Investing time in social media

by Sally Bouorm | December 1, 2010 9:19 am

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By Todd Bairstow

At a recent home improvement economic summit, a home improvement dealer asked me an interesting question: “When should I hire a full-time person to handle my social media?” A year ago, no one would have even thought of social media as needing a dedicated worker, but we’ve come a long way since then.

What is social media?

To borrow a definition from Joseph Thornley, CEO of Thornley Fallis, an Ottawa-based public relations and communications agency specializing in social media, “Social media are online communications in which individuals shift fluidly and flexibly between the role of audience and author. To do this, they use social software that enables anyone without knowledge of coding to post, comment on, share or mash up content and form communities around shared interests.”

However one defines it, social media is all the rage right now in online marketing circles, as both Internet users and marketers are spending ever-increasing amounts of time engaged in it.

More importantly, social media is popular because it is free—there is no payment required to the newspaper ad salesman or to the local printer to create thousands of direct mail pieces. The free nature of social media can be alluring, as it does not cost a dime to set up a Twitter account or a Facebook page.

Do you need a full-time social media manager?

Going back to the original question, my response was ‘full-time’ would be too much of a commitment at present. An investment in search engine marketing/optimization would produce a better return on investment (ROI); however, that is not to say social media is not valuable to the home improvement industry.

A home improvement business, such as a swimming pool builder or landscape designer, should cap its time spent on social media to approximately one hour per day. Why? At its heart, social media is more of a branding instrument than a direct customer acquisition tool. A company cannot draw a straight line between its social media investment (time) and how much extra revenue it produces. I have heard stories from individual pool and spa companies that have picked up a customer or two directly from a Twitter following and from its company Facebook page, but those are the exception rather than the rule.

The smart way to look at social media is as a branding tool that provides a new way for customers to meet and interact with your company. However, the process of updating your social media sites should not take all day. Generating sales and taking care of customers have a more direct link to revenue than social media does at this point.

Drive traffic with Twitter

There are many social media networking platforms available, e.g. LinkedIn, Tumblr, Digg and Flickr, to name a few. Those in the pool and spa industry who are thinking about implementing a successful social media marketing initiative must make sure they select the appropriate platforms, as some are no longer worth the amount of time they were even a year ago.

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MySpace, for example, once the darling of teenagers and college students talking about their latest trip to the mall, is now on the express train to irrelevance—particularly for pool and spa companies. Its audience always skewed extremely young to begin with, and that meant the website attracted too few homeowners to make it a worthwhile marketing medium.

Twitter, on the other hand, is fast becoming an influential force on the Internet. However, its limitations are a 140-character maximum on each post, which begs the question, “How much can an online marketer really accomplish on Twitter?”

To get an idea of how long a 140-character line is, look at the sentence above. It cannot be posted because it is 152 characters (with spaces). Now, that is not to say Twitter will not work, as it is great to ‘tweet’ and acquire a following and audience; however, it has yet to prove that it can drive enough pool and spa leads to justify investing a whole lot of time into it.

If you plan on using Twitter, focus narrowly on using it in two specific ways:

1. Target members and followers in your specific marketing territory. You do not need to market to anyone outside your territory; it is better to focus on users who are in your geographical area.
2. Announce changes and updates to your company’s website. Ultimately, Twitter is best used to drive traffic to your site. If you can announce a new ‘before and after’ for a recent pool installation, or a new sale/discount offer, you will use your limited characters to drive viewers to your site, where you can expand on your post.

Cultivate an audience with Facebook

Facebook can be the perfect complement for a home improvement company. Whether it is for weekly maintenance, retail sales or a one-off service call, a pool/spa company comes into contact with its customer base quite frequently and has a steady, ongoing relationship with them. This is the perfect type of audience to develop using Facebook.

Thanks to the existing relationship, a pool/spa company can be straightforward and ask their customers to ‘friend’ the company. Once customers accept ‘friend requests,’ the company has an online channel to contact them via status updates and e-mails for marketing purposes.

The first way to market to your new Facebook friends is to update your status with information about your store, products and services. Creating a status update is effortless; they can be as simple as a quick note on an in-store sale, or a warning that pool season is winding down and pool owners should schedule their closing before it is too late.

Professionals can also send direct messages to clients via Facebook e-mail. Customers who are difficult to reach by phone and not returning messages may feel differently when contacted via Facebook.

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The key is thoughtful consistency. Updating your existing customer base on new products, sales, in-store specials or new maintenance services is fair game. Usually, this would be done via a status update, which allows your Facebook friends to see what your company is up to. E-mail is a more aggressive tactic, but when used judiciously, it can be a great tool to drive sales.

BonaVista LeisureScapes’ utilization of Facebook marketing provides a perfect example. The Toronto-based swimming pool builder has a simple profile page, which contains an image of their storefront, 15 different photo albums containing images of finished projects and various merchandise, and close to 100 ‘friends.’ Presumably, most of these friends are the company’s customers, and have agreed to let BonaVista into their virtual lives.

Via status updates, the company has continually kept customers informed about ‘No tax’ promotions on hot tubs, contests such as ‘Free water care products for a year’ and inventory clearance specials.

None of these updates take an extraordinary amount of time to write or support, but it does take diligence. Remembering to update your status twice a week can be tough to do during the busy season; however, the effort can result in phone calls and even prompt users to ask questions online, which all of your other customers can see.

Your online reputation is important

A key area to focus on with your social media efforts is online reviews. Consumers are posting comments on businesses and service providers all over the web. A good review can be great for your business, while a bad review can stop a prospect in his or her tracks.

While review sites differ from market to market, Yelp and Google are the most popular when it comes to consumers reviewing service providers. As part of your social media plan, you should actively and consistently monitor all of your business reviews.

To get good reviews, ask your best customers to go online and give you a ‘plug.’ Many will be happy to do so. Consumers take these comments very seriously and often make purchasing decisions based on them. Keep in mind, however, you cannot completely avoid getting bad reviews—everyone does. When dealing with them, the biggest mistake you can make is arguing with reviewers online. You are picking a fight and at the end of the day, you will only make your company look worse.

As part of your social media plan, try to cushion the blow as much as possible. It is in your best interest to appear responsive to negative reviews, without being argumentative. For example, using the following type of response is always a good strategy: “I’m sorry to hear you’ve had issues with our services. I’d like to do everything I can to help you resolve those issues. We have thousands of satisfied customers who we’ve helped over the years, and I’m sure we can make you just as happy. Please call our store at 555-555-5555 so we can help you out.”

By responding in a helpful, forthright, non-defensive way, you can score your company lots of points with online reviewers. It doesn’t take a lot of time—it just takes consistency.

The following are just some of the swimming pool builders and landscaping companies using one or more social media platforms to interact with their customers and strengthen their brand:

• Ananda Landscapes Ltd. (Calgary, Alta.)—Twitter • Blue Diamond Pools (Barrie, Ont.)—Facebook • BonaVista LeisureScapes (Toronto, Ont.)—Facebook • Koho Pools and Spas (Barrie, Ont.)—Twitter • Gib-San Pool and Landscape Creations—Facebook and Twitter • Markville Landscaping & Nurseries Inc. (Markham, Ont.)—YouTube • Okanagan Koi and Water Gardens (Kelowna, B.C.)—Facebook and Twitter • Pool & Hot Tub Council of Canada (Brampton, Ont.)—Facebook • Raincityrock & Waterscapes Ltd. (Burnaby, B.C)—YouTube • Seaway Pools (Markham, Ont.)—Facebook and Twitter • Tropical Pool & Spa (Prince George, B.C.)—Facebook

 

Todd Bairstow is co-founder of Keyword Connects (formerly Keyword Advisors), a company dedicated to online lead generation for the home improvement industry. He can be reached via e-mail at todd@keywordconnects.com[4] or call (781) 899-3677.

Source URL: https://www.poolspamarketing.com/trade/investing-time-in-social-media/

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