Getting your business known can be a challenge. Marketing on social media can help.
Social media can help your business. Supplied by @Plumbing Africa
Who remembers the Yellow Pages? All you had to do was look up “plumber”, find the right page and make your selection. Today things have changed drastically, with many clients and potential clients turning to Google and social media for recommendations.
Being active on social media can help establish you as an expert, generate leads, help you engage with your client base and also help you reinforce your existing client relationships. You can also share your expertise and your success stories to help build your professional reputation.
The thing is, your professional social media presence is not where you post the “beer and braai” memes or photos of your family (unless your family are all plumbers working in your business). This is exclusively for your professional posts – which means you will need to take a professional approach.
Marketing on social media is an excellent way for your business to become more well known. Facebook pages like ‘I Know a Guy’ can point you in the direction of leads. However, social media is far more than just setting up a Facebook page and sitting back waiting for the clients to start rolling in.
There are a variety of options available these days: Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and even Pinterest. So, how do you make use of these to promote your business?
‘How To’ or ‘Troubleshooting YouTube’ or TikTok videos can be kept quite short and will showcase your expertise. This should always be preceded by you informing those watching that a plumber should always be consulted before the client attempts to make any repairs themselves.
X and Facebook are great places to share your wins and client testimonials – put up pictures of your latest project or installation. Celebrate your employee or co-worker who has achieved something wonderful. These spaces are great to make you more personable and engaging towards your audience. You can also use Instagram to showcase work and short videos, or perhaps even repair fails (made by other plumbers) and how you fixed them.
The idea is to get yourself out there and to become known to your customers.
This means a little bit of elbow grease on your part, though. Social media only works if you are consistent with posting. For Facebook and X, this means an average of twice a week. For Instagram, you can post daily, but a minimum of three times a week would be good. Once a week is good for YouTube, however, once every second week is acceptable. If you are on TikTok and want to draw an audience there, you will need to put up a video a day – and this takes time and effort. TikTok is also a great place for the unusual things – for example, showing tree roots growing through a pipe system, showing off a rainwater harvesting system, or a ‘before and after’ of an installation.
More and more potential customers are looking at your social media presence and reviews before hiring you. Getting familiar with the ins and outs of social media marketing will definitely benefit your business.
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