Hey Repair Community – it’s Social Media day! Yes, I too was unaware such a day of celebration existed, but what better way to celebrate than with a quick blog about it. Community Manager is just one of the hats I wear here at eTech Parts, and I’ve learned a lot since taking on the role. It’s my hope to share some of those insights with you today – because if you don’t have social media set up for your cell phone repair shop, you’re missing out on valuable conversions, brand recognition, customer loyalty, SEO benefits..and the list goes on.
If I haven’t convinced you yet, here are the top 5 reasons your repair shop should be on social media – including some helpful tips along the way!
1. Everyone is on Facebook
No matter your ideal customer or target demographic, Facebook is a great tool for reaching potential customers because nearly everyone and their dog has a Facebook profile. (No joke – my friend’s dog Buddah has more Facebook friends than I do.)
Facebook in particular can help you reach a larger group of people, because it’s still the most widely-used online social platform. This automatically increases brand recognition, because more people are seeing your company online, in their newsfeed.
And if you want to pay-to-play, Facebook offers a lot of fantastic advertising tools, too. You can boost your posts, or create campaigns to target specific users based on their location, interests, income, or career… It’s a mad world, but Facebook can really help you get your message out to the audience you’re trying to reach.
2. It’ll boost your brand authority
Having a completed and regularly-updated social media profile for your repair shop can do wonders for your online brand perception. Since consumers have multiple options all at their fingertips, there’s a good chance your customers are checking you out online before choosing their preferred repair shop.
If you want your repair shop’s social media to really shine, here are some tips:
- Include your business address – and directions if your location is tricky to find.
- Make it look professional with a high-quality header image and your brand logo. Hint: Adobe has fantastic stock images specific to our industry – search “phone repair” or “broken phone.”
- Include a few photos of your repair shop in the “Photos” section.
- Link your Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube profiles to your Facebook profile. You can also include links to your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in your Google+ profile.
- Respond to each review and comment posted on your page by former customers and followers – especially any negative ones.
3. Your Google search rank will be better than ever
Including social media in your SEO strategy can do great things for your shop’s search engine rank. Twitter, Facebook and Google+ all rank very well in Google search, which can help your overall rank if you’re using the right keywords. Utilizing the right keywords (i.e., the terms your customers search when trying to find a repair shop) on your social media profiles, in posts and directly on your profile, will help your repair shop’s website and profiles rank higher.
Implementing human-curated, original content on your website is the best thing you can do to optimize your search engine results. Integrating this with your social media profiles in an original and creative way can only help boost your rank even more. We’re still learning about this one here at eTech Parts, but in learning I’ve noticed some of our Facebook posts often rank higher than pages on our website do. (If there are any SEO experts reading this, I’d love to hear your thoughts – send me an email at marketing@etechparts so we can chat!)
4. It will help you convert potential customers into loyal customers
Personally, I feel a strange sense of loyalty towards companies that really kill it on social media – like Zappos and Starbucks, for example. They respond to their customers, they promote fun giveaways, they poke fun at themselves, and they make me feel like they care about more than just making money. Even as someone who technically works in online marketing, who knows better than to fall for silly marketing ploys, I still shop at both these companies on a regular basis. I’m about to go to Starbucks RIGHT NOW.
If you can make your customers feel comfortable, and welcome them to share their thoughts and opinions with you via social media, they’re going to feel like you’re friends. You might even start to feel that way, too!
5. Time is the only investment you need
We know you don’t have much free time on your hands, but that’s all you really need to create a winning social media presence. Posting quality updates once a day – or a few times a week – can greatly help to improve the online perception of your cell phone repair shop in the eyes of your local community.
It doesn’t cost anything (unless you choose to run ad campaigns) and you can have a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. Social media is a place to be social – so ask questions, follow/tag other local businesses, reach out to your followers.. With social media marketing, there’s so much you can do to increase conversions and build brand loyalty – you really have nothing to lose!
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