Social media helps test email subject lines to improve open and click rates

If you are looking to improve the open and click-through rates of emails your roofing company sends to out, one idea to increase the likelihood of success is to use social media to test out potential subject lines.

Email subject lines are a major influence on whether or not someone even opens an email in the first place. They can either entice someone to click it or prompt them to delete it completely unread - or even worse, clicking the dreaded SPAM button (for more on preventing people from flagging your emails as SPAM, please see my blog post titled "Reduce Spam Reports of your Marketing Emails").

I recommend before you send out a mass email or newsletter, test potential subject lines with your connections on social media. Using a URL shortening service like bitly, Google or TinyURL, post multiple times in a close period of time to the exact same page but each time have a different description or "title" to the link, and have each one use its own unique shortened URL to the destination page so you can track in your analytics which one got you the most clicks.

For example, here are Tweets for one of my own recent blog posts:

• 5 specific things to do that will help you get new #roofing customers from your social media accounts: http://t.co/kLDg3dNQ
• How you can get new #roofing customers from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn: http://t.co/kLDg3dNQ
• 5 specific ways to get new #roofing customers from social media: http://t.co/4FSs68cN [blog post]

Each of these links go to the exact same blog post, but in my blog analytics tool I can see exactly how many clicks came from each unique subject line/link combination. The one that ultimately performs the best will be what I base an upcoming RoofPal eNews email campaign subject line and podcast title on.

For your experiment, the one that resonates most with your social media connections in terms of a significantly higher amount of click-through's is going to likely be your best candidate for your actual email campaign.

This strategy works particularly well on Twitter where people are used to seeing Tweets that lead them to click a link, but you can do the same thing on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or any other social media platforms you participate on.

If you decide to try this out, let me know how it goes for you. If you would like additional help planning this out or even executing it, please feel free to email Chris@RoofPal.com. Best of luck!

5 specific ways to get new roofing customers from social media

There are several books and probably tens of thousands of web pages and blog posts vaguely describing concepts about converting social media connections to customers. I thought I would cut through the crap and give you 5 specific things to do that will help you get new roofing customers from your social media accounts.

Certainly there are plenty more things you can (and should) be doing to attract new business, but  this is what I came up with on a Monday morning. I hope you try at least one of these today (and if you do, please leave a comment below with a link).

1. Search for new customers

On Twitter, especially when it is raining and after a big storm, do an advanced search for key terms such as "roof is leaking", "roof leak", "need a roofer", "recommend a roofer", "recommend a roofing", etc. within the appropriate radius (i.e., your service area) of the city you are based in.

Reply to their Tweet with something like "Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help. Feel free to call ... or email ... to schedule a quick repair to stop the damage."

2. Post interesting pictures

On Facebook, posts with pictures drive twice as much engagement as text-only posts. I would recommend creating an Instagram, Flickr or similar photo sharing account, then post the best ones to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and any other social platform you are participating on. Explain what the picture is of, and why you think it is interesting.

3. Make each social media platform different

Don't post the exact same things to Facebook as you do on Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn. Once people begin to notice, most will only follow you on one platform since there is no difference anyway. Define the purpose of each platform for your company and use it accordingly.

For me, LinkedIn is about finding new connections based on job title, industry, company name, etc. I use Twitter to share links and re-Tweet pictures of the work other contractors are doing that day. Facebook is a mix of pictures, blog posts, samples of work I am doing for other contractors, etc. I use Google+ purely for SEO benefits to my website and blog, so everything is about keyword optimization for sharing links to posts and pages.

I also reference what I'm doing on other platforms with a link. For example, on Twitter I posted recently: "On Facebook we have a good discussion about #roofing door hangers going on: http://vsb.li/R0K9mx" to entice people to check out the conversation, and if they aren't already connected with me on Facebook hopefully they would see there is something different going on there and send me a friend request. I do this kind of thing on all platforms periodically to attract cross-platform connections because some people are more willing to engage in certain ways and I want to make sure I have the opportunity to do so.

4. Be personable

Regardless of the platform, do not be robotic with your posts or responses to what others are posting. It is perfectly OK for people to visualize a real person posting updates or responding to questions.

Take the time to post originally (not from auto-posting services), Like a status, Re-Tweet, +1, and otherwise comment on things that people post (even if it has nothing to do with roofing). Social media is as much about building relationships and trust with people as it is about shouting into a megaphone "HIRE ME TO DO YOUR ROOFING!".

5. Promote your customers

While your crew is working on a roofing job, do some homework on your customer. If it is a commercial job, write up a short blog post about what you did and how you helped keep that business running without the burden of roofing problems. Describe what the business does (you can get this from their website in most cases), and link to their website. Make this more about them than you.

Before you share the post, email your customer a link - both to make sure you have everything correct, and to ensure (s)he is OK with you posting it. Assuming it is fine to post, don't forget to ask him/her to share the link on their website, in their newsletter (if they have one) and with their social media connections as well. And if you can get a testimonial from them before you post it, all the better! This works really well to show potential customers that you aren't just about promoting yourself but that you go out of your way for others, and gives the connections of your customers a chance to get word-of-mouth advertising from someone they already trust.

If you have any questions about roofing social media strategies, please email RoofPal@gmail.com. Best of luck!

5 social media SEO strategies roofing contractors should do right now

Social media should definitely be part of your roofing company's marketing strategy, and now is the time to harness the power of your accounts specifically to power your SEO strategy.

Google has long relied on people to endorse relevant and useful links on the internet. Social media has now magnified that tremendously, particularly now with Google Social Search becoming so important, enabling your website or blog post to jump from #50 otherwise into the top 5 in someone's search results page simply because someone they are connected to shares your link on Facebook or LinkedIn, gives it a +1 on Google+, re-Tweet's it on Twitter, etc.

Here are 5 social media SEO strategies roofing contractors should do (or keep doing) right now:

1. Be more active on Google+
Google+ is here to stay for a while, and it is extremely useful for SEO. It's not as big as Twitter or Facebook, but it affects search results much more than the others.

2. Establish even more connections online
Everything you write or share can be seen by those who you are connected to on social media, as well as in their search results. Although any connection is good, the biggest impact comes from people adding you to one of their Google+ circles. For more on this, please see my blog post 'Social media directly influences search rankings'.

3. Post your articles, videos and blog posts immediately on social media
Sharing your content on social media helps it get indexed by Google faster, so make sure you post new content you create across all platforms as soon as possible.

4. Create sharable content
If someone shares a link to your website or other content, it is basically an endorsement (similar to a direct inbound link). Even if someone who isn't connected with you on social media shares a link to your content, their entire network can see the post by searching for relevant topics in Google Social Search. Again, please see my blog post 'Social media directly influences search rankings'.

5. Add the +1 button to everything
The +1 button has turned into an internet-wide Facebook "Like" button. It is quick and easy for people to click, and gives your content huge benefits. Put that +1 button everywhere you can and ask people to click it.

None of this should be considered a replacement to (or even better than) traditional SEO methods, but it is becoming increasingly important. Not everyone knows this, so the faster you do it the more of a leg-up you'll have on your competition.

If you have any questions about social media SEO, please email RoofPal@gmail.com.

Are you on the recieving end of your own social media marketing?

If you are looking for a good way to evaluate how well your social media marketing is working, try being a recipient of your own content.

Not only should you spend time being a consumer of your products and services, you should also be a consumer of your own marketing (including social media). Think of your marketing efforts as another service offering. Is your social media content really a valuable service iteself?

How often do you go back to check your own blog for something you wrote in the past? If you do, it is a sign that you have actually posted valuable information. If you never go back to reference your own blog yourself, it might not be valuable enough for anyone else either.

The same is true for your social media accounts. I store links on my Facebook page in order to reference recent relevant content for my marketing newsletter and podcast. In other words, I am my own customer (I go back to remember what I published). How often do you check your posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+? If the answer is "never", then maybe the content you are sharing isn't as valuable as you think it is.

Much has been made of influence scores (Klout) and re-tweet or like/share metrics, but the simplest metric of all is to look at your own behavior. If you never go back to look at your own content (i.e., you find no value in what you publish), chances are that no one else does either. You can begin improving your social media marketing by publishing things that are of value to you. Do that and you’ll automatically begin sharing information that are of value to others.

If you would like an independent evaluation of your social media marketing, please email Chris@RoofPal.com for pricing (it's not as expensive as you might think).

Is there a guaranteed way for roofing contractors to be successful using Twitter?

Many business books, blog posts, magazine articles, newspaper articles, television news segments and even tweets themselves have been written about what it takes for individuals and brands to be successful on Twitter.

Here are some of the common recommendations for success on Twitter:

Follow a lot of people. The more people you follow, the more likly it

is for people to not only follow you back, but to acknowledge you and connect.

Follow those who follow you. For many, this is a common courtesy and the smart move. If you follow back everyone that follows you, you wind up meeting lots of new and interesting people. The major debate around this is quantity vs. quality argument (if you follow back everyone, it makes your Twitter stream cluttered). If you only follow back those who are truly interesting to you, it's a better way to curate content and dive deeper into some of the meatier conversations. Both sides to this argument have valid points.

Tweet frequently and consistently. Twitter (like most of the Internet) is a live, real-time environment. If you don't tweet often, there is a likelihood that you (and your content) will get lost in the all the other tweets. If you tweet once a day and most of the people who follow you are not online then, your tweet is rarely seen or acted on. Real-time makes the amount of followers you have not as important as when individuals are actually online, connected, following and reading your tweets.

Tweet original things (not just links). If all you are tweeting is links and you are not spending the time to think of anything original to say, you won't get much attention. Those who are most successful on Twitter are those who create content in a very original way.

Make it personal, and respond to as many people as possible. If you don't respond, acknowledge and discuss things with people following you on Twitter it will be a useless experience. Those who truly have massive audiences and attention are the ones who respond back to anyone and everyone. The people that you respond back to will then feel special and this make them more likely to re-tweet your content and ask their followers to follow you too. Twitter is an online social network... not a broadcasting channel.

Or... do the exact opposite. Everyone has an opinion about why something is successful and why other things fail. Brands and individuals are constantly looking for both best practices and return on investment in social media. What we learn by looking at the commonly-held beliefs and then comparing them to people who do the opposite is that Twitter is simply an open publishing platform - it is a place for people to put content (short, 140 characters worth of text-based content), and that success can often come from not following the rules, but by breaking them.

Why? Just like blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels, Twitter is simply a publishing platform. Twitter and most other social media platforms allow individuals and brands to highlight, share and connect on the things that can't be explained in a traditional advertising campaign or through press releases. As with everything in life, people like real interactions between real human beings, and these channels are most effective when brands and individuals start doing the things that they think are interesting in the hopes that other's feel that way too. Often times, breaking all the "rules" is what it takes to stand out and be successful.

If you have any questions about or would like help using social media for your roofing company, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

Comments on your Facebook posts are more valuable than Likes

According to a November 2011 analysis from EdgeRank Checker that examined a random sampling of more than 5,500 Facebook pages and over 80,000 posts with links during October 2011, a comment on a Facebook post containing a link results in almost 5 times the amount of clicks of that link than a Like of a comparable post. For every Like a post gets, the link receives on average 3.1 clicks but for every comment a post gets, it receives on average 14.7 clicks. Overall clicks per impression were found to be 0.5%.

Wednesday and Tuesday is best for engagement, Saturday and Friday is worst
When sorting the average clicks and shares by day of the week, Wednesday's had the best share ratio (link shares compared to the number of fans per page) at 0.11%. Wednesday's also had the highest click ratio (link clicks compared to the number of fans per page) at 0.49%. Tuesday followed with a 0.1% share ratio and 0.47% click ratio.

Saturday fared worst for shares ratio (0.8%), while Friday saw the smallest clicks ratio (0.35%).

Smaller pages have more devoted followers
There is a distinct correlation between Facebook page size and fan engagement. Pages with less than 1,000 fans had by far the highest shares and clicks ratios (over 1.1% share ratio and 0.3% click ratio). Following distantly were pages with 1-5,000 fans, with a share ratio of less than 0.4% and a click ratio of less than 0.1%.

In contrast, pages with more than 100,000 fans experienced the lowest share and click ratios. The data suggests that smaller pages are able to create more relevant content for their fans, which may be an indication that large brands should make multiple pages to narrow down their audience.

Social context ads increase conversions
According to November 2011 analysis from TBG Digital, Facebook Likes do have a place in driving conversions. Advertisements that leverage the social interactions that users are comfortable seeing in their Facebook news feeds perform better than those that do not.

The analysis was based on a single client (a popular entertainment brand that spent $60,000 across a 14-day period and accumulated 436 million impressions) that had a 32% improvement in purchasing intent when using social context ads as opposed to non-social context ads.

According to the analysis, social context ads are built with a text and image box with the addition of visible endorsements beneath the ad. The endorsements note the number of friends associated with a user who like the page, group, event, or application.

The cost-per-click remained constant between non-social context and social context ads, but in this study non-social context ads took 132 clicks to achieve a conversion compared to only 99 clicks for social context ads. When factoring in the cost per click, the difference in cost per acquisition equated to $44 when using social context ads. TBG Digital said there are limitations to the social context ad campaigns that are primarily due to the URL structure in the Ads API.

If you have any questions about social media marketing in the roofing industry or would like help improving sales from social media, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

What skills are needed to be good at social media?

If you, one of your employees or even someone you hire is going to manage your social media accounts or blog for your roofing company, what skills should they have beyond knowing the in's and out's of Twitter, Facebook and search engine optimization (SEO) to generate the results you are looking for? Here is a short list of skills I recommend looking for. They are basics before the basics of digital marketing and social media:

Is the person a good writer?

Writing is the foundation of most content creation. Even things like audio or video often rely on a written script in order to deliver the maximum impact to your audience. Can you communicate ideas clearly? Can you create language that is persuasive? If you can write well, you can apply that skill to nearly every form of content generation.

Is the person a good analyst?

Given a set of information or data, can they extract something of value (insight) from it? They don’t have to be a statistics expert, but they should be able to look at a pile of data and make a chart from it or at least see if there’s some kind of trend because that is the foundation of web and social media metrics.

Is the person a good researcher?

When posed with a question, can they come up with a solution by any legal means necessary? Can they use Google intelligently? Can they put together discrete information sources and find an answer? Can they learn independently without much guidance or hand holding? The ability to find the right answer and the persistence and willingness to get one is also a foundation skill.

The truth is that there really isn’t a lot that is needed to be good at social media content creation (have a command of the English language, be decent at math, and have the ability to perform basic research online), but you do need to be able to use the tools you have with excellence and consistency.

In our constant pursuit of the newest shiny objects we often lose sight of the prerequisite fundamentals that can make us great. While it’s great to have the newest, shiniest, most buzzworthy tools and services at our fingertips, it’s ultimately meaningless if we don’t have mastery of the basic skills to use them properly.

If you have any questions about this blog post or would like assistance with establishing or managing your roofing company's social media accounts, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

Commercial and residential roofing contractors have success from different online lead generation avenues

What makes the biggest impact on your online potential customer lead generation goals if you are a commercial roofing contractor? What about if you are a residential roofing contractor?

Click to enlarge

According to the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, business-to-business (B2B) companies like commercial roofing contractors get the most online lead generation from search engine optimization (57%), followed by pay-per-click (25%), and finally social media (18%).

Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies like residential roofing contractors get lead generation in the same order, but with slightly different weighting (41% from SEO, 34% from PPC, and 25% from social media).

B2B companies like commercial roofing contractors are most active in Facebook (35%), Twitter (26%), and LinkedIn (25%). B2C companies like residential roofing contractors are by far primarily active in Facebook (75%), with Twitter (9%) and LinkedIn (6%) being significantly less important when it comes to generating online customer leads.

Of the companies in the study, 55% of companies have actually cosed deals from a social media lead. 41% closed deals from fans or friends on Facebook, 21% closed deals from connections on LinkedIn, and 20%  closed deals from followers on Twitter. There is no guarantee that this reflects the success of roofing contractors, but I would imagine it is directionally accurate.

In terms of digital marketing budgets, B2B companies like commercial roofing contractors spend 33% on SEO, 28% on PPC, 10% on social media, and 29% on other avenues. In contrast, B2C companies like residential roofing contractors spend most of their budgets on PPC (43%), 22% on SEO, 15% on social media, and 20% on other avenues.

2012 digital marketing budgets appear to be planned to increase or at least stay the same from 2011:

• For search engine optimization, 53% said they would increase their budget, 43% said their budget would stay the same, and only 4% said it would decrease.
• For pay-per-click, 40% said they would increase their budget, 51% said their budget would stay the same, and only 9% said it would decrease.
• For social media, 60% said they would increase their budget, 36% said their budget would stay the same, and only 4% said it would decrease.

Finally, the topics that digital marketers said they would most like to learn about include overall cross-promotional digital strategy (62%), followed by social media marketing (46%), then search engine optimization (38%), and finally pay-per-click (29%).

The take-away is that most companies (i.e., your competitors) are spending real money in digital marketing. What did you spend in 2011? What are you planning to spend in 2012? Do you feel you have the right strategy?

If you would like to discuss your digital marketing budget or needs for 2012, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

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.

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.

20 Ways to Promote Your Roofing Facebook Fan Page

How are you spreading the word about your Facebook page?
Your fan page can be one of a roofing company's best sources of customer interaction and lead generation. The only problem is making people aware of it. You definitely need to educate your customers and potential customers on how to find you on Facebook.

To help you out, below is a list of 20 different ways to promote your Facebook page. Even if you only do a few of these things, you should start to get more fans and begin to increase your return on time invested.

1. Put your fan page URL in your email signature. How many emails do you send every day? That is how many chances you have for someone new to find out about your page. Free publicity!
2. Write a blog post about your new fan page. Give your blog readers five compelling reasons why they should join your fan page (tell them about the kinds of information you share on your page).
3. Tag well-trafficked fan pages in your status updates. Fans of those popular pages your target customers visit (that are at least semi-relevant) might see your page and click over, giving you some additional cross-traffic.
4. Ask your Twitter followers to join your fan page. Give some compelling reasons why your Twitter followers should join your Facebook community. If Twitter is the new water cooler, think of your fan page as an invitation to come in and chat. Maybe Tweet something like "Want more conversation than 140 characters will allow? Join us on Facebook at ” and leave the URL to your fan page.
5. Invest in Facebook ads. They are a lot easier than you might think and you can spend as little or as much as you want. You can pinpoint fairly accurately the demographic you are targeting.
6. Put a Facebook fan page widget on your blog and website. Have your website developer put a basic widget on your website and blog that automatically displays the last 5 or so Facebook status updates from your fan page. Visitors will see this content and a) know that you have a page and how to find it, and b) get a sense of the kind of information they have been missing out on.
7. Customize your fan page URL. Vanity URLs are a fantastic way to make your fan page memorable. For example, my Facebook page URL is http://www.facebook.com/RoofPal.
8. Put your fan page URL on your business cards. Combine offline and online by letting the people you meet in real life know about your fan page.
9. Put a link on your personal Facebook profile. You can put a link to your company fan page under the “Links” section of your personal page. This may remind your friends and family to share the link to your company page with their Facebook friends.
10. Leverage the power of your team. Ask everyone in your company put the link to your company fan page link on their personal profile.
11. Ask your Facebook fans to post a link. Simply ask all of your current Facebook fans to post a link to your company page on their personal profile. As long as you don’t ask this often, often times people are willing to help you out. This becomes a personal recommendation, or word-of-mouth advertising (the very best kind).
12. Put a tag in your YouTube videos. If you make compelling videos as a part of your content marketing strategy, throw in a well-timed Facebook fan page link at the end of your YouTube videos.
13. Put your Facebook fan page URL on your Twitter profile background. Many people still use the web-based version of Twitter, and your profile background is a prime piece of internet real estate. Cross-advertise and use one social network to promote another!
14. QR Codes for your page. Create a QR Code that takes people directly to your Facebook fan page and use that code in your marketing, stationary, email signature lines, etc. If you aren't sure what a QR Code is or how to create one, please read the article I published, titled QR Codes for roofing contractors.
15. Actually use your Facebook fan page. Use the “Tell Your Fans” feature on Facebook. With the tools built in, Facebook allows you to import a contact file or import your contacts from your email account. This is particularly good for when you’re just starting out and want to tell people you already know.
16. Add a Like box. Place a Like box in your blog and website sidebar so people can "Like" your content automatically when they are signed in to Facebook and browsing the web.
17. Use targeted keywords in a Google AdWords campagin. Use a keyword-based ad and direct people to your fan page. This is like Facebook Ads on steroids. If you’ve never used AdWords before, it’s fairly straightforward. Google the term AdWords to set this up.
18. Redirect your webinar guests to your Facebook fan page. If you use GoToWebinar, you can choose to send registrants to a URL of your choice after they sign up. This is where you can direct them right to your Facebook fan page.
19. Put your Facebook fan page URL in your Keynote or PowerPoint presentations. When you present, the last slide can be your contact information, complete with your company's Facebook fan page vanity URL. Most people are already on Facebook, so it’s a no-brainer to give them an easy way to connect with you.
20. Invite all of your friends. Facebook automatically suggests people and pages based on the connections and Likes of your friends. The more of your friends who Like your Facebook fan page, the more their friends will have your page recommended to them without you lifting a finger.

These are just some examples. What are some of the most interesting ways you’ve seen people or businesses promote their fan page? Let me know in the comments box below and share what you have found.

Stop Selling! Social Media is for Creating Relationships Through Communities

Social media marketing must be approached very different than traditional marketing. You should not login with the intent to sell your roofing products or hail storm repair services - instead, you should login to create relationships through communities. If people feel you are part of their community they will support you and recommend you to their peers, colleagues and friends. Word-of-mouth marketing at its very best!

Here are 6 simple tips to get you started on creating relationships using social media:

Dedicate Resources
Building relationships in social media requires resources (both time and people). You need to dedicate the time of a person (or team of people) who are responsible for communicating with your network. This person (or persons) should read status updates/Tweets, read blogs, manage friend lists, write comments, join groups, upload photos, participate in forums, write blog posts, field questions, etc. - in other words, be active.

Be Real
Building relationships in social media requires trust. Be yourself, and let your employees be who they are as representatives of your company. Building fake profiles, writing fake reviews and blogs, lying about who you really are, etc. are pointless activities and a waste of time. Don’t underestimate the intelligence of your connections - they can smell a fake a mile away and will crucify you when you are found out.

Communicate Early & Often
It doesn't matter if you send email newsletters, write blog postings, update your status, send a Tweet, or post to a group discussion, be sure you are communicating. By communicating early you can get a jump start on topics that are hot in the industry and respond to them a lot earlier than your competitors. Communicating often helps to build relationships with your audience that they can trust you will be there and will inform them of the valuable information they need or are looking.

Get Involved
Don’t just post links to your blog posts, website pages or press releases. People will start to ignore you because it’s not a two-way conversation. Get involved with your community - if people are looking for assistance, point them in the right direction. If someone posts something funny, interesting or personal, Like it, comment on it, re-Tweet it, etc. That will gain you much more respect rather than slapping a link to your website that isn’t related to what they asked.

Reward Your Audience
As much as you are involved in building relationships in social media, so is everyone you are connected to. Your audience is also spending time and effort to post updates, leave comments, write blog posts, do research to answer questions, establish new connections, and so on. Reward them for their time and effort by personally thanking them for doing so.

Remember to Listen
Building a relationship requires that you listen more and talk less. As much as you want to spend time promoting your products and services, that is the last thing you should do on social media. This forum offers a unique opportunity for you to get real reactions, learn about real issues or problems as well as successes straight from your customers’ perspectives without the stigma of a focus group where people think they need to give you the answers you want to hear. It is amazing what you can learn just by listening to what your customers are saying. Take the time to read their posts, the comments they leave on your blog, their Tweets, what they say in reviews, etc.

If you have any questions about this blog post or would like to discuss strategies for improving your social media marketing, please contact Chris@RoofPal.com.