We recently covered here on the blog why having a website is crucial to your business, and why you can not use social media instead of a website. But today we’re going to talk about the power of using social media for your home business and why you should be using it in addition to your business website.

Social Media can be a confusing subject when it comes to business. When it first started to take off it was all the rage. Every business wanted to jump on board the social media band wagon and try to tap into this gold mind of potential business.

 

 

Well, that’s exactly what happened. Every business imaginable jumped aboard without really knowing how to effectively use social media for business.

So then a backlash occurred. Many bloggers started writing articles on why you shouldn’t use social media for your business.

While many of these articles bring up some great points, and argue that it isn’t a good fit for every business, we believe that social media is absolutely the right fit home professionals when implemented correctly.

So whether you’re a General Contractor, Architect, Interior Designer, or really any other type of home professional, social media has a huge potential for your business.

Here’s a 11 reasons why you should be using social media for your business in the home design, remodeling, and building industry.

1. Social Media Can Help You Reach New Homeowners

Probably the most obvious reason why you should be using social media as a home professional is for the ability to reach new homeowners that are looking to design and build a new home or remodel their existing home.

Facebook is definitely the easiest platform to use for reaching new homeowners. That’s because Facebook has algorithms built into their news feed that will help you get your brand in front of new eyeballs you otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach.

For example, have you ever seen something come up on your news feed that looks something like this:

 

 

Or what about this one?

 

 

You’ll notice on both of the screenshots above there’s a social component. Both of those examples only came up on my news feed because one of my friends either liked the post or shared the post— see the very top portion of the above images to see what I mean.

So when you’re posting content on your Facebook page, you have the ability to further your reach by your followers liking, commenting, or sharing your posts resulting in your post showing up in the news feed of a potential client that may have otherwise never heard of you.

That’s the power of social media. And that should be reason enough for using social media in your business.

Now, the example above is clearly an example of only Facebook. However, the other popular social media platforms can work similarly.

With Twitter you can reach new people when your followers retweet your tweets. With Pinterest it’s when your followers repin your pins. And so on…

One thing you’ll notice though. Any of that “social magic” can only happen when you’re active on social media. And by active we mean creating content, and posting content. We’ll talk more about that later on.

 

 

Keep in mind though that consistency is key.

2. Social Media Can Help You Be Remembered by Past Clients (and so they’ll refer you too)

Did you ever notice how Starbucks continues to advertise with TV commercials and billboards, and many other advertising channels. Does Starbucks really need to advertise? No not really.

Unless you’ve been amish up until yesterday, chances are you know about Starbucks. They are everywhere. In major cities you’ll find a Starbucks every few blocks.

So if the majority of human beings know about Starbucks and most likely have been to a Starbucks, then why do they still advertise?

Starbucks wants to make sure that anytime you think of Coffee, or someone mentions getting coffee, you think of them. They want their brand to be synonymous with coffee.

And to be honest, they’re actually doing a pretty good job. It works.

So the same goes for your business as a home professional. If you did a remodeling project for a homeowner in 2015, you want to make sure they remember to call you when they’re ready to remodel their bathrooms in 2017.

A great way for your past clients to not forget you is for you to ask them to follow you on social media. Then they’ll see your posts and possibly like and share your posts.

Now, not only will they immediately think of you when they’re ready for their next project, but they’ll also think of you when someone they know mentions that they need to hire a ______ (insert whatever type of home professional you are — General Contractor, Interior Designer, Architect, Roofing Company, etc.)

 

 

You see, social media will not only help you keep in touch with past clients, but it will help them refer you too. And we all know how powerful referrals are.

In fact, most Interior Designers say they receive 85% of their business from referrals. And that stat is most likely very similar for all other types of home professionals too.

3. Social Media Will Help Deliver ‘Social Proof’

Another great reason why you should be using social media for your home professional business is social proof.

“What exactly is social proof,” you’re probably wondering.

Well, have you ever been on your way into a movie theatre after buying tickets and seen a long line of people waiting to get into a different movie?

You immediately wonder, “What are they seeing? Should I have bought tickets for that movie instead?”

A similar thing happens when you see a busy restaurant. You automatically assume that because the restaurant has a line out the door that is must be the best place to eat in town.

This is what is referred to in marketing as social proof.

A similar effect can be achieved with your home professional business with the help of social media. If you have a lot of followers, people will assume that you must be a successful business and therefore they should hire you too.

If people see that you have large amount of 5 star ratings on Yelp, Google Places, Facebook, Houzz, etc. then you must be worth your fee.

 

 

This is why people like to hire companies or buy products that have been recommended by someone they know and trust.

Keep in mind that having a lot of followers and reviews doesn’t guarantee lots of business. It just helps give a potential client peace of mind when they are already thinking of hiring you. It could help ‘push them over the edge’ so to speak.

4. Social Media Lets You Be Part of the Conversation With Your Target Audience

 

 

Social media is supposed to be social. It should be about fostering community with your customers, potential customers, and target audience.

Before social media, there wasn’t very many good ways to be able to speak to your potential customers to learn about their wants and needs. Now, you get to communicate directly to your audience without even leaving your office.

This is a huge opportunity, but it’s often left untapped. Most small business owners don’t know how to leverage this.

The one thing to keep in mind is your potential customers are humans. So treat them like humans. Communicate with them. Put yourselves in their shoes and ask yourself—for example: “if I was a homeowner that was looking to remodel my home, what would I find useful.”

Let that guide you as you create and share content on social media.

5. Social Media Help You Deliver Better Customer Service

Before the internet (such a cliche phrase I know), good customer service meant answering your phone and returning calls as quickly as possible.

Now, there’s a myriad of way for your customers to get a hold of you.

 

 

There’s phone, email, website contact form, website chat, text message, Facebook, Twitter, Houzz, and many more.

This is a good thing though. By offering more methods of communication, you’re making things easier on your customers.

If your client is a stay at home mom that keeps Facebook open on her iPad throughout the day while she watches her kids, then sending you a quick Facebook message is probably easier for her then calling you.

When your clients are trusting in you to deliver a service for them, they want to feel supported and be able to get a hold of you. And by allowing many methods of contacting you, you’re gaining their trust and ensuring that they made a good decision in hiring you.

It’s not just small businesses though that are using social media as a means of providing good customer service. There’s plenty of great stories of well known brands providing great customer experiences after a customer complaint on social media.

6. Social Media Helps With Your Branding

A lot of people think your branding is just your logo, color scheme, website, and business cards. A lot of people confuse corporate idea with branding. But your branding is so much more.

 

 

The above mentioned things are just a few of the ways that you can express your brand.

Branding is about creating a personality, or a voice for your business. It’s what distinguishes you from every other home professional out there.

So how do you effectively express your brand through social media?

By being consistent. Posting consistently every week. Posting consistently relevant content. Answering questions consistently, and replying to messages consistently.

You can also express your company’s brand positively with your “voice”. Be professional, courteous, and friendly on social media, but most importantly be you. Let your personality shine through because that is what branding is all about.

7. Social Media Allows You To Earn Trust By Being An Expert In Your Field

Everyone wants to be an expert in their field. The experts are the ones that everyone listens to in the industry. They’re the ones that get invited to speak at conferences and get interviewed on podcasts.

They’re also the ones that every homeowner wants to hire for their next project.

 

 

How do you become an expert? Well one way is by building a following. The more people you have listening to you already, the more people are going to want to listen to. This of course is social proof at play.

So by creating content online, and posting on social media, and being consistent, you’ll slowly but surely build a following online. Okay yes, you may not become an expert to the degree that you’re being paid a lot of money to speak somewhere. But by providing evidence that you know what you’re doing, it’s going to help people want to hire you.

For example, on Houzz there’s quite a few home professionals that absolutely dominate for their category and area. They have some great project photos that have been saved thousands of times, and have dozens of great reviews. They also are active in the Houzz forums.

Homeowners see them as being an expert in their area, which makes them very desirable to hire for their next remodeling project or custom home.

8. Social Media is Being Used By Your Competitors

Now, I’m not saying you should copy everything that your competitors are doing in your area. But, the fact of the matter is, your competitors are using social media, and there’s no reason you should let potential business slip away without even trying!

It’s no secret that the economy isn’t what is used to be. Jobs are far from guaranteed for college graduates. Which means more and more millennials are seeking self employment than ever before.

So what does this mean for you? It means that more and more tech savvy, ‘hungry for work’ millennials are entering your field.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an interior designer that works for yourself, or an architecture firm with a full team of staff. There’s going to continuously be new competition that is ready to use social media for their business, and ready to leave you in their dust if you’re not eager to keep up!

 

 

9. Social Media is Free

There’s very little you can do to grow your business that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Any type of advertising on the internet will typically cost you a minimum of a few hundred dollars a month. And any type of offline advertising will typically cost you a lot more than that.

Social Media only cost you your time though. And yes time is money, but if you can get in the routine of spending a little bit of time each day, then you’ll be in good shape.

The fact that you can interact directly with potential customers for free is pretty incredible.

10. Social Media Will Help You Rank Better in the Search Engines

Every General Contractor wants to be found when someone in their area types “General Contractor” into Google. But SEO isn’t what it used to be.

 

 

Being found on the first page of Google is hard these days. The search engines are smarter than ever, and the competition is steep too.

So how do you rank in Google then? Well we won’t have time in this post for a full explanation, but social media is becoming more and more relevant in how the search engines rank websites.

So how does this work exactly? The more times your posts are liked, commented, shared, retweeted, repined, etc, the more it’s going to help you in the search engines.

You see, the search engines want to deliver quality, relevant, websites to the person searching. So the way they see it, if a company is being talked about a lot on social media and their content is being shared, then the search engines view that company as being relevant and useful. Therefore they’ll rank that company’s website higher up in the search engine rankings.

Keep in mind though that the search engines are smart enough to know if you’re doing something unnatural. So stay away from any cheap services that promise you you’ll be shared, liked, or whatever a certain amount of times. Those services utilize fake profiles which the search engines can spot from a mile away. You’ll likely see a penalty instead of seeing a boost in the rankings.

So as for social media, be natural, be consistent, and over time your ranking will more than likely improve.

11. Social Media is an Important Part of Inbound Marketing

In today’s post, we’ve saved the best for last. In our opinion, the most important reason why you should be using social media for your home professional business is for inbound marketing.

Before we talk about inbound marketing though, let’s first be clear about what outbound marketing is.

Outbound Marketing is really what we refer to as traditional marketing. It’s all about pushing your business and product/service to your target audience. Examples of outbound marketing would be direct mail ads, cold calling, billboard ads, radio/tv ads, online banner ads, etc.

Outbound marketing is about buying customers, where inbound marketing is about earning a prospects attention, then converting them into customers after you’ve earned their trust.

 

 

So how does social media help you implement inbound marketing as a home professional?

According to Hubspot, an authority on inbound marketing, the first step in inbound marketing is to attract your audience.

This is done best by content creation + distribution.

 

 

Or in other words, write a blog post that is relevant to your target audience (homeowners that are working on their home or designing a new one), and then share that blog post across all your social media channels.

Not only will your social sharing help draw attention to your business and help you earn the trust of potential customers, but remember that social activity will also help you in the search engines.

Wrapping Up. So Now Do You Know Why You Should Be Using Social Media?

We believe the reasons above are too important to not implement social media into your home professional business.

But where to you begin?

The Social Media Examiner states,

“there’s no reason to do social media if there’s no online presence to back it up.”

We couldn’t agree more, and fortunately for you we can help you with that.

 

 

Not only do we create beautifully modern websites for General Contractors, Architects, Interior Designers, and more.

But we set you up to succeed as you build your business a fully integrated online marketing presence with features such as:

• integrated social media presence
• built in blog capabilities (for inbound marketing)
• integrated social sharing tools

And we can’t forget about our other website features such as blazing fast load times which your users will love and the search engines will reward you for.

Get in touch for a free consultation to learn more.