they gather raving fans, they position themselves to become even more popular. Others say this is SEO equivalent of “The New Coke” and that people will demand a return to relevance-based search results.

One guy said, “My friends are morons! Why would I want to follow their recommendations?” A little harsh, but he brings up a good point. People have lots of different reasons they might “like” a business on a social network. Maybe they’re related to the owner, maybe they’re a paid marketer trying to help a client, maybe someone hacked their account and went nuts one day “liking” like there was no tomorrow. There’s no guarantee a “like” means anything at all. There’s a lot of room for crazy stuff to happen and completely skew the search results.

So what should you do? Be prepared either way:

• Keep going with SEO – build high-quality relevant links by distributing great content.
• Build your social network presence – encourage your contacts and customers to “like” your pages and content.
• Don’t forget to incorporate the highest form of social proof – testimonials. A powerful testimonial is heavy on credibility. A video is the best, audio and a photo next, text and a photo next. Never, ever fake a testimonial.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens with social search when it is incorporated with contractor marketing, but if you stick to proven strategies and dip a toe into what seems promising and new, you’ll be covered.

So, a question for you – would you be more or less likely to try a product or service based on your social network’s input – or would it have no effect at all on you?

Increasing your Contracting Businesses Online Visibility with Social Media

The Hootsuite platform is a multi-integral social media management dashboard that has the ability to manage, organize and obtain your businesses social media networks…all in one location. There is a reason we choose Hootsuite for our Surefire Social Clients, and we think that your business should too.

An Online Linking Strategy Made for Contractors

LinkWheel marketing is one of the most strategic ways to drive traffic to your website, while maximizing online visibility for your business. Watch this video tutorial to see how Surefire Social uses high value PR (page rank) web 2.0 networks, and your businesses primary keywords (SEO), to create an online linking strategy to give your business the leads it has been looking for…

If you talk to any online marketing professional, they will tell you that one of the most important outlets for attracting customers and increasing leads is a blog.

Blogging is not just for thought leaders or online guru’s, it is a great outlet for businesses to brand their business online. Some of the benefits of

blogging include:

• Driving potential customers and leads to your site through your blog posts;
• Branding yourself as an expert by providing insight and information through your blog writing;
  

  Business blogging is all about providing the knowledge people want, so they keep coming back for more.

• Giving your business maximum visibility by sending the online community updates about your posts.

Now, if you have a blog, do weekly postings, but want to get some more traction, you are in luck. The online marketing community is full of sites and networks geared toward promoting your blog and gaining more followers.

Try these 3 secret ways of gaining more visibility for your blog and driving more potential leads back to your site.

1. Submit You Blog to Online Directories. One of the first steps to getting your blog noticed is to submit it to some of the hottest online blog directory sites. Many people use these online submission sites as places to find blogs within their industry, so it is the prime place for you to establish a solid presence. Check out sites like DMOZ, Best of the Web and Bloggeries and fill out their submission form. Some of them take a little while to activate, but trust me, it is well worth the wait!

2. Send Updates to Your Social Media Networks. Social media marketing is one of the top ways to market your business to potential consumers and customers. Millions of people (daily) are browsing around Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn looking for blogs, like yours, to give them some insight into many of their home improvement needs and issues.

3. Utilize Social Bookmarking to Gain Better Visibility. Social bookmarking sites are a hidden gem of the Internet marketing world. By simply tagging a blog post here and there, you are giving your blog a great opportunity to be passed around by the online community. Try sites like: StumbleUpon, Mixx and Delicious which are some user-friendly, high-ranking authority sites to incorporate into your online marketing strategy.

A blog can take some time, but will have a lasting effect on the lead generation efforts of your business. So jump on the bandwagon and create some awesome content to generate your business some quality, contractor leads.

Sometimes life is not as hard as we make it out to be. Following some simple, but highly effective principles for web traffic conversion will get you more contractor leads than anyone in your market. The hard part is not making this too complicated…and of course, just doing them.

SECRET #1 – Use a landing page, PLEASE

Your homepage is not the best destination for social media traffic because your message will be much broader on your homepage that you have on your social media site.

In social media, you are publishing regularly through micro blogging, article writing and videos on specific topics. You should have landing pages within your site structure that you can drive this very targeted traffic to that will be and exact match to the social media subject your viewer/prospect is reading.

Think of it this way. If you are on a social media site learning about energy efficiency and how windows can help make your home more energy efficient, how would you feel if you clicked on a link and were dumped on a page that talked very broadly about window replacement and tried to sell you a deal or request a quote?

SECRET #2 – Match your Social Media Message to your Landing Page

The primary message on your landing page should be the same (or reflective of) what you said in your social media channel. Like positive reinforcement for dogs, seeing a familiar message adds to the feeling that you made a “good” click. Conversely, not having a matched message can make your visitors feel lost – at which point they head for the comfort of the back button.

SECRET #3 – Social proof via social media widgets

There is a new buzzword in the social media marketing world…wisdom of the crowd. This is based on the fact that most people are a bit like sheep. They have no idea where they are going, and in most cases, just wander around until they find something interesting. Our herd mentality makes us want constant validation that our choices are sound. We do this by seeking reviews of products and services and we observe the reactions of others as they experience the goods before us. The great thing is, with social media, we can make this concept work for us.

SECRET #4 – Make it easy to share with social media widgets

Having viewers of your social media content be able to easily share and spread your ideas will benefit your business in several ways. Sharing your content can come across as a “referral” to someone looking for a contracting service like yours. The cool thing about viral sharing is that it will also add to your “authority” as and expert. Great way to differentiate your business from the pack!

You can find tons of social media sharing widgets that make it easy to integrate sharing capabilities into your website, Facebook Fan Page and other social media/web 2.0 sites.

SECRET #5 – Keep Your Lead Gen Form Short

Traffic conversion to a qualified lead is a dynamic tension between enticement and resistance (barriers to entry). If you are collecting leads (personal data such as name, email, phone number, company, website etc.) then your lead gen form is a barrier to entry and the size of the barrier is directly correlated to the size of the form (number of fields).

When collecting personal data, you need to offer something back to the customer in exchange, such as a whitepaper, webinar registration, eBook and so on. The more relevant and interesting your giveaway is, the larger you can make the hurdle. Another important aspect here it to make your offer something that will only engage people truly interested in your service. Offering a discounted cruise if someone gives their contact info and sets up a sales call may get you lots of leads, but you might be attracting a very unqualified lead. Better, offer something that only someone who would want to buy your product or service would want.

SECRET #6 – Have Multiple Calls To Action

Sadly, not everyone that comes to your landing page is ready to convert “right now”. They may be more upper funnel, trying to get educated, window-shopping, browsing or just curious about what you have to say. By offering several calls to action (we recommend at least 3 per landing page) you can sometimes persuade the visitor to maintain a connection with you wherever they may be in the purchase decision.

The simplest ways to do this are to provide a method to:

• A visible phone number to call for immediate help.
• Download a free handbook/ebook
• Request a quote button

Other simple ways to get the contact using social media are:

• Like your Facebook page or group
• Follow you on Twitter
• Join a LinkedIn group
• Bookmark you on Delicious

SECRET #7 – Post-Conversion Sales

Post-conversion sales strategy is a completely overlooked part of the sales funnel. You got your conversion and you got your lead so everything’s good right? Wrong. You need a sale!

There are several ways we use to optimize your post-conversion opportunities:

• Use an autorepsonder to move your new lead to a sale. Use social proof (testimonials) and education materials to build trust and authority in your sales process.
• Follow up with a call immediately to arrange an in-home demo. Make sure you have a script and your people know it and keep track of demo set up rates so you can optimize that script.
• Place additional call-to-actions on your confirmation or thank you page (after they complete your lead gen form). This can help to reduce clutter on your landing page. And you can also suggest a page on your website as their next step – knowing that they have a qualified level of interest.
• Turn the email into a complete social profile using a service like Flowtown. This gives your leads an identity and sets you up for more targeted follow-up marketing. Your first contact with the prospect is critical, and the more you know about them the better. By connecting based on real profile data you look like someone who’s made the effort to do some research before making contact. This is a massive conversion advantage.

In Summary

Don’t get overwhelmed by the possibilities. Bookmark this post and do one thing at a time and come back and continue till you have implemented everything.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The 12-Step Landing Page Rehab Program [Infographic] (seomoz.org)
• Social Media Marketing Tips – The Big Picture (Day 2 – Part 1) (businesscasualblog.com)

Got a Facebook Fan Page and Need Some Help?

Contact us with questions at  info @ surefiresocial.com