Your business has the opportunity to speak directly to your target audience on social media. Are you viewing it as the valuable marketing platform it could be, or is someone in your office just randomly posting things so it looks as if your business is active? 

Consumers are reluctant to call plumbers, heating/cooling and other service companies these days without doing a quick Google search first. According to HootSuite statistics, 81 percent of U.S. consumers search online before making decisions about purchasing products or services. Other organizations claim the number is closer to 91 percent; either way, people are searching and finding businesses online.

And it’s not just to see where your business is located. Your customers want to know who they are doing business with before they call, and your social media platforms reveal a lot about you and your home services business.

Right now, websites are usually the first platforms to appear organically on a Google search for a business, but studies are showing that social media matters when it comes to search results. In fact, a small but interesting Google search experiment by HootSuite (blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-seo-experiment) proved that SEO from quality social media posts can help improve your website’s ranking when used collaboratively with your website content.

Social Strategies to Get Ahead

Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are the most-used channels overall, but others such as Pinterest and LinkedIn are popular with businesses, too. With all these options, both B2B and B2C service businesses probably wonder which platforms to focus on and which to ignore. Your company probably already posts to a few of these platforms now, so rather than start from scratch, you can refine those accounts.

Each platform has its pros and cons, and it’s worthwhile to consider the age of your target clients, their preferred platforms, the type of posts they like, when they are online and what posts they engage with most. 

Next, develop a comprehensive social media content campaign that aligns with and supports your website. Social media posts that get the most engagement with your audiences will help improve your website’s ranking and, as a result, you’ll get more calls.

 Here are some social media suggestions to help improve your social standing:

• Post photos. Whether you are posting content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn, photos always get more attention and engagement from users. According to Kissmetrics (https://bit.ly/3h5sdRz), photos get 53 percent more likes, 104 percent more comments and 84 percent more click-throughs on links than text-based posts. 

Service businesses should post images of their trucks, technicians on the job, happy homeowners (with their permission), their charitable activities, new products or services, special offers, funny stories and anything featuring the community. 

• Create short- or long-form videos. Depending on the platform, videos can be anywhere from a few seconds (Facebook) to 30 minutes (YouTube). It pays to look at the top businesses in the HVAC, plumbing and piping industries to see what they are posting to their social channels. Use their best videos as a guide, and create content with your own twist.
• Use social posts to attract business and techs. LinkedIn is used more like a social media platform for professionals and companies, but it’s also an excellent channel for posting about your business successes to attract service techs. 

LinkedIn acts as a networking platform where professionals looking for a new position can search for job postings, too. Here you can do a little self-promotion, but be prudent and balance promotional content with informational posts and link to your website or other social channels for more oomph.

Don’t forget to research hashtags and image tagging to help users find your content, and set up and utilize Google Analytics to monitor how much traffic your social pages are sending to your website. 

It takes a lot of work and dedication, not to mention professional social media know-how, to use social media the right way. If you don’t have the staff to manage all your social platforms, work with an experienced home service public relations agency to make your social media work for you.