Too Many Self-Serving, Boring Social Media Posts Haphazardly Catering To People Who Don’t Care Anyway.
Let’s Try To Avoid That.
Written by Rich Harshaw.
Last post was dedicated to Social Media Quick Tips… which was a good introductory primer to the subject. Go back and read it again before tackling this post. Today we’re going to discuss the most common mistakes remodeling companies make when trying to implement social media….
Blunder #1: Posting Too Frequently: Besides me and my kids, my wife’s #1 love in life is Anthropologie. Not “the study of humans past, present, and future.” I’m talking about the woman’s clothing, doo-dad, frou-frou and knick-knack store that is the frequent beneficiary of half my paycheck. 90% of her closet and half the stuff in my house originated from that store.
Her next love in life after me, my kids, and Anthropologie is Pinterest. You know, the social media network that caters to women by letting them “pin” photos of stuff they like to “boards” that they can then share with their friends. My wife pins stuff constantly, and checks to see what other people have pinned approximately 713 times a day.
So when I asked my wife recently if she follows Anthropologie on Pinterest and she said NO, I almost fell over and died on the spot.
When I asked why she told me that Anthropologie posted stuff on Pinterest 4 or 5 times a week, but when they do post, they don’t just post one thing. Nope. They post 20 to 30 items at a time, effectively clogging her Pinterest feed. That’s sort of like your favorite restaurant bringing you 25 hamburgers every time you order—a bit too much. Sorting through that many posts all at once was somewhere between mildly annoying and intensely frustrating. So she unfollowed Anthropologie. Unbelievable.
Now here’s the bad news: I guarantee you that people like your company way less than my wife likes Anthropologie. People simply do not want to hear from a remodeling company THAT MUCH. Your target market uses Facebook to keep in touch with people and things that they genuinely like; overplaying your hand by posting too much starts to make you feel burdensome and salesey, not interesting, fun, and entertaining. They will hide your posts or unlike you.
I recommend contractors post on social media 3 to 10 times a week depending strictly on how much interesting stuff you have available to post. Read that carefully: if you can’t think of anything particularly interesting to say/post, you’re better off keeping quiet. Speaking of which…
Blunder #2: Self-Serving Or BORING!: Self serving or boring posts are the kiss of death for social media. REMEMBER! People have invited you to their social media feed because they think there is something interesting and worthwhile about your company. You should literally feel honored that they “like” you. Respect that and you’ll do fine.
The worst thing you can do is repeatedly post sales-oriented, price-oriented, offer-oriented stuff. Rule of thumb: 1 post out of 10 can make an overt offer… but your other 9 posts better be good enough for your followers to cut you some slack. Another common sin is reposting the same thing over and over. This shows a lack of imagination AND common sense. What if one of your actual friends posted the same thing over and over again on Facebook? That’s just not how this works.
The third worst thing you can do (reposting was #2!) is post boring stuff. The internet is great at using provocative headlines and images that makes you want to click and read stuff. Take a look…
The point of this example is not to say copy these ads verbatim. It’s to help you realize that your Facebook feed is like your own personal billboard that’s competing with thousands of other billboards for eyeballs and clicks. You have to treat it like your own personal Yahoo or USA Today. I’ll give some detailed sample posts next week… for now, think INTERESTING!
Blunder #3: Too Focused On Followers: Having tons of followers (or Fans) is a good thing. Unless most of those followers don’t actually pay any attention to you. There are plenty of experts out there who will teach you how to get more social media followers, and often, their advice works. Except that most of the followers that come from “trying to get a ton of followers” aren’t worth having.
About five years ago when Twitter was really starting to take off, I decided to experiment with it, just to get a first-hand feel for how it worked. I read up on how to get a lot of followers and discovered that if you find other Tweeters who are in a similar industry/interest sphere as you, you can go into their list of followers… stay with me here… and follow their followers. Then those people you follow, in theory, will “reciprocal follow” you—meaning, they will follow you for no other reason than you are following them. Follow that?
The funny thing is it actually worked. I followed the formula and followed about 1,000 people, of which about 800 followed me back. 800!!! Wow! I must be really popular! I referred back to the “experts” and they recommended a 1:1 follow ratio… so I was a bit out of whack… so I went back and tried to figure out who the losers were that failed to follow me back so I could unfollow them.
At the end of the story I had a bunch of followers who paid, essentially, no attention to me whatsoever. Fake followers. Followers for the sake of numbers. Hollow followers.
Here’s what you want: Real followers and fans. These have to be earned. Know up front that it’s going to take time to build up a following, and that you have to reward them with interesting, entertaining content. Post your social media icons on your website, on your newsletters, on you advertising, and on your trucks. Put them on your business card and your invoices and your jobsite signs. Encourage people to take a look… and then make sure you have interesting stuff, or you’re dead before you even start.
Blunder #4: No Plan, No Follow Through: Social media is kind of like exercise. It’s easy to get all gung-ho for a while… then regular life seeps in, saps your will, smothers your desire, and kills your plan. Lack of planning is the kiss of death for social media.
I previously stated that you should post 3 to 10 times a week, and the variation depends on how much interesting stuff you have to say. If you decide on 8 posts a week, that’s 32 a month… no small task.
Here are some ideas to help you out:
- Decide on a tone and a voice. This will vary depending on the personality of your company… some companies are more serious, others more fun… others aspire to be inspirational. Find your voice and then you can start to look for content that matches.
- Keep a notebook (or notes on your phone) about interesting things you see/hear that might make good posts. Think about it while you’re surfing the web… and just in conversation with people. There are good ideas all around you if you just keep your ears and eyes open.
- Decide on post categories, then schedule them out. By categories, I mean things like:
- Quotes
- Jobsite photos
- Customer reviews
- News-oriented articles
- Celebrity stuff (related to your industry)
- How to
- Lists (8 ways to…)
- Blog postings
- Giveaways/contests
- Offers
- Etc.
- Once you have the categories, it becomes easier to put together a skeleton outline of your posts for the month… you choose the frequency of each category… I’m just trying to help you see an easy, systematic way to approach this.
- Hold a planning meeting (with yourself or your team) every two weeks and make sure you have SPECIFIC posts planned out for at least 30 days. You should spend most of this meeting planning out the posts for the 3rd and 4th week out (since ostensibly you already did this 2 weeks ago for the upcoming 2 weeks).
- Designate a specific person to make all the posts. All hands on deck is not a good approach to social media… more people means less likely to actually get done. Put somebody in charge, then hold them accountable.
There you have it… a roadmap of potholes and pitfalls for you to avoid… and a little advice for how to do things right. Check back next week for an article that shows sample social media posts for contractors.
© 2014 – 2016, Rich Harshaw. All rights reserved.
