Last week, we included an article on reaching new clients with SEO best practices. But that’s not all electrical contractors need to know. It’s equally important to create engaging content on social media. Sharing content on social media helps to drive new visitors when it shows up in their feed after being shared by their friends or brands they follow. The key is to create useful content, not just a thinly veiled sales pitch masquerading as a blog post.
Most people today realize that social media is more than a passing fad. It’s an easy and effective way for people in all demographics to connect with family, friends and even companies.
However, some people mistakenly believe that social media is ineffective for B2B businesses. They typically have the idea that either their clients aren’t on social media, or that they aren’t looking on social media for the services they provide.
The first idea is completely false. In fact, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, it’s reported that a staggering 79 percent of U.S. adults online use Facebook, and many of those people use additional social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
The second idea is half true; however, it’s also completely irrelevant because while potential clients are generally not looking for specific services on social media, the mere fact that they are social media creates an opportunity to build brand awareness and trust.
No one goes to Facebook, or any other social network for that matter, to buy a product or service. They go on Facebook to connect, engage and to be entertained. But while they’re doing that, marketers have a tremendous opportunity to keep their brand at the top of the minds of these potential clients, build trust and showcase their value—all far earlier in the buying process.
The key to successfully using social media to market electrical contractors is to understand exactly who the ideal buyer is and target them specifically, because this allows the message to be tailored precisely to them. For example, an electrical contractor specializing in larger, exclusive hotels might target general contractors who specialize in building resort-style hotels in tourist destinations. Social media makes it very easy to get in front of these people, especially with the following tactics.
- Using paid advertising to target the fans of Facebook pages for trade organizations geared toward larger commercial contractors. (This option may not be available for all pages.)
- Sharing articles and videos on social media that these type of contractors would find valuable, such as industry trends, new laws and regulations or even their own content.
- Participating in relevant Facebook groups by asking and answering questions. A quick search turned up dozens of construction-related groups on Facebook, many with more than 10,000 members.
It’s critical that any content shared is useful, engaging and original. Everyone on social media today is already overwhelmed by the noise that everyone else, including people and companies, are sharing on social media, so it needs to be truly amazing to get their attention.
It’s no longer enough to simply share valuable content with existing fans. A more effective approach is to leverage the audiences of other strategic partners and use paid advertising to reach new audiences while sharing valuable content with existing fans. This only works when content is shared that the audience finds useful and engaging. That requires creative imagery, copywriting and targeting to rise above the noise encountered on every single social network today.
Identifying content an audience will find useful is relatively simple and can be accomplished by answering the following five questions:
- Who, specifically, is this piece of content for?
- What should it accomplish?
- Why should they care about it?
- Why would they want to share it?
- What should they do next?
SEO and social media, when executed properly, can work together to help put electrical contractors in front of potential clients long before their more complacent competitors.
