What Do You Post On Social Media?

[Pete Brindle]

Everyone knows that using social media correctly can help to encourage customers. However, you can also do the wrong thing. Personally, I can't even keep count of the number of businesses who have lost my "like" or "follow" because they've started doing silly things for audience interaction, like..

"Click LIKE if you can see the A, only 1% of people can!!" Cue people feeling clever because they can see the huge A with all the other letters.

I don't use social media as much as I should, and this is something that I do hope to work on in the near future. But I was wondering what types of posts you share. Is it just to do with your business, or do you share other things as well?

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

I don't use it very much to be honest, but I am TRYING to change that. I might even hire a social media manager and see how that works, for a little while at least.

I think whatever you post has to be relevant, otherwise people are just going to get annoyed with you, and you'll never get anywhere with it.

 

[Pete Brindle]

I don't use it very much to be honest, but I am TRYING to change that. I might even hire a social media manager and see how that works, for a little while at least.

I think whatever you post has to be relevant, otherwise people are just going to get annoyed with you, and you'll never get anywhere with it.

I agree with this completely. Also, if you just post silly things, you might get a lot of interaction with your page, but it will just be spam rather than anything useful, so it would never actually convert to any real sales.

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

I try to post relevant stuff that I think suits our audience (so anything related to running a small business in Scotland). I kind of see it like a curator - I try to find the best content in this space and then share that.

There's a balance to be had though and I think sometimes you need to have conversations with people just to further that relationship a little.

I find it difficult to maintain a persistent presence and I actually think that works against me because it could be more consistent. Social media is a slow burn, ever slower than networking as you need to get know people and them like you before anything of real value can happen. I use social media alot to start the conversation and then meet people in person and it works for me

 

[eeyorebob]

Something I find works, and gets more followers is to have a giveaway or prize draw for those that follow and retweet. Not often though or it'll cost you a lot of money.
Interaction, conversations are good too

 

[Pete Brindle]

Something I find works, and gets more followers is to have a giveaway or prize draw for those that follow and retweet. Not often though or it'll cost you a lot of money.
Interaction, conversations are good too

Yeah that is a good idea. I will admit we haven't done that yet, but I feel it is something that we need to do soon. We sometimes get local businesses who want to donate to our end of term raffles, so maybe we could use one of the prizes for a social networking thing instead. We do get some very good things so it would be possible, I think.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

Yeah that is a good idea. I will admit we haven't done that yet, but I feel it is something that we need to do soon. We sometimes get local businesses who want to donate to our end of term raffles, so maybe we could use one of the prizes for a social networking thing instead. We do get some very good things so it would be possible, I think.

I once won a competition run by my university to win a hoodie, you had to get the most "likes" on the post, and still a huge number of my friends "like" the page because of that contest, so they did definitely get a lot of new people from this method. It definitely works, and the prize was only something that was worth about £10 as well!

 

[Pete Brindle]

I once won a competition run by my university to win a hoodie, you had to get the most "likes" on the post, and still a huge number of my friends "like" the page because of that contest, so they did definitely get a lot of new people from this method. It definitely works, and the prize was only something that was worth about £10 as well!

It's interesting to know that they haven't bothered to remove the page, despite the fact that (I assume) they don't have any link with your university anymore. So that could work to our advantage, because we need to reach out to people who have contacts with children, and who doesn't! Showing them what our children are achieving could be a seriously good thing without a doubt.

 

[Mike Turner]

I don't post much but try to have a constant presence so people will see me and maybe think of me when they need repairs doing on their cars. I always get tagged in statuses from people who are recommending me so word of mouth (or word of fingers I guess) on social media is working well for me at the moment.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

I don't post much but try to have a constant presence so people will see me and maybe think of me when they need repairs doing on their cars. I always get tagged in statuses from people who are recommending me so word of mouth (or word of fingers I guess) on social media is working well for me at the moment.

I think it's good for you because you have a physical presence (your garage) in a particular place, so you will be able to build up a local following. If somebody needs a mechanic in your area, people are likely to recommend you, you're only competing with a finite number of other companies in the area. So social media would work well for you, I can see how that could happen. With my business, I'm competing with pretty much every other freelancer in the world, which can be a little bit daunting sometimes.

 

[Pete Brindle]

I think it's good for you because you have a physical presence (your garage) in a particular place, so you will be able to build up a local following. If somebody needs a mechanic in your area, people are likely to recommend you, you're only competing with a finite number of other companies in the area. So social media would work well for you, I can see how that could happen. With my business, I'm competing with pretty much every other freelancer in the world, which can be a little bit daunting sometimes.

A physical advertisement is great, and I find that we're able to get this to some extent because we put on concerts with the kids we teach. Sometimes we will go into local schools and perform and that's great because it makes more of them feel as though they want lessons, and they often come to us at the end asking whether they would be able to learn, too (and the answer is always a great big YES of course). Being seen is half of the battle, and as long as people come away with a good impression of you then that's the main thing.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

A physical advertisement is great, and I find that we're able to get this to some extent because we put on concerts with the kids we teach. Sometimes we will go into local schools and perform and that's great because it makes more of them feel as though they want lessons, and they often come to us at the end asking whether they would be able to learn, too (and the answer is always a great big YES of course). Being seen is half of the battle, and as long as people come away with a good impression of you then that's the main thing.

I remember from my school days, we always had a big concert at the beginning of the year where people would be able to sign up to learn musical instruments. I always found it really inspirational and ended up wanting to try a different instrument every year, which must have been quite annoying for my parents, to say the least! Have you thought about adding videos to social networking sites? Getting permission from parents, of course. You will find that they DEFINITELY want to share them with their friends if they show their kids as being talented, so you would get a good audience for the posts.

 

[Mike Turner]

I think it's good for you because you have a physical presence (your garage) in a particular place, so you will be able to build up a local following. If somebody needs a mechanic in your area, people are likely to recommend you, you're only competing with a finite number of other companies in the area. So social media would work well for you, I can see how that could happen. With my business, I'm competing with pretty much every other freelancer in the world, which can be a little bit daunting sometimes.

That's our marketing strategy and the whole it does seem as though it's working quite well to be honest with you. Before I worked in a garage I was a car owner, and I struggled to find a mechanic that I could trust, so when I found a good one, I stuck to them. We have however decided that we're going to start posting more on social media and running competitions for things like free MOTs which don't take us too long, but might get us some more 'likes'. I'm hoping that previous clients would be able to post some testimonials on there, too.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

That's our marketing strategy and the whole it does seem as though it's working quite well to be honest with you. Before I worked in a garage I was a car owner, and I struggled to find a mechanic that I could trust, so when I found a good one, I stuck to them. We have however decided that we're going to start posting more on social media and running competitions for things like free MOTs which don't take us too long, but might get us some more 'likes'. I'm hoping that previous clients would be able to post some testimonials on there, too.

Contests definitely work well, especially if the prize is to win something like an MOT, that the majority of people would have had to pay for if they weren't getting it for free. So that is a great strategy. You often find that people who've had a good level of service from you will be happy to post so on social media, but you will need to give them the contact details of the page so that it's as easy as possible for them to do it.

 

[Lauren Turner]

I have a page, and every time I finish a project I will post photos of it. Over time, I have gained a lot of "likes" from people on my friends list, and because that shares the photo I have got other people interested. I will often post personalised things and then get messages from people asking whether they can have something with their name on, and of course the answer is always yes because I am pleased to help whenever and wherever I can.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

I have a page, and every time I finish a project I will post photos of it. Over time, I have gained a lot of "likes" from people on my friends list, and because that shares the photo I have got other people interested. I will often post personalised things and then get messages from people asking whether they can have something with their name on, and of course the answer is always yes because I am pleased to help whenever and wherever I can.

Another great idea would be if you have a bit of a bigger project, you could post step by step stages of what you're creating? That might get people who are interested actually in what you're doing checking back to see if you've got any further. I know of a lady who makes cakes and always does step by step of the decorations and I enjoy that.

 

[Pete Brindle]

I have a page, and every time I finish a project I will post photos of it. Over time, I have gained a lot of "likes" from people on my friends list, and because that shares the photo I have got other people interested. I will often post personalised things and then get messages from people asking whether they can have something with their name on, and of course the answer is always yes because I am pleased to help whenever and wherever I can.

Getting interaction is the most important thing as it makes people want to come back. If there's any remote possibility that your business would be able to do some kind of contest, that's excellent for social media interaction as well.

 

[Mike Turner]

Getting interaction is the most important thing as it makes people want to come back. If there's any remote possibility that your business would be able to do some kind of contest, that's excellent for social media interaction as well.

Contests are great. I have a friend who works at a local pizza takeaway who does a competition on guessing football scores every time there's a game on, and he always gets more likes because people join in. I have ordered from them myself and wouldn't have done if I hadn't been encouraged to like the page.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

Contests are great. I have a friend who works at a local pizza takeaway who does a competition on guessing football scores every time there's a game on, and he always gets more likes because people join in. I have ordered from them myself and wouldn't have done if I hadn't been encouraged to like the page.

Our pizza place does this as well (who knows, maybe they're the same one lol) and my partner has won two with them so far, so it's well worth us taking part in the contest and "liking" the page. Anything that makes people talk to you or post things is a great thing to do.

 

[Lauren Turner]

Just a quick question for the people on this thread: do you feel that you would enter a competition for a personalised set of.. something? I'm trying to consider a way to get people interested, but at the moment I'm in the stage of wondering what I could actually do or make that would make people want it?

Perhaps something Christmas related for children? I could make stockings or something?