Owned Social Media Is a Waste of Time
For small home services businesses, the hamster wheel of social media content creation is a money-losing trap.
Article originally published in Marker.
Take a close look at this Facebook page. Do you think this business is still active?
Looks closed, right? I wouldn’t blame you if you were to look elsewhere for someone to clean your ducts. Let’s examine the evidence:
The last post was in 2019
Until the last post, the posts came at a regular cadence every 3–4 weeks
There are no business hours listed
The most recent review is from 2018 (you can’t tell from this screenshot, but it’s true, I promise)
And yet…
Despite Facebook evidence to the contrary, Dapper Ducts is very much still in business. It is a reputable company in the DC area and has 4.5 stars across 92 reviews on Yelp.
How did this happen?
Dapper Ducts got lured onto the hamster wheel of social media content creation. Unfortunately, it is not alone. Dozens of companies in the home services industry have similar profiles with regular original content followed by a months- or years-long pause. This type of profile causes visitors to take their business elsewhere.
I do not fault companies such as Dapper Ducts for creating social media content. After all, marketing experts encourage small business owners to use social media to increase brand awareness, engage with customers, and generate new leads.
All you have to do, they explain, is:
Set SMART goals;
Select which channels to use;
Share content regularly;
Use hashtags; and
Engage with customers and community groups.
Oh, and reach out to influencers if you have time.
Boom, voila, the perfect social media strategy for a small business.
And it certainly is for some types of small businesses.
Here’s the thing:
For small home services businesses, creating original social media content is not only a waste of time but also a business-losing proposition. Let me give you three reasons why.
Reason #1: Content Creation is Difficult and Time-Consuming
The foundation of marketing experts’ strategies is creating and sharing interesting content regularly. Thoughtful, high-quality content keeps audiences engaged. It gives people a reason to follow a company’s page and even to share it with friends.
This is hard to do well for companies with full-time marketing staff, let alone for a small business stretching its resources to grow.
How much time are we talking about?
Let’s take a hypothetical duct cleaning business that wants to increase its brand awareness and grow its audience. It might decide to share 2 posts per week (for example, photos with captions). This would likely take 10–15 hours per month spent on content strategy, content creation, photo editing, hashtag research, post scheduling, and analyzing past posts.
Some think that they can do it in less time by simply snapping photos and sharing them on the go. For those who actually remember to do it, this approach often does not help the business reach its goals. Company leaders get frustrated with the lack of results and view the effort as a waste of time. They then abandon social media.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
Reason #2: Once You Start, You Can’t Stop
Marketing experts don’t warn small business owners that once you start posting on social media, stopping sends a negative message.
A long pause in content can signal that the company is no longer in business.
Small business owners quickly discover how time-consuming it is to maintain an active social media feed. After a couple of weeks, the excitement of a new marketing initiative wanes. Social media content creation gets pushed to the back burner when other pressing matters arise. At that point, leaders either stop posting altogether, or they come back to social media periodically when they think about it.
“Oh, this would be good to share on social media!” says everybody right before a Labor Day sale.
For small businesses that have jumped on the hamster wheel and want out, slow down the pace of posts rather than stopping entirely. One post per month or every six weeks is better than 3 years of silence.
Here’s a tip: set a reminder for the 15th day of each month to post something about the business. Don’t think too hard about it. These posts are just to make your page look active for prospective customers.
Reason #3: Owned Social Media Plays Only a Minor Role in the Home Services Customer’s Journey
If a small business in the home services industry has limited marketing resources and wants to generate leads, owned social media is not the way to go. Owned content gets distributed primarily to page followers.
This means that the people who see the page’s content already have a connection to that business.
How do people usually find a home service pro?
They typically start with a Google search. They’ll end up on review sites such as Google My Business, Yelp, or Angi. Some might ask for a recommendation in a local Facebook group or Nextdoor community. Others might ask a friend directly for a referral.
Reviews play a key role in the buying journey for home services. A benchmark report by G2 and Heinz Marketing found that “61% of buyers would like to see 11–50 reviews” and “66% of buyers would find those reviews more valuable if they were provided in the last three months.”
Customers might look at social media profiles.
Despite the focus on review sites, people might stumble upon a company’s social media profiles via two paths:
From a Facebook group recommendation: a group member might tag the business’s Facebook page.
From the company’s website: the prospective customer might click on social media profile links.
The interactions with social profiles are brief. The prospective customer looks at whether the business is currently operating and whether there are more reviews to read. Having a regular posting schedule is a plus, but not a deal-breaker.
. . .
Small business owners in the home services industry can develop more resource-effective ways of growing than using new social media content. They could:
Set up an automated way to ask customers for reviews;
Engage with past customers through SMS or email marketing; or
Invest in paid digital ads.
Creating social media content should be the final step of an effective digital marketing plan for small home services businesses. That’s not to say you should shut down your Facebook page: quite the opposite.
In part 2 of this series, I explain how small business owners in the home services industry can build an effective but low-maintenance Facebook page.
Here are two ways I can help you:
Serve as your business’s Fractional CMO.
Analyze and optimize your marketing strategy.
Interested? Send me a note.