7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Social Media Profile

Most construction marketers are aware that a strong social presence is crucial to business’ success. At no other time have marketers been able to gain access to their customers as they do now via the web.

But the question is, how do you know that your online presence is contributing towards your overall business goals?

Despite social media opening up a variety of exciting opportunities, it can also haunt your business if not used correctly.

Therefore the world of social should be handled once you are clear with what exactly you want to achieve.

This post will cover the top 7 considerations when analysing your social profiles, in order for your construction business to benefit from an effective social strategy.

1. Review Your Social Media Objectives

It is easy to forget what your business originally wished to achieve from social media; revise this with your marketing team in order to regain focus on why it was that you chose to engage on certain platforms in the first place.

Was it to increase online recommendations or customer referrals or customer service? Was it to help improve brand awareness or increase trust and build loyalty?

These goals should be assessed first to ensure that you have not been side-tracked along the way. If more dedication is needed on certain social profiles, list why this is and what resources are needed to combat these problems.

2. How Are You Using Social Channels?

Is the information you’re providing interesting, valuable, and engages with your audience?

Remember, things that get re-posted, shared, or re-tweeted are most likely making the person doing the sharing look good themselves.

Ensure you’re not solely focusing on self-promotional messages, share industry research, the latest and most relevant construction news (for your audience) or an interesting marketing or business strategy, things that will persuade your followers to continue sharing your posts, even if it is for their own benefit.

Take a look at the ‘Science of Retweets’ by Dan Zarella on tips on the best time of day to post information, using the most optimal keywords.

Or try looking at a tool like Followerwonk for more information on who might be your most influential followers, and when the best time is to engage with your Twitter followers.

3. What Social Channels Are You Using?

With so many different channels out there, which are right for your business?

The use of social channels will be different for every business.

So start with assessing where your specific target audience(s) lie.

Have you researched their online behaviour recently?

What channels lend themselves to the specific products or services that you want to promote?

To keep it simple, every dedicated construction marketer should atleast have a company Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and a Google+ page.

Regardless of what social channels you decide on, remember to focus on the select few that are most relevant to your construction audience, rather than what is most popular.

To help you to achieve this, look into Social Mention or Board Reader;  tools which will determine where keywords relating to your business are being dicussed.

Or for help managing your accounts, check out Hootsuite and Social Engage.

4. How Often Are You Using Social Channels?

In terms of how often you should be using your social platforms, there is no right or wrong answer.

This should be determined by your social media goals, your target audience and what you have to say.

Although as a rough guide, try to engage on platforms such as Twitter daily; remember that tweets are temporary and will soon be submerged underneath all those other industry leaders doing the same thing.

So set aside a set around 10/20 minutes a day within your team, to keep your social profiles updated and responsive.

It’s all about adjusting and learning from your social media experiences, and adapting them based on the level of engagement you receive on each platform.

5. Who is Managing Your Social Profiles?

Different members of your business should be involved in the company’s use of social media.

It’s a good idea to assign different team members to various social media objectives; this will ensure that the right people are on hand at the right time to keep on top of your online presence.

For example, a technical member of your team may be assigned to answering any technical issues or queries, another may be involved in the promotion of content, one member may be responsible for sharing relevant updates tied in with your content marketing plan, or each person may be responsible for a different social media platform.

6. How Consistent Is Your Messaging?

Although sharing your social strategy across team members is ideal, maintaining a consistent voice and strong construction brand across all of your company’s social activity is crucial.

As a brand representative, you should be keeping a promise to your customers as to who you are and what you represent; a mismatch of personas will only disconnect your audience.

So how is your company represented on each social channel?

Is your brand description the same on each social profile?

Create a set of guidelines for each team member; this should include tone of voice and manner outlines, as well as any creative assets, images and logos that should be used.

This will ensure that your Twitter, Linkedin or Google-plus pages remain professional and reliable across all individual accounts within your business.

Bear in mind that producing consistent messaging and adopting an appropriate tone of voice does not mean that your business should be stripped of personality; being human is what entices interaction, after all.

7. Are you Listening as well as Engaging?

Social profiles are not all about who can shout the loudest; they are also there to help you build new content through what you hear.

Look at which conversations are being shared back and forth.

What are other construction companies interested in?

Which problems need to be addressed?

What are your audiences’ views and sentiments towards your competitors?

Whilst a tweet is a temporary way of communicating information, blog content has the advantage of living forever online and in SEO. Merely listening and observing conversations on your social profiles can provide you with endless amounts of content creation to reward your own marketing efforts.

For more information on how to manage your social profiles for business success, download our Construction Marketers Guide to Social Media.