8 Simple Social Media Marketing Tips for Tradies

Just about everyone uses social media – so the chances are high that your current and future customers are on one or more of the platforms already. This makes it potentially a great tool for marketing!

You can use social media to share information, promote your business, and generally show how nice and friendly you are – all at little or no extra cost.

But social media marketing is not just about spreading the word and promotion. You can use social platforms to engage on a more personal level, find out what people are looking for from tradies like you, check out the competition, respond to people’s queries and build work-based relationships.

Here are some tips for getting started.

1. Choose some sites

You don’t have to post on every social site out there. It’s generally better to do a couple really well rather than spread your time and effort across half a dozen or more.Before deciding, it helps to understand what platforms your customers prefer to use and where they are posting online. You can also check out what platforms your competitors are on. 

2. Understand your audience

Following on from that, knowing what your audiences want and need from your type of business is crucial if you want to make an impact and create a connection.

This includes knowing what their pain points are, and how you can help through your solutions and services.

3. Offer value to your audiences

This is key for effective marketing – in fact, it’s pretty much the bottom line.

While ultimately your goal is to gain more custom, it’s not all about showing how great you are (even if it’s true!) so much as providing content and solutions that are useful for your customers. 

4. Post regularly – but not too often

You will need to post on a regular basis if you are to show up on users’ newsfeeds – ideally at least once a week.

At the same time, it’s important not to bombard or overwhelm people with posts. You generally shouldn't post more than once a day – at least not regularly.

Here are some suggestions for types of content you could post:

• How-to videos for DIYers.
• Before-and-after photos from projects.
• Links to articles you publish on your website.
• Surveys and questionnaires (great for gathering marketing data!)
• Offers, deals and discounts – perhaps in exchange for an email address.
• Customer stories, anecdotes and reviews.
• Humour and amusing stories.
• Questions – where people can respond in the comments.
• News of upcoming events.

5. Create paid ads

Social media advertising can be remarkably affordable, especially for smaller businesses.

With Facebook for example, you set your own budget, as well as create an audience, choose an objective and monitor the performance of your ad.

Advertising in this way has the potential to reach thousands of people, at far less cost than traditional advertising methods.

7. Track post performance

While it’s important to monitor how well your ads go, you can also check the performance of your informal posts.

This might include gathering responses to queries, or tracking which posts were the most popular.

Gathering this information enables you to figure out what works and what doesn’t, which in turn helps in decision-making on future posts.

8. Outsource if necessary

If this all sounds too hard or time-consuming, you could always hire a marketing assistant or social media professional to do it for you! This doesn’t necessarily mean having to take on a new employee - some other options include hiring the services of a virtual assistant or using a marketing agency.

So, if you are not already using social media for your trades business, now might be time to consider it. There’s really nothing to lose!