I don’t know about you, but my bracket was busted before it began. On the contrary, if Baylor wins, my wife and daughter will win the whole thing – gotta love March Madness!
Yesterday I was asked to do a customized virtual workshop for a group of high-end kitchen & bath dealers – so I did an audit of all of their digital profiles – including their websites, online directories, and social media sites. In total, I amassed over 64 specific recommendations but boiled it down to my Final Four (see what I did there. 🙂 I thought it would be helpful to you to share my Final Four recommendations that I delivered to them.
- Don’t put all your eggs (or reviews) in one basket. Too often, I see the majority of positive reviews on Google Local Business (GMB). I think it’s wise to prioritize GMB since it ranks at the top of local directories on Google. But once you get to a specific goal (say 50+ 4/5-star reviews), request reviews from champion customers to other platforms like Facebook or Yelp. They typically have a lower overall rating than GMB, and that’s because they have far fewer reviews. If your GMB basket is plenty full, take the rest of 2021 and encourage reviewers to post on other directories that have room for positive sentiment.
- Don’t forget the Social in Social Media. These kitchen & bath dealers have beautiful products and showcase them very well on social. But more often than not, that’s all they’re posting. I asked them to make sure they were mixing in content that showcased their company culture, local community, and other non-related product info that allows people to see behind the corporate veil.
- To increase engagement, you have to flame the fire. As I said earlier, I was very impressed with the beautiful content displayed on the K&B social media pages. But most had very little or no engagement. Some of that had to do with too many similar product-specific posts. But it’s more so because the social platforms only show our organic content to a small percentage of our audience. We have to promote (or boost) our posts to get them seen by more of our fans or followers. Assuming the content is quality and engaging, we should see more likes, comments, and shares. I usually recommend a $200-500 budget per month as a good range for a proper fire-starting strategy.
- Don’t tell me, show me. I know, I know, if you had a nickel for every time I mentioned doing more video in one of these e-tips! But time and time again, I see social channels filled with purely static content. And sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are all begging for video content. So we have to look for ways to add life (video) to our social media content. If you shot one or two videos in April, what would be a compelling topic? Show a virtual tour of your product or service? Offer some value in a quick 2-minute clip? Go live at a virtual or on-site event to give people a behind-the-scenes experience? Pick a topic and choose a date and let’s see those videos get shot!
There you have it – my Final Four recommendations. Hopefully, these will prove better than my Florida State pick to win it all. I’m painfully loyal! lol