Social media is the best marketing tool available to construction companies today. Developing a solid social media marketing plan can take your company to a larger audience and build up your client base. Getting new customers and letting people know about your construction capabilities can become a challenge in today’s digital age. With social media, you skip a lot of steps, reaching your target audience directly.
Several trends report that over 80% of the population is active on various social media platforms every day. When it comes to the construction industry, over 64% of users opt to partner with businesses engaging via social media. Being on a social media platform gives your business an air of openness and transparency to customers. This gives potential clients a chance to be more comfortable starting a conversation.
Therein lies the advantage of utilizing this amazing tool called social media. It’s useful, valuable, and gives you an edge over the competition when used well. Let’s discuss some of the easiest and most effective ways to develop a social media marketing plan.
Develop a wholesome Social Media Marketing Plan
Do I really need to develop a social media marketing plan? This might be a question on your mind. The trend that construction businesses do not need to focus on social media is a myth.
As a construction company, a lot of your client demographic looks to partner with you based on certain criteria. These include referrals, reviews, past work experience, and testimonials from existing clients. Social media is the perfect way to let potential customers know about what you’re doing and who you’re working with.
A successful social media marketing plan looks to engage users and also elicit referrals from happy clients. Creating awareness, building a reputation, and enticing curiosity about your construction business is what constitutes a wholesome plan. Whether your business is a small venture or a large-scale construction company, social media paves a path to greater success.
A large chunk of today’s population prefers utilizing various social media platforms in all types of communication. A good percentage of business interactions also occur via social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Social media allows easy and instant access from anywhere and at any time. Developing a social media marketing plan can help your business harness this ease and grow stronger.
Types of social media available for your construction business marketing plan
There is an important first step before you develop a social media marketing plan. You need to know about all the social media platforms available and understand how each one works. Does it sound like a tough task? We’ve made it easy for you!
Here’s a list of the most popular social media platforms out there.
- Facebook – one of the most widely used social media platforms today, Facebook is a boon for business users. With over 2 billion active users every single day, Facebook can greatly improve your marketing efforts when used correctly.
- Instagram – one of the most popular pictorial platforms today, Instagram is a great way to entice prospective customers using visuals. It is said that people remember about 80% of what they see compared to what they read. Instagram can, therefore, play an important part in your social media marketing plan to gain the interest of prospective customers.
- YouTube – the most widely used video platform, YouTube provides the benefit of displaying visual content on a large scale.
- Twitter – unlike other platforms listed here, Twitter offers a more direct and real-time approach to marketing your business. It is the best way to get the latest updates about your company out there.
- LinkedIn – this is a great tool for construction businesses that target construction professionals. With most business professionals and companies on LinkedIn today, it’s easy to offer them information about your company.
- WhatsApp – this messenger app has gained popularity among businesses quite recently. Although considered more of a personal chatting application, business users have started using WhatsApp to grow their circles.
Now that you have a brief idea about the various social media options available, it’s time for the next step! Read on to understand how to choose the right social platforms for your construction business.
Understand the goal of your marketing plan
There are numerous popular and widely used social platforms as discussed above. However, identifying the ones that are most suited for a construction business is essential to successfully utilize them. Understanding how each one operates goes a long way in developing the right social media marketing plan.
In order to choose the right platforms, you need to understand the goal of developing a social media marketing plan. Knowing what you wish to achieve by using social platforms is as crucial as understanding the platforms themselves. It can be spreading brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, or generating leads. Whatever it is, forming a clear goal is very helpful in tailoring the plan accordingly.
Here are some examples of how you can develop your social media marketing plan based on your goal.
- Let’s say your goal is to build your client base. The wide user demographic on Facebook makes it a quick way of reaching the right audience for your business.
- If you’re looking to convert potential leads into actual clients for your construction business, LinkedIn is the way to go. Known as the more ‘business’ social media platform, LinkedIn often gives you accurate and reliable details about prospective clients.
- For a goal to spread awareness about your construction business quickly, you can turn to WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a great way to use existing relationship circles to ripple out into newer ones.
- To invite people to your website to learn more, use a visual platform like Instagram or YouTube. The unique aspect of YouTube is that it is owned by Google. Access to Google’s impeccable advertising platforms makes YouTube a real advantage in terms of reaching people.
Using these examples, identify the goals for your construction business and choose the right platforms accordingly. Incorporate these when you develop your social media marketing plan.
What to Post on Social Media Platforms?
Let’s say you’ve identified goals and selected social media platforms most relevant to your business. The next question that comes to mind is – what to post? It’s important to remember that whatever you post via your official social media accounts are what customers learn about you. From information about the latest construction projects to updates about new service offerings; every detail reflects on your business.
When you develop a social media marketing plan, add strategies on what to post and how to post them. Always keep it simple and to the point. Lengthy and irrelevant information on social sites is going to get overlooked. Here are some ideas to help you get started.
- Information about a critical construction project that you recently completed.
- Linkbacks to your website – occasionally add links in your posts that drive traffic to your website. This could be in the form of links to a recent blog post, a new page, a feedback outlet, etc.
- Showcase your company’s culture – post pictures of a team event or an article about an activity your construction company participated in.
- News about the construction business – if there are new developments in the construction world, inform your followers about it. Twitter is a great medium for such posts. You can simply follow construction news sources and then retweet any interesting information you come across.
- Questions or polls – create a fun twist to your social media interactions by adding a poll about a new trend in the construction industry. You can also ask a question about people’s preference for a style, like concrete versus timber formwork.
These are just some of the numerous posting options you can utilize to get your business out there. Think out of the box and develop a social media marketing plan with unique and enticing posts about your business.
Create a schedule to manage social media posts effectively
When posting to social media, find the right balance between posting too much and posting too little. When developing your social media marketing plan, utilize the various automatic tools available to put your schedule together.
Social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram offer in-built tools to add posts as per a scheduled calendar. This is an easy way to handle posting without having to manually do it at every interval. Also, keep track of the ever-changing algorithms on social sites that decide how posts are shown to users. Tweak your schedule and posting style accordingly to get the maximum benefit out of them.
The lifespan of a social media post is terrifyingly small. In fact, most people don’t spend too much time on a single topic. Moreover, if posted at the wrong time of day, your post might get completely missed by your target audience. Here are a couple of tips to help you put together a posting schedule for your social media marketing plan.
- Research the trends around social platforms and identify the number of times to post on each site. Some studies show that posting to Facebook more than twice a day is not ideal. While Twitter works well with a minimum of three posts a day.
- Depending on your chosen social media outlets, the right time of day to post is essential. The current trend among the construction demographic shows the optimal times. People tend to check their social platforms before heading out to work and right after getting back from work.
Numerous such trends are available to help you plan your scheduling to derive the most from your social media posts. Find the right ones for your construction business, use them according to your social media marketing plan, and get posting now!
Building a social media follower base
Once you’re in the social media sphere, it’s not just enough to start posting relevant content. You need to grow your follower base so that the content reaches the right people. This is another essential aspect to incorporate when you develop a social media marketing plan. Let’s look at some of the best ways to build a legitimate following that can help your construction business grow.
- Follow relevant accounts yourself – in order to get a following, you need to first follow accounts related to your business. Identify profiles of key influencers and then follow them. This builds legitimacy into your account as well.
- Interact with customers – engage in regular conversations with current and potential followers.
- Be active – comment on relevant posts by others, retweet them, and add your own take to existing posts where possible. This shows people that the account is ‘real’ and engaging.
- Use hashtags – add relevant hashtags to your posts wherever possible to drive more people to visit your profile. No social media marketing plan is complete without hashtags.
- Post opinions on trending topics – make people want to engage with your business by commenting on topics relevant to your business. This puts your opinion out there and helps build a strong name for your brand too.
- Run competitions – conduct small competitions like asking people to comment on a post or like your page in return for a prize. This goes a long way in eliciting responses from your target audience.
- Utilize tags – try and tag other pages and users in your posts where appropriate. This improves the chances of more people visiting your account and engaging with you.
So, let’s get going!
In conclusion, developing a social media marketing plan is not an easy task! However, once you get it done and start utilizing it, you’ll have an unlimited resource at your disposal. Just getting a plan in place means that you’re ahead of a large portion of your competitors.
A good percentage of potential partners look at a company’s social media presence before considering a partnership. If they like what they see, that’s half the battle won! Your competence, experience, and construction skills can take care of the rest.
Follow as many of the above tips as possible when starting off with your plan. Always remember, social media is a marketing platform but is also a two-way street. Add relevant content, interact with your followers, build trust, and you’ve succeeded in reaping the benefits of social media.
So, there you have it – all the tools to develop a social media marketing plan are at your fingertips. Start posting and get your business growing, now!