What’s the best way to market my construction company business? Undoubtedly, the retail world in many industries is changing at a very fast pace. Today, 30% of businesses fail to take off within the first year due to poor marketing strategies. Five years down the lane, 30% of startups get phased out of business completely. Fast forward to a decade, only 30% of startups manage to survive. So the failure rate of businesses within a decade due to poor marketing strategy is about 70%.
It’s evident that traditional marketing strategies no longer work as they did around the 90s and 2000s. For business owners leveraging digital marketing, they might be missing a crucial aspect that stimulates performance and sales—social media marketing. But again, social media is quite ambiguous. So what, do you need to know about social media marketing with respect to running a construction business? Explore this article to understand how you can fully implement social media in your construction business.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing, popularly abbreviated as SMM entails leveraging social networks such as apps and websites to promote your products and services. Unlike traditional marketing tools, social media brings both small and big businesses to the same level, with access to nearly the same size of audiences.
Moreover, there is a greater catch when it comes to social media marketing. First, businesses can hyper-target ideal prospects based on data analytics such as demographics. Secondly, social media allows your business to build an audience for consistent and future marketing success. Even better, you can track your ROI on various social media platforms, such as Facebook.
How Construction Companies Can Get Started with Social Media Marketing
That said, how does your construction company get started with social media marketing? How are you going to drive sales and run a sustainable business for years to come? You should:
- Post on a Regular Basis
Social media metrics work in a very interesting way. You can assume that a profile that posts regularly receives more exposure than ones that don’t. In the US, about 7 out of 10 users connect with brands and friends through social media. This is quite a big number when you make a global comparison. What’s more, these people already have their favorite accounts that they follow. If you don’t post regularly, you won’t get access to these people.
So, make the point to create and share at least five posts a week. This will increase the chances of your brand message appearing in other users’ feeds. But that can be time-consuming, especially if you have other high-value tasks such as fulfilling construction material orders. If you don’t have the time, it’s prudent to outsource the service to an agency that will post regularly.
- Stick to One or Two Social Media Platforms
To date, we have more than 17 social media platforms, each serving up to 300 million active subscribers and more. However, there are only seven platforms that can boast at least 1 billion users or more, including Facebook that claims more than 2.895 billion active subscribers every month. Other apps owned by Facebook, such as Instagram have a potential reach of up to 1.39 billion when it comes to running business ads.
From these statistics, you can see that social media platforms are not the same. Some platforms have a greater reach than others. That said, stick to about one or two such platforms and put your focus there. In the case of a construction business company, going with Facebook and Instagram sounds like the best deal because these platforms have a higher potential reach. On top of that, they allow you to share photos, videos, and long-form posts easily.
- Encourage Your Employees, Friends, and Customers to Follow You
Building a following is critical if your construction business is going to have much success with social media marketing. More followers behind your business profile translate to more engagement through shares, comments, and likes. Moreover, a huge following naturally attracts organic users to click on that follow button on your profile.
But again, a huge following doesn’t happen overnight. Even more complicated, you have to start from scratch. So, what’s the plan? It will help if you start building an audience by the people around you. This includes colleagues, friends, and returning customers. You can even ask them to share your profile and posts with their friends.
- Respond to Comments and Reviews
There are three types of reach when it comes to social media marketing, including, paid, organic, and viral. Organic and viral reach depends on how engaging your business’s social media handle is. For instance, a post that receives a higher engagement organically appears on other users’ feeds. Viral reach occurs when users see your posts because their friends actively comment or share them. The same concept extends to paid reach.
But how do you trigger engagement? It’s you the business owner to initiate it, not other social media users. In that case, start responding to comments, replies, reviews, and DMs. Responding to a comment will trigger other users to make more inquiries on the post because they know you’ll give them preference. Some will even follow you to DM. If you respond to DM inquiries tactically, the users may even start sharing your posts on their wall without you asking them.
However, it’s prudent to note that this strategy works if you only respond within time. A recent study by Twitter suggests that the average social media user expects brands to respond to their queries within an hour. After that, they lose interest.
Implementing Social Media Marketing for Construction Companies
You already know how to get started with social media marketing. Now it’s time to build a loyal following that will steer your construction company business to long-term success. This has more to do with what you post regularly and how you market your social media handles. What should you implement? Check out the following.
- Photos for Your Projects, Before, During, and After
Sharing your projects before, during, and after through social media helps you amplify the quality of work that your construction company stands for. Doing this will imprint your company’s mind on users who look forward to launching their construction projects soon. When the time comes, they’ll definitely look for you.
- Awards and Accolades
Industry awards and accolades are things that your construction company should be proud of. That’s why you should celebrate them on social media. In return, this will boost your business credibility and exposure. Most importantly, social media users, including potential customers and employees will likely follow you.
- A Day in the Field
Of course, social media marketing helps you drive sales and create brand awareness. However, the average social media user doesn’t have this perspective. A recent study by USwitch shows that Americans spend nearly 325 hours on Facebook annually. A majority of them feel guilty because they scroll down social media pages while also catching on their favorite TV shows. What does that tell you? These people are not here to shop. Instead, they want to waste time or get entertained.
That said, don’t bog your followers with promotional videos every now and then. Instead, give them a recap of what you experience in the field from time to time. Some people get intrigued by this and view it as informational entertainment. If you share your days in the field on Mondays and Fridays, more people will be looking forward to this. That means following your handle and enabling notification for all new posts.
- Tricks of the Trade
How do you inspect roofs to determine whether they need a repair or replacement? How do you ensure that you only buy high-quality construction materials for your customers? Your followers want privy to this information too. Remember, there are simple construction tasks they can complement with DIY processes without even having to call your company. Show them that you support that too.
The average social media user wants to feel helped by a brand rather than “used”. It will help if you start sharing tricks of the trade with your target audience to gain more followers. How? Users will see more value in following your business, than a company that focuses only on driving sales. Furthermore, construction products are not recurrent goods or services—customers don’t buy them daily.
- Make Social Media Marketing a Part of Construction Company’s Content Marketing Strategy
As noted earlier, you can also increase the visibility of your social media posts through paid reach. That means setting a budget for your social media marketing as part of the greater content marketing strategy. This will prompt you to give social media the serious approach it needs and even track its return on investment.
- Add Social Media Buttons to Your Website
The number of searches for online shopping through mobile devices grew by nearly 180% between 2016 and 2018. There is a high likelihood that an average consumer will stumble on your business site even before knowing whether the social media pages exist. However, if this customer likes your construction products and services, they wouldn’t mind following your business on social media.
In that case, it will help if you integrate social media buttons into your landing pages. But again, some customers are not even into social media. The social media buttons shouldn’t be more prominent than your site’s call to action.
Social Media is Here to Stay
Social media apps are gaining traction daily, thanks to expanded internet reach and relatively affordable mobile devices. Getting your construction business into this space could yield high returns in terms of leads and buying customers. Follow our guide to get started today. Contact us if you have questions.