best, how to manage it or what goals to set to ensure a positive
ROI. Lowell Brown, CEO and social media advisor at
GoingSocial.ca, says you need to start simple.
“Start with goals,” said Brown. “Decide what you want to
get out of social media and why you’re using it. Do you want
to build your reputation, build awareness or increase sales?
You need to set out a proper strategy and determine how
you’re going to achieve those goals.”
Mitchell agrees.
“Sit down with your communications, marketing and
salespeople to develop your strategy,” she said. “Designate
who is going to manage social media; this is a priority before
you move forward.”
Mitchell says that the designated social media manager
should not be a busy receptionist or someone from your
marketing department with a huge personal social media
following.
“The person who is managing this for you really has to
want to do it. It cannot be just one more task they need to
complete within their very busy day. I cannot emphasize
enough the difference between using social platforms personally
and as a business tool. Unless you understand how to
use it as a business tool, it’s never going to be effective,” said
Mitchell.
Once you have a strategy, you can begin to build your
following. Choose a platform that your active audience
– competitors, customers and potential customers – are
already using.
“Figure out where your audience is,” said Brown. “Don’t
use a platform where your audience doesn’t exist. If they’re
not where you are, they won’t take action.”
Choose just one or two platforms; there’s no need to be
everywhere, at least not at first. Then begin following people
in your industry.
“To build a following, ask yourself who your clients, stakeholders
and suppliers are, then follow them. Look through
Piling Canada magazine and follow the people in there. Then
you need to start engaging right away. Retweet an article that
you liked, or comment on what someone else has posted,”
said Mitchell.
Engaging in what other people have shared will show them
who you are and that you’re interested in the same things.
The goal – and likelihood – is that they will follow you back.
Brown says it’s not just about quantity, but also about
quality.
“Don’t get too hung up on the number of followers you
have,” he said. “You could have fewer followers but if those
people are engaged, that’s much more important than having
lots of followers that aren’t interested in you at all.”
With social media, content is king. This means you need
to be consistently sharing interesting posts that your followers
interact with by liking, commenting and sharing. A good
starting point is to post something every day, whether it’s a
video, photo, link to a news article or update on what the
company is doing. For Sneddon, what you post should never
be about bragging rights.
“I don’t like to post things like, ‘We’re doing this huge project
there,’ or ‘We bought this new rig here.’ That’s not what I
think it should be about. What I do post is that we’re working
FEATURE
FOLLOW PILING CANADA!
Want more Piling Canada?
Make sure you’re following us on Facebook, Twitter
and LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on the Canadian
deep foundation construction industry.
“Working with Piling Canada’s social media, my goal
is for readers to engage with the magazine’s digital
content,” said Jenina Bondoc, social media coordinator at
Lester Communications, the publisher of Piling Canada
magazine. Bondoc started her position in July 2016 and
has been busy building Piling Canada’s online presence.
“I aim to grow our audience through connecting
and interacting with users on Facebook, Twitter
and LinkedIn. I also like to curate extra content
our readers may find interesting, such as emerging
trends in construction technology, upcoming
seminars and historical facts about pile driving.”
/pilingcanadamagazine
/PilingCanada
/piling-canada
Send us your photos and press releases and we can share
them for you! Add jbondoc@lesterpublications.com
to your marketing email lists.
18 Q4 2016 www.pilingcanada.ca
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/GoingSocial.ca
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