Blogging
You can feed your blog postings to other social media. While "social" in that readers can comment/react, for most viewers, blogging is one-to-many. Time consuming but potentially rewarding.
Facebook
Which social media platforms
should you use?
The "big boy in social media
Can you lead?
Be careful before spending much money
Back to client/competition issue, and your own personal preferences. How do you value your time?
Listening: Looking inside Google
Houzz.com
Twitter
Pinterest
Conclusions
Videos -- YouTube and others
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First step: Listen. Link your client data base with social media management services such as nimble.com
Listening: What are your current clients saying about themselves?
Listening: What are your current clients saying about you?
You don't need to spend much money.
You will need to spend some time.
Pick the social media platform(s) that you enjoy the most -- and which your clients use.
You can know your clients and prospects better than ever before. When you are interacting with them, you can see into their lives, their interests and their passions.
Then you can respond and support these passions -- adding to rapport and helping you to enhance your relationships.
Although more of an issue for larger businesses, if your clients are delighted with their experience and want to share it with their friends, you have a social media home run.
If you screw up and generate negative word-of-mouth, of course you have a disaster.
You need to listen before you can engage and respond, though.
If your clients are using social media and your competitors are not, then you have a rare opportunity to take a leadership role and "own" the space.
Great for images and showing off your work (and for your clients to do that too.)
Not bad for search engine optimism
Inexpensive, potentially powerful way to communicate client testimonials.
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140 characters, lots of back and forth, much time . . . Mary Taggart uses and loves it (and a Twitter relationship with her connects you to relevant media.)
Google's power behind the scenes
Linkage to search engine powerhouse
Social media: It's vital to be sociable
What to say,
what to do?
Be good!
Desk-based office staff with time for chit-chat do best here
Self promotion: Maybe 10 to 20 per cent of time
Respond to clients
Encourage testimonials
"chit chat" and social small talk
Can you quantify results?
Ironwood Custom Builders, Salt Lake City
"Why it works: Increases brand awareness and name recognition and has been the lead source for more than $100,000 in business over the last 18 months."
Client monitoring: Know who your clients are and what they are saying. Listen before you start speaking . . .
ideas for profitability
High client interest, low competitor interest
"Go"
Low client interest, high competitor interest
"No go, yet"
High client interest, high competitor interest:
"Monitor to keep in touch with clients; find your own niche"
Low client interest, low competitor interest
"Do you have better things to do with your time? "(but worthwhile for SEO)
Are you first within your community/niche?
First question: Are your current clients using social media?
So, yeah, if you haven't already, sign up and open personal accounts for Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest (and maybe LinkedIn.)
Design Build Pros
Why it works: While the company cannot point to direct revenue, it has increased brand awareness, helped with networking and driven traffic to the company’s website