Social media. For marketers, these two words have the power to invoke nightmares and cold sweats every time you think about the multitude of networking platforms out there and the workload involved in being active on them.
Take a step back and breathe. You don’t have to be on them all. In fact, it’s not a good idea even to try. Just as you pick and choose which magazine to advertise in and what public exhibition to have a booth at, you should be equally selective about your social media marketing.
Here’s our take on where you must be, where you could/should be and how to make these decisions.
Critical Networks
- Facebook: Yes, you knew we were going to say it, didn’t you? Every self-respecting business operating in the B2C environment needs to be on Facebook, simply because so many people in your target market are there. It’s easy to work with and user-friendly, offers simple, cost effective advertising and a huge range of options that can benefit your company page, such as store-fronts, surveys, contests and apps.
- Twitter: This is a good cross-over option between B2B and B2C, because business people are on the network in both personal and professional capacities. So literally, you’re talking to everyone. And if you use it correctly with the possibilities offered by the use of hashtags you can target anyone looking for anything specific, such as homebuilding services in your region, remodeling projects, project management and DIY.
- Google+: It’s still way behind Facebook and Twitter, but G+ is rapidly carving a niche for itself as the axis of all things professional on the web. With a Google+ business page, you can set up Google Authorship for your homebuilding blog, which means increased credibility and exposure and confirmed ownership of all the online content you’ve worked so hard to produce. Without it, your content marketing efforts are on the same level as every other blog written by ‘admin’ that could be a load of hogwash. It also helps with searchability and, once Google achieves its aim of taking over the digital world, companies who aren’t on G+ might find themselves out in the cold. Don’t risk it.
Nice-to-Haves
- LinkedIn: Really better for B2B than B2C, so if you’re targeting business owners for commercial building purposes then this is the place to be. Otherwise, it’s a lot of work and the low-key promotional tone means you have to join groups, post comments and literally do a lot of networking for it to succeed. If you have the time, it lends your company credibility but in our opinion, it’s not essential for social media marketing of homebuilding businesses.
- Pinterest: If you do lots of decorative work and you take lots of photos of your projects, Pinterest could be a great platform to showcase your achievements. The majority of Pinterest users are women, so companies specializing in home décor and renovation projects can generate lots of excitement by having an active profile. To make it work in your favor, however, you need to build the profile properly with regular postings, be active with re-pinning and direct users to your company website at every available opportunity.
- YouTube: Video marketing is big and getting bigger, and using video can do wonders to promote your business. YouTube makes it easy to film, edit and upload clips and then embed them into your website, blog or other social profiles. Down the road (in roughly a year or so) we foresee this joining the list of critical networks, but it isn’t quite there yet. Now is a good time to start thinking about and experimenting with it, though, so by the end of 2014 when video becomes essential to inbound marketing you’re ready to roll with it.
Don’t Even Bother
Pretty much everything else. The limited number of users on other social media marketing platforms make them impractical for all except the die-hard sociophiles. Unless your target audience specifically hangs out on a particular site, don’t waste your time with them. They’re all just trying to ride the bandwagon.
