Are your customers telling you the whole truth?
Social media has become an essential outlet to reach both customers and leads, but it can be challenging to understand what types of content to post on each platform. For example, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok all have different purposes and strengths, so it’s important to know how to best utilize each one. This knowledge will lead to better engagement, interactions, and click-throughs to your website so you can ultimately book more projects and widen your audience. To understand the more detailed best practices for each of the various social media platforms and hear some of our members’ advice from recent roundtable discussions, check out our guides for each of the major social media platforms below. Every platform is different and serves a distinct purpose, so we’re here to help you understand how to use them! Before jumping into any of these platforms, first and foremost make sure you are signing up for a business account to get the most out of the platform’s tools.
Facebook is a platform that primarily focuses on personal relationships. The largest audience group is 25-34 years old, making up 23.6% of the total users, but also remains the preferred social media for the Baby Boomer generation or people who are between 58 and 76 years old. This is important to note because it might change the products or services you market to each platform, as older adults are more likely to afford larger, more expensive projects.
The Facebook Business Page is the main page for your business to engage on Facebook. You can monitor, reply, and react to comments on your company’s posts. You can also host live streams on your Facebook page via Facebook Live, which is prioritized in Facebook’s algorithm with increased visibility.
Best Practices for Facebook
Shorter posts on Facebook tend to get better engagement, so keep your posts to about 120 characters or less. Alex Borzo, Director of Operations at Signature Home Services, encourages creating captions that will grab a viewer’s attention:
“The topic must be instantly recognizable so people can quickly scan it and understand what you’re talking about”.
She recommends choosing a few keywords to keep it concise and linking the post to a longer blog or page if necessary.
Facebook has a wide variety of targeting options that segment viewers based on different demographics and interests. Since most home improvement and remodeling businesses service a specific geographic range, limit your location preferences in Facebook to ensure you are targeting to reach the right audience.
Larger images are also prioritized in the Facebook newsfeed. 1200 x 630 pixels is the minimum image size to generate a large thumbnail, and the standard size of an iPhone-generated photo is 1280 x 720 pixels, so this size is attainable without professional equipment. And remember, never post photos that are crooked, blurry, or generally unprofessional looking, as this will negatively impact your brand.
And finally, Facebook Ads has the most advanced algorithm and best ad options based on a wide array of demographics and behaviors for ad campaigns. This is a great opportunity to reach a large audience, and since Facebook has partner platforms including Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network, these ads can be posted to multiple platforms at the same time. There is a tool called the Ads Manager that can help monitor different campaigns for the most efficiency and success with ads so you can focus more on your customers and current projects! You can learn more in-depth best practices about Facebook business here.
Instagram, acquired by Facebook in 2012, provides even more ways for you to share content with your target audience, via the Feed, Explore Page, Profile, Stories, Instagram Live, and Reels. Stories and Instagram Live are simple ways to engage directly with your audience through polls and Q&A sessions and talk more about what your business offers in an authentic light.
Although posts are still popular and can give your audience a sense of your brand just by glancing at your Instagram profile, Reels are the highest form of engagement right now. Reels are short videos (up to 60 seconds) that allow you to pair an entertaining, immersive, or educational video with either original audio or audio options offered by Instagram. Similar to TikTok (more below), posting Reels that follow the top video or audio trends will directly impact your number of views and increase the amount of traffic on your account.
Best Practices for Instagram
Post engaging content regularly. Experts advise that a portion of your content should be promotional, while the rest should express your business’s story. This means that you don’t always have to post directly about your products, services, or current projects. In fact, you shouldn’t.
Balancing your profile with content that highlights your company’s employees or involvement within the community will still result in more sales, while also humanizing your brand.
Alex from Signature Home Services prefers relying on in-house social media marketing since third-party services cannot always capture the brand’s personality and tone, as well as the fun aspects of the business. If your profile feels authentic and includes something heartfelt, you’ll likely see more engagement, as “people won’t use your services based on logic, they want an emotional experience, so people want to see fun, people, and animals”.
Another important piece to posting on Instagram is by using hashtags appropriately. Across all posting types, adding relevant hashtags will increase visibility, as long as you don’t overuse them. 5 to 11 hashtags best fits the algorithm. The caption is also an opportunity to create a call to action such as, “follow us for more updates”, “visit our website to learn more”, or “schedule a consultation to get started”. In fact, Maureen Clifford from Valentine Roofing noticed that “our least successful campaigns usually are too vague or don’t have a real call to action”.
Instagram Insights can be helpful when viewing demographics, interactions, and your most successful posts to understand what you are doing right.
You can also tag other accounts (people or businesses) in your posts to demonstrate to followers that a relationship exists. For example, you may want to tag a customer – with their permission – when you post before and after photos, or a supplier if you’re promoting a new product line. Very often, those you tag will recognize your efforts and share or reply to your content, resulting in even more potential followers and views. You can learn more in-depth best practices about Instagram here.
Pinterest has been a particularly influential platform for businesses in the home remodeling and services industry. It’s a network in which individuals and brands can build visual collections known as “boards” for different themes and topics, such as home remodeling or bathroom renovations.
As a business, it’s important to create a business account so you can create profiles with boards of your products and services, hopefully leading viewers to your site or landing pages. Similar to Facebook, Pinterest appeals to a wide range of age groups, which means you can post a variety of product or service-related content.
Best Practices for Pinterest
Write descriptions for your posts, known as Pins, that include keywords and provide context to the photo.
Portrait-oriented images display best on the Pinterest feed and on mobile devices.
Don’t pin new content in large chunks. Instead, you should space out your pinnings over time to gain more viewers and abide by the algorithm.
Set up Pinterest analytics for increased visibility. It can help you understand your overall presence on Pinterest and show what paid and organic published content resonates most with viewers.
Tara Dawn, Co-founder at Opal Enterprises, recommends utilizing the geofencing feature for highly localized targeting, as it gives you the ability to define geographical boundaries to your ads or posts. For example, if you’re attending a trade show, you can publish posts that only target consumers located within the parameters of the trade show’s building. You can learn more in-depth best practices about Pinterest here.
TikTok
TikTok has experienced exponential growth in the past few years. Unlike the three platforms above, TikTok consists entirely of engaging short videos paired with audio.
Generally speaking, TikTok targets the younger generation, as 60% of users are between the ages of 16 and 24 years old. Although Gen Z may not be your first thought when considering your target audience, keep in mind that this age group will be the next generation of homeowners. The earlier you can build a relationship with them and set yourself apart from the competition, the better.
TikTok is known as the platform in which accounts love to connect with audiences through creativity and humor, so this is where you can loosen up and really express the personality of your brand and your employees!
Best Practices for TikTok
Authenticity is highly valued. TikTok content is all about creating fun videos that feature real people and real experiences. Don’t worry too much about capturing the perfect, high-quality videography here. Behind-the-scenes type content is known to succeed, as an audience familiarizes themselves with your business.
Music is another key factor of TikTok. Follow trending audio clips for higher engagement, or narrate the process of your video.
And lastly, post often, if you can. The TikTok algorithm rewards accounts that post videos frequently. While videos can take more time and effort to acquire, another option is to stitch several photos together to create a video – a slideshow if you will. Also, there is no reason you can’t post your photos and videos from one platform onto another platform. In fact, Daniel of House to Home Solutions recommends it, stating that “we always cross-post. We want to get the most mileage out of the effort we’re putting into creating a post”. You can learn more in-depth best practices about TikTok here.
Conclusion
Overall, investing in social media provides new channels to engage with your customers and leads. People value authenticity, so make sure you’re staying true to your brand’s overall personality and messaging. Personal connection drives engagement, so it’s just as important to sell your staff and company culture along with your products and services.
To learn more about general social media practices, click here!
