Facebook Best Practices for Construction

Everyone is talking about ways Facebook can help benefit your construction brand or company, but rarely do they ever talk about the basics. The real trick to any successful Facebook marketing strategy is a strong foundation. That foundation is built through understanding Facebook, and how it leverages social connections around the world.

Facebook has made signing up extremely easy for everyone, and it shows with over 600+ million users. In order to create a business page you have to sign up for a personal Facebook account first. It is important to spend time creating your personal Facebook page, but I want to focus on Facebook Pages within this blog post.

This post will guide you through setting up your page, provide you with tips on simple ways to engage your customers and get the word out about your Facebook page,  and show you how to integrate your Facebook page with other social media and create custom tabs. Finally, some basic Facebook definitions are provided.

Facebook has become more business friendly over the past year, and now makes frequent improvements. They have increased the ease of uploading photos and videos, along with the size of photos and videos you can upload. Facebook also made a major change when they introduced the ‘Like’ button. This button integrates across the Internet and allows you to ‘Like’ any content that is relevant to your interests, or company. This is important for your construction brand or company because it gives Facebook users the option to ‘Like’ your business, and the content it creates. Within every business page there are tabs on the left hand margin. The default tabs are ‘wall’ ‘info’ ‘photos’ and ‘discussions’. Another added benefit of a business page in Facebook is the option to build custom tabs.

Setting Up Your Page

Facebook will guide you through setup, and take you through six steps of creating your business page.

1) Add an Image – This is the most important, yet simple step in setting up your Facebook business page. This image should be of your construction brand or companies logo.

2) Import Contacts – You can import your contacts in two ways. First, you may import by creating a contact file (easy to follow directions can be found on Facebook). The second way is by signing into your email account and Facebook will automatically import your contacts. This is an easy way to build fans for your business.

3) Provide some basic info – People want to know about your construction brand or company! Tell them where you are located, your phone number, website, and general information about your business.

4) Post Status Updates – The reason a Facebook page is so important to your marketing strategy is it allows you to stay in contact with your customers easily. They are able to see important information you are posting such as links, photos, videos, or events. You can let them know what the company is up to at any time, from anywhere.

5) Promote your Page on your Website – You are able to build the amount of people who “Like” your business by adding a Like button directly to your website or blog.

6) Set up your Mobile Phone – You are able to update your construction brand or company page from anywhere with your mobile phone. Facebook will give you an email that is unique to only your page where you can email status updates!

Once you have your Facebook Construction brand or company page optimized you can begin to build relationships with your customers. You can begin to create custom tabs that are industry specific. This unique feature will differentiate your Facebook page from others, and will encourage users to “Like” it. Adding content to your Facebook page is the #1 way to bring customers in. The Facebook Page shown directly below is WEATHER GUARD® Videos, with a custom background.

Easy Ways to Engage your Customers

1. Status Updates

2. Photos

3. Videos
4. Events
5. Articles
6. Locations (check-in’s or Job site locations)
7. Promotions
8. Contests
9. Coupons/Offers
10. Resources
11. Links
12. Industry Tips and Tricks
13. Custom Tabs
14. Answer Questions / Feedback
15. Monitor your Social Media, Check it Daily if not hourly! (set-up automatic email updates)
16. Ask Questions to your Customers

Get The Word Out!

Once your Facebook business page is established with information about your company and has been populated with content, you need to get the word out! Here is a simple list of tactics to engage in:

1) Invite your Facebook friends:  make sure to invite friends that you know will positively engage with your company. I would also be sure to invite your employees to your Facebook.

2) Add your Facebook to your Email Signature:  every email you send is an opportunity to invite someone to your Facebook page. Let them know you are proud of the content you are putting on your page.

3) Email Blast:  build a customized HTML email inviting everyone on your Email list to engage with your Social Media Pages. If you don’t have an email list start building one! Also know your audience: If you work with end users, reps, and dealers, contractors think about sending several different emails that will intrigue that audience to engage with your Facebook Page.

4) Advertise on Facebook: You know who you are trying to engage, so target them specifically! Facebook uses an extensive targeting methods to make sure your advertisements get to a specific group.

Integrating your Business Page with other Social Media

Once a business page has several ‘likes’, it is a good idea to integrate it with other social media initiatives such as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, or a blog. This is done through applications on Facebook. YouTube videos can be directly posted to your Business page wall, or under your ‘video’ Tab on Facebook. Your Facebook posts can directly feed your Twitter account, so you can post once but it will go to both Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn can be linked to your Twitter account as well so it can then be posted to three different social media sites! We always suggest that your blog be a huge source of content for your Facebook! Whenever you have a new blog it should be brought over to your Facebook, and it should link to your blog. That one blog post will then populate your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.

 

Custom Facebook Tabs

While getting the basics down in Facebook is very important, making your page stand out is more important! You can create custom page tabs by now using Iframes, which allows you to take an exterior webpage and insert it into your Facebook Page.

The most powerful feature of the custom tab is making it your landing page. When someone types “your company” within the Facebook search your company will come up, and when the click on “your company” it will take them to your landing page. By default your landing page is your Facebook Wall. You can create a custom tab and make it your landing page by:

1. Click Edit Page (directly under your profile picture)

2. Click Manage Permissions

3. Click down on the Default Landing Tab box and select the custom tab you’ve created

4. Click Save Changes

 

Try It Out

The easiest way to learn Facebook is by trying it out. Start up your account, and start connecting with your business connections. There are several things you cannot learn unless you sign up. Soon enough you will be an expert Facebook Marketer!

 

Basic Facebook Definitions

These are a basic list of Facebook definitions that have been included in this article. Please feel free to comment and add more definitions that you feel are important for someone starting out on Facebook to understand!

Profile Page: The main destination for personal Facebook pages. Someone’s profile page highlights his or her picture, user information, and interests. When you view other profile pages you first see their wall.

Facebook Wall: The Wall is located within a profile page. It allows other Facebook users to post links, pictures, and events. This is one way to communicate with other users, by posting content on their wall.

News Feed: Located in someone’s Home screen when they first log into their personal Facebook account. Updates of Friends and Pages come up on the news feed. When you post a status update, this is where a user will see it.

Group: A social page within Facebook that allows users with similar interests to connect on any given topic. You can create groups, or join an existing one.

Profile Page: The main destination for personal Facebook pages. Someone’s profile page highlights his or her picture, user information, and interests. When you view other profile pages you first see their wall.

Friend: A social connection between two Facebook users. A friend must be requested, and the recipient of that request must accept.

Fan Page: A page within Facebook that represents a topic or company that you have the ability to ‘like’. This is the Primary location of businesses on Facebook.

Like: A term on Facebook to show that you are interested in a given Fan Page, topic, or content. Often times you will see ‘like’ buttons across the Internet that allow you to show off your interests by clicking them.

Please Retweet, Facebook Like and Digg/Delicious this blog post!