By Taylor Tuomie
For those of you that are not on Twitter for your field service business; stop reading NOW and get on it! For those of you that are already using it, good job!
Maybe you have been using Twitter for a while to promote your field services business and have optimized your page following all the best practices that you could find on the internet for small businesses. Maybe you gained a few followers and they are really interacting well with your Tweets.
Or, maybe you are frustrated with Twitter and the lack of quality, local traffic that you are receiving from it. You aren’t alone! Here are three tips that we found to be helpful in creating a Twitter following that can actually earn you some dollars:
1. Keep it Local
Since winter is coming up, let’s say you offer snow and ice removal services in Dartmouth. You might be Tweeting about your plowing services, but do you really want to attract EVERYONE on Twitter that is looking for snow and ice removal businesses? Twitter has awesome search functions that allow you to drill down into exactly what you are looking for and more importantly, what your potential customers are looking for.
Anyone know a 'guy'/company that does residential snow removal in Dartmouth? If you know someone, please let me know. Must be reliable.
— H. Mulligan (@h_mulligan) March 18, 2015
Here is a real Tweet with a local focus.
Not every search is going to be Tee’d up for you like that, but put yourself in your customer's shoes. What kind of “pain” are they experiencing when they call you? Are your customers property owners? Are they homeowner associations? Or are they strictly residential? Try out a few different searches, see what you can come up with, and make sure you're searching for people in your area.
2. Tweet Often, but With a Focus
To help you Tweet more often, you might want to consider utilizing a Social Media Management tool. Hootsuite.com can help you schedule Tweets, monitor what people are saying about your industry, city, or service, and can even integrate your other social media accounts.
The free version should be more than enough to get you Tweeting often and to the right audience. It is also an awesome tool to use when you have upcoming promos. For instance;
"Looking for commercial #SnowRemoval services in Minneapolis? Today only, receive 10% off your 1st plow of the season if you Retweet this"
Most promotions have an expiration date, make sure that is clear in your posts. Mention your area, your service, and give the customer some incentive to share it!
Know that the weatherman is calling for snow the next couple of days? It might be a good time to draft up a few tweets for your area so when the snow does fly, you’re searchable for people in your area. Use the almighty hashtag in your Tweets to make them easier to search for, too. Think about what your potential customers are looking for, like the example Tweet above.
Someone might be Tweeting about the “INSANE SNOW” in the area. They might take to Twitter to gripe about how terrible their snow removal service is at their office building.
So if my HOA is coming over to chat about their crappy snow removal would it be tacky if I didn't shovel the walkway to my front door? 😂😂
— Brooke. (@heyarnoldd) March 3, 2015
The answer is no. That is a perfectly acceptable (lack of) action...
Whatever the reason, find what kind of language they are using and cater your content to those who might fit into your ideal customer base.
3. Show who you are
You don’t need an expensive camera to give your business a face on social media. Those fancy smartphones are pretty useful. Snap a few pictures when you are out on the job. Show some examples of your work, Tweet pictures of your crew, and show that you are in fact local. Give your followers and other users who are checking out your feed something to look at.
Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites, and 150% more retweets!
Are you seeking a Commercial Snow and Ice Management Company in Philadelphia? Visit http://t.co/iQckftc5b1 for info. pic.twitter.com/biXeozOqCW
— DMC SNOW MANAGEMENT (@DMC_PM) August 11, 2014
By taking one more step before you hit the Tweet button, you are making it far more shareable, and that is the name of the social media game!
Bonus: Here is a site that you can use to make your images even more appealing. Canva has a ton of free options that you can use to put some text overlay, frames, or graphics on your pictures. They also have templates to create awesome social media profile and header pics. Isn’t ours highlighting our field service software pretty sweet?
Twitter has over 304 million active users. Your goal isn’t to reach all of them. How big is the area you service? Odds are that you know quite a bit about your area and the types of issues people are facing that you can solve, use that to your advantage. Keep your Twitter local, keep it current, and show them you’re human and you will start connecting with new customers!
Want to learn more about social media marketing for your field service business? Download our free eBook!
