In short, use Facebook and make it pretty. Now let’s back up and give some context to that takeaway.

The Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael A. Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, asked around 5,700 marketers how they are using Social Media to grow their business. There’s a wide consensus that Facebook is still dominant. It’s used by 94% of marketers, and two out of three marketers say Facebook is their most important Social platform. The next on the list is fairly far away: 66% of marketers say they use Instagram. Twitter comes in third at 62%.

Also, 72% of marketers surveyed use Facebook ads, and 67% plan to increase that activity over the next year. (In comparison, 31% of marketers use Instagram ads). You can start focusing your energy there. Facebook is still a prime marketing platform.

Now, what will you hope to get out of your Social Media effort? The marketers surveyed identified benefits they reap from Social Media that are similar to those sought in the contracting fields:

  • 87% indicated that Social Media has generated more exposure for their businesses.
  • 78% said that Social Media has helped increase online traffic.
  • 64% said Social Media helped generate leads.
  • 62% said Social Media helped create loyal fans.
  • 53% said it improved sales.

Back to that idea of “make it pretty.” What kind of content should you post? Visual images rank highest as the type of content used by 80% of marketers, and if they had to pick just one type of content, visual images had more #1 votes than any other. The point is, include a good image with your post, and you’ll get more engagement.

Video is used by 63% of marketers, yet it is also the type of content marketers want to learn more about. With the increasing popularity of video, including live video, marketers sense that this is a format that will be getting more and more attention.

Create Your Strategy

Focusing your Social Media marketing in one direction or another takes strategy – and identifying your expectation is step one in developing that strategy. Part of this focus is being realistic and setting attainable goals. Adding 1,000 followers a week may not be a reasonable goal. Posting seven times a day on every platform invented shouldn’t be your goal. As you narrow down the channels that are the best fit for your marketing strategy, you’ll also want to budget the expenditure of time and money you will be investing.

Goals for contractors will probably include:

  • Increasing brand awareness. Your Social Media is a little like “top-of-mind awareness” ads. As you create meaningful content and develop a brand personality, you get noticed in Social channels. And you can also…
  • Learn what others are doing. For competitive analysis, you can keep an eye on how other businesses engage with their prospects – and where you may need to step up your game.

As you measure goals, identify metrics that matter. Follower count is certainly a metric, but it may not be as useful to you as engagement metrics. For example, are people engaging with your posts and clicking links? Are you getting likes or shares? How many people are viewing your videos? Activity-based metrics tell you more than the passive number of page likes. Engagement tells you that there is a level of interest in what you are posting. You can also see how many people your post has reached to get a picture of how far and wide your message is being seen.