Everyone’s Talking About Social Media As “The Next Big Thing.”
But Is It? And If So, How Do I Make It Happen For Me?

Written by Rich Harshaw.

Last year one of the biggest kitchen fixture companies in the world asked me to do a webinar for their customers on the topic of social media. I put together the first draft of the webinar and sent it over to them for review. Their reaction was immediately negative—they hated my webinar.

Why? Because they wanted a webinar that tapped into the mainstream hysteria about how social media was the marketing savior of the world. They wanted a webinar that would show contractors 5 quick steps to social media riches. They wanted to tell people what they wanted to hear—that Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest were the missing link in the evolution of their marketing plan.

Instead, I gave the REAL facts about social media—far less sexy than all the hype you’ve heard. I talked about what remodelers can realistically expect from social media, and how hard it is to keep up with it. I talked about nuts and bolts of creating interesting posts and avoiding mistakes.

They wanted charts and graphs that proved that everyone was using social media as their new source of information. They wanted to show how easy it is and how effortless it would be to find money online.

And the end of the day, they wanted what they wanted, and they were paying the bill. They completely rewrote the webinar to fit their agenda, and in my opinion, the webinar was watered-down at best. It wasn’t that the information was WRONG or BAD or MISLEADING, it’s just that it didn’t focus on what remodelers really need to know in real life about social media.

So guess what you get here in this post? That’s right—the real scoop. Let’s go!

Tip 1: Begin With The End In Mind: When you hear the “experts” talking about social media, the discussion always centers around all the new customers you can create with social media if you just do it right. While it’s true that social media CAN bring you new customers, as the saying goes, “don’t hold your breath.”

First of all, very few people just randomly find and follow remodeling companies out of the blue. Instead, most people who decide to “like” or “follow” your company on social media will do so at a point when they are actively in the market to buy what you sell. Social media is about nurturing people along; most of the people who follow you are ready to buy now. True, you can nurture them for the NEXT sale, but this timing issue is troubling for those contractors who want a bunch of sales from social media RIGHT NOW. I’ll address how to nurture people along to generate maximum sales below—if you do it wrong you’ll never get ANY new customers—but just realize it’s a slow process that’s unlikely to become one of your main sources for home improvement leads.

So then why even bother? Two reasons: SEO and leads.

Hey! I though you just said not to expect a ton of leads from social media! That’s true… but if you are consistent in your efforts, over time you will steer people in your direction. It takes time; be patient. You’ll also be the go-to answer for your followers’ friends who post things like “I’m looking for a window company” or “Anyone know a good kitchen remodeler?” Just be patient; I’ve used the word nurture 3 times already above for a reason.

But SEO is a whole other ball game—and probably the best reason for remodelers and other contractors to get involved with social media. Google eats GREAT CONTENT for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every time you create a social media post, you’re creating a little bit of content that Google can gobble up. If you consistently post good content (see below for tips on content), then you’re going to help your website rank higher in search. Make sure your posts include a fair amount of links to your site (30% minimum) because Google eats good links for snacks.

So if you’re ever discouraged because you don’t have that many followers (yet!)… or because you don’t seem to be getting a lot of leads from your social media efforts, know that it is working—but maybe just in ways that aren’t as readily apparent. Keep the faith—it’s working.

Tip 2: Facebook First: There are plenty of social media sites to choose from—Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Houzz, Instagram, Vine, and LinkedIn, just to name seven—so you might feel a bit overwhelmed. Here’s my advice, start with Facebook, and don’t even worry about the other ones for a while. The number one problem I see that remodeling companies run into when getting into social media is that they simply CANNOT KEEP UP WITH IT, so they quit. It’s a heck of a lot easier to keep up with it if you are only focusing on one thing instead of two or three or seven.

So why Facebook? Simply put, it’s where the largest number of your customers are actively participating in social media. For most remodeling companies, “your customers” means adults in the age range of 40 to 60. Naturally, that varies, but I can safely say that there are more 48-year olds replacing their windows than there are 8 or 18 or 28-year olds. Twitter is a young person’s game for the most part. Look at the number of fans/followers for a popular (but not remodeling related) blog I read that’s geared toward this same age group (of which I am a member!):

Clearly, 15,710 people is a lot of people, but it’s not even 10% of the number of Facebook followers. Google Plus isn’t even on the radar yet. Pinterest is a good idea for companies that deal in more visually important areas of remodeling—kitchens, baths, design-build, etc.—but should still be tackled AFTER a strong and consistent Facebook presence is established. Note: if you have a 3rd party company handling social media for you, they may indeed put you onto multiple platforms at once, and that’s great. They very likely have the resources (read: skill and manpower) to handle this.

Tip 3: Entertain, Engage, & Educate: Answer this question: why do people even use Facebook in the first place? For your target market (remember from above, adults in the 40 to 60 age range), the number one reason is… to legitimately keep in touch with people that are important to them. Poll teenagers about their social media habits, and you’ll see that social media is frequently a game of “who can get the most followers.” Most teenagers follow hundreds or even thousands of people—most of whom they only peripherally know, but who they are happy to follow because those same people are following them, thus boosting both parties’ all-important follower list.

Adults, on the other hand, usually only have a couple hundred Facebook friends at the most. Those friends usually include siblings, parents, cousins, and uncles. They frequently include old college friends and roommates, and a few friends from high school or even elementary school. You’ll also see current friends from church, work, the neighborhood, or volunteer organizations. But not just ANY friend or family member… only ones that they legitimately care about keeping up with. You’ll also see a smattering of things that they are FANS of… from sports teams, to retail stores, to rock bands, to charities. The common denominator of these various entities is that people genuinely CARE about them. Adults don’t have time or patience to filter through a bunch of junk to see the stuff they really want to see. They self-filter it out.

All of which brings us to YOU. If you happen to be LIKED by one of your customers or prospects, you should consider that a great honor. That’s really saying something; they care enough about you to actually be willing to follow what you have to say—right there in the same feed where they’re looking at their nephew’s graduation pictures. Treat that relationship with the respect it deserves. You have to be super careful WHAT YOU POST or they will “unlike” you in the proverbial NEW YORK MINUTE.

First rule: don’t post too often. I’ll cover this in detail in my Thursday post on social media blunders, but for now, just know that nobody wants to hear from a remodeling company 5 times a day. They barely want to hear from their aunt who constantly rants about politics 5 times a day, let alone some remodeling company.

Next, remember that good content is all-important. You should aim to entertain and educate people so that they become engaged with your company. Next Tuesday I’ll post several sample posts to give you a better idea; for now, think in terms of funny, interesting, newsworthy, posts that make people say to themselves “I’ll spend 30 seconds to click that and find out more.” You are creating your own little content channel—no different than Yahoo or MSN or USA today. You’d better be interesting or people will ignore, or worse, unfollow you.

Tip 4: Create A Plan… Ahead Of Time! Social media is a terrible place for “winging it.” Inevitably, you will commit one of the two major social media sins when you resort to making up your content as you go along: 1)

You’ll post crappy content that nobody’s interested in, or 2) You’ll have huge gaps between your posts… or quit altogether. It’s really hard to nurture something when you’re not paying any attention to it!

The solution is to create a social media plan and stick to it. Every two weeks sit down and decide how many posts you want for the next month, and then specifically research and write those posts. If you do it every two weeks, you should perpetually be writing content for TWO WEEKS FROM NOW, which will keep you well ahead of the game.

I recommend 3 to 10 posts a week… more if you are researching good stuff to post about, fewer if you’re not. Just map it out on a piece of paper or a spreadsheet:

• Monday, 2 pm: Post about Beyoncé’s recent home remodel; link to blog posting on our site, with link to TMZ site’s article
• Tuesday, 10 am: Post about the Stephens’ kitchen remodel with link to our website with photos
• Tuesday, 6 pm: Post funny quote about CHANGE from comedian Tim Hawkins
• Wednesday, 3 pm: post free ticket giveaway to Thursday’s Texas Rangers game
• Thursday, 10 am: post winner of Rangers ticket giveaway
• Thursday, 7 pm: post link to 5 new customer reviews on our website
• Friday, 1 pm: post “5 funky restaurants you’ve probably never tried” article
• Saturday, 10 am: post “parade of homes” info/link
• Sunday, 8 am: post inspirational quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes

There you have it; 9 posts in 7 days on a variety of topics, with a variety of themes. Do this every two weeks and make sure you’ve got a plan for a solid month. Boom.

Tip 5: Solicit Followers Everywhere: Of course none of this matters if you don’t have followers seeing what you’re posting. Start immediately to solicit followers anywhere you can—on your website (on every page), on your advertisements, in person at home shows or during canvassing or while in the home selling. Ask people to follow you when you’re on the phone with them. Always be thinking about gaining followers. Then when people do look you up on Facebook and see you’ve got interesting, relevant, engaging content, they’ll hit LIKE and you’ll be in business.

© 2014 – 2016, Rich Harshaw. All rights reserved.