Olivia Atkinson
Social media is a powerful tool and a crucial part of your bouncing back,strategy. Some companies struggle to make quick changes to their website or create notices letting visitors know if they’re open or not. Social media can be posted on in seconds, allowing you to effectively and consistently communicate to your audience.
Read on to find out what content to share on social media at this time and how to use it to inform your audience on the latest updates.
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Why Social Media Is Essential For The Building Products And Construction Industry
Now more than ever is a vital time for you to have information on social media about your current situation, are you open, are you fulfilling essential orders only to support the crisis, have your hours or contact information changed? Tell people.
Just the other day I was after some decking joists, there’s a local timber yard which is very well known and always recommended. Their website had no information about the current situation, Google said they were open but I wasn’t trusting that at this time. So straight away I went on Facebook, that hadn’t been posted on for the last 4 months, I then rang 3 times and had no answer.
After all that I still drove to the timber yard, for there to be a sign on the gate saying closed, delivery only, ring this number (same number I rang 3 times).
The whole experience frustrated me and I lost all faith in the company. They hadn’t properly communicated how they were running. If they had updated their website or simply posted in the last month on Facebook to explain how they were operating at these uncertain times, I probably would have gone back in the future.
Since then, I’ve now found an alternative Timber yard that has excellent customer service and is really good value, which I have already recommended to other people and will be using in future.
It really is that powerful, social media embodies communication, so make sure you’re using it effectively to talk to your audience at all times or you may lose them.
Social media is a crucial part of bouncing back to a new normal. Part of the specifiers process will include looking at companies profiles to see which ones are still working, which has restrictions or long wait times. If a specifier checks out 3 platforms and only 2 of them have had recent posts, you’re already 1 up.
By posting information and helpful content, you’ll stick out against competitors tooting their own horn. If there is no activity on the platform, people will assume you've either gone out of business or not operating.
Being present on social media isn’t enough and actually it’s a disadvantage if you just post once a year to say Merry Christmas. If you don’t intend to utilise the platforms then don’t be on them, as you're sending mixed messages to your audience.
The Best Content For Social Media
Social media can be an intimidating place, with so many platforms and so many posts. However, a key element of posting on social is what you post.
Bouncing back on social media means you need to be sharing useful and educational content for your followers or potential prospects.
Typically sales talk doesn’t work on social media, especially for B2B, so you should post content that will benefit the specifier and not your companies ego.
Share case studies about how other companies benefited from your services, testimonials and quotes demonstrating how you delivered such a great service. Installation videos and product demonstrations can be a great way to engage with your target audience.
Use educational content like blogs and guides for your audience to download and read, as they become better educated on your solution they’re moving through the buyers journey.
Plan Ahead
It’s not common knowledge to everyone, but you can actually schedule all your social media posts ahead of time. Some platforms allow you to do it within or you can use a scheduling tool to manage all your platforms in one place.
This makes it easier to manage and ensures you don’t forget to post regularly. Hootsuite and Buffer are great free scheduling tools for you to try, you can also track your mentions and comments all in one place.
Some paid packages allow you to track certain keywords that are associated with your company to see who’s talking about it within your specific market. This can be useful to see how other companies approach it and to determine how much competition there is on each platform.
As you start to post regularly, many paid schedulers start to collect data on when your post is best likely to perform and will suggest the best time. This ensures you are getting the most visibility from your posts.
As news and current events can impact your content its worth planning weekly rather than monthly to ensure you’re not missing anything. Especially when you’re bouncing back as guidelines and things are changing all the time.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
As people have been home more than ever and more people are on their phones, your usual stats might have changed for the better. Even so try and review your analytics for each platform monthly.
This way you can keep track of which platform generates the most engagement. Just because there are so many social media platforms available, that isn’t to say you have to be present on every single one, just the ones that work for you.
LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook have become the essentials with Instagram and Pinterest working for those particularly visual products.
Some month’s you’ll have better performance than others, look deeper to find out why. Did someone with a big following share your post? Is there an opportunity for them to give you a mention on their platform?
Bouncing back might mean partnering up with like-minded companies that have the same values as you, not competitors but companies who’s product or solution somehow relates to yours.
Conclusion
Social media should be a part of your marketing strategy anyway as its so widely used and it’s free! However, now more than ever there is a feeling of uncertainty in all areas of life, let alone manufacturing, suppliers fulfilling orders and delivery lead times.
Use social media to communicate how you’re currently processing orders, share case studies and educate them on your solution.
If you need help with your social media strategy, then get in touch to speak to one of our marketing experts.
About Insynth
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major on construction marketing, we bring together construction marketing strategy, digital strategy, website design, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, sales automation, marketing automation and HubSpot CRM implementation to produce successful campaigns and great results for our clients.