In our first blog we spoke about joining local Facebook groups as a way of advertising your trade business and getting ahead of the rest of the pack, because let’s face it, there is a lot of alternatives to your services out there. The good news though, is that not many tradies are using social media and if they are they are not using it effectively. So, if you have gone ahead, researched and joined some groups, here is our second piece of advice:
Observe the rules and have a clear message.
Most People who run them, will tell you it takes a lot of time & energy to administrate Facebook groups. To keep things running smoothly they will often have guidelines. Guidelines like no post dumping, weekly promo only, and some local buy, swap & sell groups have a strict no advertising rules.
Some Facebook Group you need to be a paid member of a paid service that the person running it owns. Check out how many members they have and if they are a local group it may be worth the fee they are asking for.
Now make sure your message is clear. Don’t try to say too much with each post, just stick to the rule of “keep it short and simple”. Also, we strongly advise that you have someone check your posts before you send them, as we all can miss simple grammatical and spelling errors when we check our own writing. Even professional writers have “proof readers”, so get a friend or family member look over your posts before you post them.
Finally, as we mentioned in our last post, make sure that you personalise your posts for each group. The pitch and tone of your message will be different if it is a local mother’s groups as opposed to a buy, swap and sell group. Us For You can do this for you, or even write your content if you don’t fancy yourself as a writer.
Tradies are an essential part of our society. To some of us they are magicians that can turn up at our house and fix the stuff that we have no idea about, making our lives a little better. But with the onset of the internet, it has become really hard to find the right tradie to fit our needs because there are so damn many to choose between.
In these series of articles, Us For You is offering advice to help your service become more visible among the ever increasing pack.
Facebook Groups have been around for a while now and the power of local advertising in them branding benefits can’t be ignored. However, if done incorrectly you can risk damaging your business brand.
Remember, that joining Facebook groups is about becoming more visible to more people, not necessarily about actively marketing your services. In fact, most groups have rules about not marketing, so you’ll be doing more damage than good if you try. Make suer you read each groups guidelines before posting anything.
How to find groups to join: Simply type in “groups” to your Face Book search bar then hit “Discover Groups on Facebook”. This will bring up lists of recommended groups, local groups and groups that you have friends already in. Now go ahead and join any group you think might have people that might need your services in the future. Local buy, swap and sell groups are good for instance.
What to do once you have joined the groups: Now you need to make a bit of noise. Make sure that your company page is up to date and looking good and when you decide to post on any of the group pages, personalise your message to the group you are posting to. Us For You can help you with this and has expertise in pitching messages appropriate to different groups. It can also help you find the right groups to join, so if the above is looking a bit overwhelming, check out our website and call for a chat.
Inner West Mums interviewed me for their regular segment – “Getting to Know…” – the post is up on their blog now. Go take a look and learn a little more about me… 😉
In case you missed it, be sure to have a listen to the latest episode of BoomShare Radio’s podcast where yours truly (Me! Michelle!) makes an appearance. In this episode, I join Zdenka and Keith Keller as we talk about Twitter demographics, hashtags, Google, business story telling and much more. Pop it on in the background – it’s only 25 minutes, and if you like what you hear, be sure to give it a share.
In case you missed it, be sure to have a listen to the latest episode of BoomShare Radio’s podcast where yours truly (Me! Michelle!) makes an appearance. In this episode, I join Zdenka and