How To Maximize Your Social Media Efforts For Your Professional Services Business
Using social media to promote business of any kind is a great inbound marketing strategy. If your field is professional services, there are some differences of note. I suggest focusing your efforts on the following three platforms, and taking advantage of what they do best.
LinkedIn is easily one of the most important platforms for professional services – and there are three good places to market yourself.
First, you need a good LinkedIn Company Page. These are profiles of your business that you’ll be linking to with your posts and content, and they allow you to contact your customers with interesting and important updates. For help with these pages, check out LinkedIn’s FAQ page.
Next, you can use LinkedIn Promoted Posts to help spread the content you publish and reach your audience more effectively.
Be sure to target your audience as accurately as possible using the options available – one of the key rules of using social media for professional services marketing is that the better you target your audience, the more effective your messages will be.
Finally, you can use LinkedIn Publishing to get your content viewed – publishing helpful blogs and articles on LinkedIn itself is an excellent way of getting attention from the kinds of people who read such content, and many of them are interested in finding like-minded and professionals with which to network.
Google+
Many people don’t consider Google+ to be as ‘active’ as networks like Facebook – and it’s true that not many people use it simply to hang out. That said, Google+ does have the ability to affect your search engine rankings and how easy it is for other people to find your content. Here’s how to get everything set up.
- Start by creating both a Personal Profile and a Business Profile. Chances are you’ll be publishing content through both, and most importantly, you need to complete these profiles. Don’t just throw up a few snippets of information – make them as robust as possible.
- Next, start forming connections. Google+ does this through “circles”, and you can create different kinds of circles to describe different groups. For example, you might have circles for customers, vendors, or other people in your industry – and it won’t be hard to remember who’s who as your circles continue to grow.
- Once everything is set up, start posting content. Material that’s shared on Google+ has a good chance of showing up in search engine results – while material shared on other social networks probably won’t. Essentially, publishing on Google+ allows you to get views from both search results and social networking at the same time – and without having to duplicate your content and risk penalties.
Take a look at our Social Media Marketing Services – we work with you to leverage a thoughtful strategy and deliver results!
Using this type of social media for professional services is the closest to using it in any other industry.
With Facebook, you want to have a solid company page, promote your blog posts, and carefully target your key audience.
The more you promote your content, the more people will see it and hopefully convert, so check your conversion rates on a regular basis and aim for the best possible return on your investment.
In particular, double-check your geo-targeting options and ensure they’re in line with the areas you want to draw customers from. If you accept people from all over the country, that’s great – but if you only offer services to people in your city, county, or state, there’s no point in advertising elsewhere.
Of course, using social media for professional services marketing only works when you have a great marketing strategy. That means having a good website to direct people to, as well as fresh content (blogs, offers, etc.) that you can share.
Not sure how to begin your social media marketing program? Seven Starting Points for Success on Social Media
Remember, you can’t just create content – you need content that’s genuinely worth your customers’ time. As long as you keep their needs at the front of your thoughts, though, you’ll be fine.
Thanks for stopping by,
Laura
Breezy Hill Marketing specializes in creating custom marketing strategies for our clients. We have a dedicated team that understands the key concepts for inbound and digital marketing and will implement a program that delivers results. We work with clients both in Vermont and throughout the United States.
