Your Klout score means nothing - how influential is your roofing company online, really?

As a roofing contractor, virtually everything you tweet or post serves as a means to ultimately increase your revenue. You are either trying to create awareness, build a favorable reputation, establish personal connections with existing and potential customers, demonstrate your competency, or call those you are connected to into a specific desired action. Your ability to increase revenue as a result of your social media activity determines your online influence.

You may be familiar with Klout or similar services that report your social media (online) influence as a single numeric score. I check my Klout score periodically and participate in giving +K's to folks as a means of interaction and goodwill, but the truth is I think current online influence scores available are complete crap and you should pay them no attention.

The True Measure Of Influence
Influence is the ability to get people to do what you want. When you tweet or post a link to some kind of content or offer, you do so in hopes that the people you are connected to will click on that link and take the desired action, then re-tweet or share it with their connections to increase the total potential reach of your message (and ultimately your sales). The higher % of desired actions taken per message you tweet or post, the more influential you are online. But there is no way for a service like Klout to know if the ultimate action you intended actually transacted.

Online influence scores are all based upon algorithms, which should not be confused with formulas. The square footage of a roof is a formula. Your total number of connections along with a certain number link clicks, re-tweets or likes, comments and shares having absolute effect on your online influence score is an algorithm. There is some math used, but there are also many assumptions. These services are trying to determine the quantitative value of the relationship of these individual factors and actions to each other but they will never be able to describe why it happened, let alone predict your ability to initiate desired behavior in the future.

There are three kinds of measures to focus on: descriptive (what happened), diagnostic (why it happened), and predictive (what might happen). Online influence scores are purely descriptive measures (for example, your Klout score purely reflects your social media activity, and particularly on Twitter). But don't confuse activity with influence - I can be extremely active without being successful in getting you to hire me to help you with marketing just as much as I can be fairly inactive but highly successful in earning your business.

Klout is fantastic at understanding what you tweet or post about, but it does not tell you why you have been active, why you have been successful in getting others to take action, and it certainly does not predict how you will get others to take action in the future. And they punish you for taking a few days off by lowering your score, treating reduced activity as declining influence.

Influencers Aren't Social Broadcasters
The more connections you have the more opportunity there is for people to see your message, take action and then share it with their networks. Outside of a few celebrities closely aligned with a particular area of expertise or a natural connection (like Oprah with books that housewives would enjoy), there is an inherent problem with individuals or companies having disproportional amounts of connections because social media doesn’t scale well.

As a roofing company, if you have over 1,000 followers on Twitter, friends on Facebook or connections on LinkedIn, you are going to have an inherently lower amount of individual interaction and activity with your connections than those with less than 1,000. When you get beyond that level, meaningful interaction cannot happen unless there are multiple people actively monitoring your accounts 24/7/365. Unless you are Chipotle, Levis, Apple, or some other mega-brand with built-in awareness and consumer loyalty, it is those real conversations and interactions that help you (the small-medium sized regional business) develop relationships, build trust, earn mentions, re-tweets, Likes, comments, and shares of your posts, and ultimately... new opportunities to bid jobs.

The more connections you have, the more you simply become a broadcaster. Your timeline is cluttered to the point that you’d likely have to actively seek out tweets or posts from a specific person or company in order to guarantee that you saw something they posted and be able to interact with them about it (and let's face it, there are very few if any that you actually do this with). Otherwise you might scroll down to the activity posted in the past hour (at best) and interact with just those you see. It's pure chance they posted during the time you were online. Also, above 1,000 connections there is a diminishing expectation of a reply to comments, questions, Likes, re-tweet's, and direct messages. Worst yet, the more connections you have the more you begin to feel compelled to simply distribute sell-sell-sell messages, which is a complete turn-off to those on the receiving end.

At some level you stop engaging people and become a broadcaster because you have no other choice. If someone with less than 1,000 connections tweets or posts a question, those they are connected to expect that this is an invitation to a conversation. If someone with over 1,000 (and especially 10,000+) connections tweets or posts a question, most people they are connected to realize the question is rhetorical. The number of connections you have becomes a sort of barometer of engagement expectations. If I see that I am one of 2,500 "friends" of yours on Facebook, I assume you could care less about anything I post and just hope that your barrage of sales-focused posts eventually gets me to call you to re-roof my office building.

Recommendation
A couple of weeks ago I went through my entire list of "friends" on Facebook, clicking on every single profile to try to determine the fit to RoofPal. It took a few hours, but shockingly I found that 25% of all of my connections were non-roofing industry related (there were a lot of website developers, "models", SEO specialists, marketers, etc. that had sent me random invitations to connect). I un-friended everyone whom I wouldn't bother interacting with online. Now when I am on Facebook, every single post I see in my News Feed matters. I can Like, comment, share, and message with everything and everyone I see, and it makes sense for my business. I've been pretty good with LinkedIn, so next up is Twitter.

I recommend you streamline your connections in a way that makes sense for your company. Cut out the noise that clutters your ability to interact on a meaningful level with those you are connected to. Show the human side of your company (see my blog post titled "Stop Selling! Social Media is for Creating Relationships Through Communities"). Create awareness of your company, but really work on building a favorable reputation, establishing personal connections with existing and potential customers, mix in demonstration of your competency to roof, and then (sparingly) call your connections to action to hire you. If you do this, your ability to increase revenue as a result of your social media activity will greatly improve your real online influence, regardless of your Klout score.

If you have any questions about online influence or would like help with a roofing social media strategy, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

How to Properly Measure Social Media Success

There are literally hundreds of metrics on social media, but most of them provide no real value. Who really cares how many followers you have on Twitter, or "friends" or "fans" you have on Facebook? It doesn't matter how many posts per day you put out there. What really matters is everything that happens after you post or tweet.

Did you grab attention? Did you cause people to want to share? Did you initiate a discussion? Did you cause people to take an action? Did your participation deliver economic value? These are the outcomes you want from social media, and below are three recommendations from RoofPal on how to measure your real success online, regardless of the social media site(s) you participate on.

Conversation Rate
Simply, this is the number of comments or replies per post. You want to create a virtual water cooler so you can have meaningful conversations with your audience. I am not proposing that you just be provocative and say ridiculous things just to get people to comment - you want large volumes of people adding to the conversation, asking follow-up questions, and participating in adding new value.

Amplification Rate
This is the rate at which your connections share your content with their network. On Twitter, this is the number of re-tweets per tweet. On Facebook and Google Plus, this is the number of shares per post. On your blog or YouTube, this is the number of share clicks per post or video. You want to give your audience content they consider to be of such value and interest that they want to share it.

It is also important to understand what types of content causes increased amplification, when it happens and where (geographically) it is happening. Once you know this, you can fine-tune what you post to increase the likelihood everything you post will be shared.

Applause Rate
This is the rate at which your audience enjoys the content you share and endorses it to their connections. It also increases your placement in search (especially Google) for those connected to those you are connected to (for more, please see my blog post titled "Social media directly influences search rankings").

On Twitter, this is the number of "Favorite" clicks per tweet. On Facebook, this is the number of "Likes" per post. On Google Plus, this is the number of +1's per post. On your blog and on YouTube, this is the number of +1s and "Likes" per post or video.

A really good fourth metric would be Economic Value, but that is a much more in-depth conversation for another day (and another blog post). If you would like to discuss the economic value of social media for roofing or would like assistance setting up a social media metric tracking system, please email me at Chris@RoofPal.com.

How to Get your Roofing Company Started with Social Media

If you own or work at a roofing company that hasn’t bought into social media yet, the message is simple: it is time to finally jump on the bandwagon! People are online right now talking about your company whether you like or not, so if you don’t engage in the conversation you risk losing your customers.

To get you started, here are seven sequential steps to follow that will help you develop a presence and be relevant on social media:

Define your offers and customers
The first thing you should do before engaging in online marketing or social media marketing is to write down exactly what it is you are trying to promote (new construction, re-roofing, roof maintenance, roof cleaning, reflective coatings, solar installation, etc.) and define your target customers (homeowners, HOA managers, building owners, property managers, facility managers, multi-housing associations, etc.).

Sign-up for social media
The big ones are Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn. I would also recommend blogging. I use Blogger since it is owned by Google and is favored in their search results. Facebook allows you to create a business fan page that allows you to get some decent analytics on traffic, but people have to find you or be recommended (as opposed to reaching out to them and offering to connect through a personal page branded as your company).

Identify a social media manager
Managing multiple social networks is a daunting task. It's not rocket science, but it does take time and skill. I recommend doing this before you start posting content, requesting friends and adding followers.

I also recommend using free tools like Ping.fm and HootSuite to gather mentions of your brand, industry or search terms and review the success of your posts through real-time statistics. However, I do not recommend using it to schedule your posts and Tweets though (for more, please read my blog post titled "Auto-Posting to Facebook Decreases Likes and Comments by 70%"). Once you get the hang of the free tools, there is also paid services like SproutSocial (plans range from $9 to $49 with a 30-day free trial) that does all of that plus it allows you to take all of those you are connected to and create contacts out of them which you can manage in the system and track engagement, has one inbox for all of your messages from all the networks, and allows you to track check-ins at FourSquare and Gowalla.

Post updates
It is important to have good content on your social media pages before you start adding friends and followers. When you try to find friends, the first thing they will do is look at the page to see if they want to follow you. You need to give them a reason to connect with you first. What kind of content? Provide valuable information about the industry. Post pictures of your roofers working and before & after pictures of jobs. On YouTube, post short videos of jobs (before, during and after), commercials you have made, how you practice safety, types of roof maintenance, video customer testimonials, etc.

Find friends and followers
Twitter and Google+ are by far the easiest to build a network. Search keywords like "need roofer", "roof leak", "roofers", etc. to find followers. Also consider terms your potential customers would use (for example, "property management", "property manager", "facility manager", etc.). Once you start connecting with people, these sites will begin to understand the kind of person you want to connect with and will recommend similar profiles. Also, find your competitors' profiles and offer to connect with the people with are connected with them.

Engage with friends and followers
Your first priority should be building a relationship with people, not pitching your roofing services. "Like" and comment on their posts. Congratulate them on successes. Show them that an actual human being is behind your company's profile and that you take the time to learn about them and care enough to connect with them. Most social media sites will inform you of birthday's that day. Wish them a happy birthday (and maybe offer them a limited time free roof inspection or discount on roof cleaning).

Stay current
Sign up for alerts to be emailed or even sent to your phone when people engage with you via your social networking sites (at least in the beginning) so you can quickly respond. Timing is everything with social media. People come in, look around and post, then get out. If you are responding a day or two after the fact, it is almost pointless.

If you have any questions about getting started with social media, or would like assistance setting up your roofing company's social media networks, generating content and making connections, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

5 Tips for Better SEO Results

You want to be found online by homeowners and/or building owners and property/facility managers they search on Google, Yahoo! and Bing, so here are five easy tips that will help you, the roofing contractor, get found more often in search engines:

Well-Written Title Tags
Your target keyword(s) should be displayed in the page title as close to the beginning of the page title as possible. When your website shows up, Google bolds the SEO keyword(s) in the title tag used by the user in the search to make it easier for their eyes to see relevant listings.

If your title tag is not well-written for search engines, your content may not rank well enough to be found.

Relevant and Well-Written Description Tags
When a user reads the listings on a search result page, their eye is skimming the title, and secondarily reading the description. If your description is weak in comparison to your competitors’ descriptions on the same search results page, you can miss out on click-through's.

For the best SEO results, your page's Meta titles and Meta descriptions must be written in a way that engages the visitor and so that it is keyword-relevant in order to be found by users and to convert click-throughs from the search results page.

Relevant Content
Google’s recent Panda updates are proof that content is still the most important thing to get strong SEO results. Don't short-change this - you need enough content to earn authority with Google, Yahoo! and Bing. SEO results are driven by quality content written to meet the needs of your audience, and lots and lots of it.

Engaging Calls-to-Action
If your SEO objective is to produce sales-ready leads, then getting qualified visitors to your website is only half of the equation. It serves no purpose to strive for SEO results that drive traffic to your website if you can’t convert a good percentage of visitors into real sales-ready leads. Experiment with calls-to-action to find the right one(s) for your company.

Social Search Drives SEO Results
Even though it is late 2011, many roofing contractors still ignore social media for a variety of reasons (lack of understanding, lack of time, don't believe it matters, etc.). Both Google and Bing use as ranking signals regarding how much of your website’s content is shared across social media (and by whom). Google is using its +1 sharing button and Bing is using Facebook Likes as ranking signals. Google is also beginning to track the extent of content sharing on Google+ (their new social network).

You will improve SEO results when you make it easy for your website content to be shared through social media, contributing to social search success. Your employees should share your content and encourage customers to share it as well. Blog content is another great formats for social sharing.

If you have any questions about this blog post, or would like assistance with roofing website optimization for search and sharing, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

Does Bad Spelling and Grammar Affect Your Google PageRank?

If your roofing website (or individual web pages) currently have a low PageRank with Google, it may be possible that this could (in part) be a result of poor spelling and grammar.

Matt Cutts, who works for Google's Search Quality group (specializing in search engine optimization issues) recently made the correlation between low PageRank and poor spelling in a Google Webmaster Help video.

In responding to a question about whether spelling and grammar matter when Google evaluates site quality, Cutts said “We noticed a while ago that, if you look at the PageRank of a page — how reputable we think a particular page or site is — the ability to spell correlates relatively well with that. So, the reputable sites tend to spell better and the sites that are lower PageRank, or very low PageRank, tend not to spell as well.”

Cutts says that spelling and grammar aren’t currently used as a “direct signal” for search ranking, but that “I think it would be fair” to use them in that way.

Google has been very clear that overall site quality and usability is part of what Panda is looking at. The question “Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?” is even one of 23 questions that webmasters should ask themselves in relation to the Panda changes. Similar questions include “How much quality control is done on content?” and “Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?”

Mr. Cutts also mentions in the video that Google has studied ways to determine the reading level of content on the web, and that this type of analysis “would be pretty interesting to explore as a potential quality signal.” Interestingly, Google added a reading level filter to its advanced search results.

The bottom line is that there is no proof that poor spelling or grammar directly affects your PageRank, but it is definitely something to ensure is not an issue just in case.

If you have any questions about this blog post, or would like an independent roofing website evaluation performed, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

Auto-Posting to Facebook Decreases Likes and Comments by 70%

Automatically publishing content to your Facebook News Feed through 3rd-party applications like HootSuite, TweetDeck, and Networked Blogs receive an average of 70% fewer "Likes" and comments, according to a new study by Applum.

Why Does This Happen?

The difference is likely due to Facebook reducing the prominence of posts published by third-party API's - collapsing all recent updates from the same ones a user would otherwise see.

Likes and comments increase an individual post’s prominence in the Facebook News Feed, which increases impressions and improves the likelihood of clicks, so RoofPal's recommendation is for roofing contractors to stop using auto-posting applications and switch to manual posting if you want potential and existing customers to actually see your posts, Like them and comment on them.

Time vs. Value
Many roofing contractors also update Facebook automatically by syncing their Twitter posts or auto-converting their blog post headlines. This does increase efficiency by eliminating the need to copy and paste headlines and links from one platform to another, but it is not optimal as different platforms have different publishing capabilities and norms. For example, Facebook allows for rich media posts so authors can select a thumbnail image and caption along with posting a link and headline. It’s typical for Twitter accounts to post up to a dozen times a day, but that volume could be viewed as spam on Facebook. Auto-posts then appear robotic and less compelling to those who may see it in their News Feed.

Which 3rd-Party Apps are the Worst?
EdgeRank Checker has revealed empirical data that automatically-published posts perform worse than manually published ones. Analyzing over 1 Million Facebook updates by more than 50,000 pages with a combined reach of over 1 Billion fans (including duplicates). It then calculated the engagement ratio of the total Likes and comments on a Page’s post, divided by the total fans of the Page at the time of the post for the ten most popular third-party publishing APIs. Compared to the engagement of posts published manually to Facebook’s web or mobile interfaces, the reduction in engagement ratios of the top third-party publishing APIs were:
 • HootSuite – 69% reduction
 • TweetDeck – 73% reduction
 • Sendible – 75% reduction
 • Networked Blogs – 76% reduction
 • RSS Graffiti – 81% reduction
 • Twitter – 83% reduction
 • Publisher – 86% reduction
 • twitterfeed – 90% reduction
 • dlvr.it – 91% reduction
 • Social RSS – 94% reductions

The Bottom-Line
On average, posts published through a 3rd-party auto-posting application had approximately 70% fewer Likes and comments than those published through Facebook’s first-party interfaces (manually). Also, if a user’s News Feed contains multiple posts from a single API (whether from a single author or several different Pages and friends), the posts are collapsed and must be unfolded to be seen.

It is well worth the extra minute to manually craft a Facebook post by hand than auto-posting because you are sacrificing a lot of social media performance and return on investment to save what ulimately amounts to a very small amount of additional time and effort.

Questions? Need Help?
If you have questions about this post, or would like assistance with your roofing social media strategy, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.