Most homeowners use social media everyday, making it one of the best ways for prospective customers to locate and research home services companies. If your company doesn’t have a presences on various social media sites, you could be missing out on valuable leads and business growth opportunities. 

Whether you’re new to social media or are already using it, these best practices will help you improve your brand awareness and generate more leads. From how to reach your customers to driving more interactions and leads, here are five social media best practice for business growth.

Social Media Tips to Generate More Home Services Leads

1. Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Target Audience

In terms of generating more leads for business growth, social media offers two major advantages over search engines. First, engagement from friends and family helps build automatic trust. Second, the more engagement you get, the more homeowners will see your content. However, you need to choose the right social media platforms for your audience. 

With more than 200 million users in the United States, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Facebook offers the widest audience for most businesses. That being said, you shouldn’t limit your options. Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn all have large, active audiences that need your services. 

Since many factors go into what makes a social campaign successful, you can test all of the major social platforms and see which generate the highest quality leads. While you should also track engagement and followers, it’s important to measure your success based on how many leads each platform generates.

Instead of trying to launch on every social platform at once, start small. Build an audience on one site first, then slowly expand to other sites. If one site doesn’t perform as well, you shouldn’t abandon it completely. Even if you only post rarely, the world of social media can shift at any time. 

2. Connect with Your Prospects and Customers Through Content and Engagement

In order to connect with your prospects and customers, you need to post content to drive engagement and generate more leads. One of the biggest mistakes on social media is repeatedly posting the same type of content over and over.

When it comes to posts, make sure you vary what you are sharing. This will help keep customers engaged and interested in following you. While you do want to promote your business, avoid making every post a sales pitch.

Instead, use your platform to help inform and connect with your audience. Before and after photos are a great way to highlight your work, whereas tips and how-to guides will drive interaction and increase engagement.

You should also use social media to help humanize your business. The easiest way to do this is by sharing important milestones for your business or celebrating your employees. You can also show your support for the community and local charities as well.

While most people think of social media as free, you can also run ads to reach a wider audience. In addition to running ads to generate leads, you should also boost your posts to increase your reach. 

3. Respond to Prospects and Customers Quickly

Another important aspect of social media is interacting with prospects and customers. Unlike other marketing channels, prospects and customers expect fast, if not almost immediate, response. 

If a prospect or customer comments on one of your posts, you should respond within two hours during the normal business day. For comments that come in after hours, you should respond first thing during the next business day. 

Since customers can also directly message you, you should be prepared to respond as quickly as possible. Whenever possible, try to reply in less than an hour.

You should treat comments and questions as you would emails or phone calls. Answer as clearly as possible and give them ways to follow up with you. This can include your phone number or a link to a contact form.

In addition, be prepared to respond to negative comments on social media as well. Remember that anyone can see your public comments. While you should focus on the question or comment, also think about how your response can influence other prospects and customers.

4. Handle Criticism and Negative Comments Professionally

One of the most important aspects of social media is handling criticism from both existing and prospective customers. Since other customers can see when you reply to public comments, it’s absolutely critical that you respond professionally.

Most importantly, you should never argue with prospects or customers on social media. Even if you feel you were right in the situation, arguing will always make you look bad.

Instead, you need to move the conversation out of the public eye as quickly as possible. No matter what, start by apologizing. Then let them know you will follow up directly to discuss a resolution.

Next, take a look at their account and familiarize yourself with the situation. Call them directly and work towards a solution. Try to be as compassionate to their situation as possible. 

You should also ask them to update their comment or review once you’ve addressed their issue. Even if they are still critical of your work, at least it shows your willingness to work with customers.

5. Use Your Posts to Create More Traffic for Your Website

Use your social media posts to help direct more traffic to your website. While you don’t need to include a link back to your website every time, every post should focus on generating traffic and leads. However, you don’t want every post to look identical or link to the same page.

A great way to share links back to your website without getting repetitive is with how-to guides and seasonal checklists. While you should include a call to action, focus more on the content than the sales pitch. This way, customers will see you as a resource as well as business.

Although most of your posts should link back to your website, don’t forget to celebrate your business, employees, and community. 

Promote Business Growth and Book More Jobs With 33 Mile Radius

Social media is an important part of booking more jobs for business growth, but it also takes time to roll out an effective strategy. The 33 Mile Radius lead generation platform works with your marketing plan to help you book more jobs. Contact us to start getting more high-quality leads and grow your home services business!