Are You Paying for Social Media and Not Seeing Increased Calls and Sales?
Many local businesses start with Social Media as their advertising. But Social Media is only the place to start if you have a truly amazing, newsworthy and unique business and offer that stand out from the competition that will go “viral”.
When you need a local provider, do you go to Facebook or Instagram, or do you go where most people go to Google? The majority of local prospects looking for a local provider go to Google, and other search engines, NOT a Social Media site. So if you advertise on a Social Media site, your local prospects are unlikely to see your ad at the exact time they are searching for a local provider. That is one of the main reasons Social Media generates so few incoming calls, bad timing of your marketing message.
Some local businesses have implemented Facebook’s’ recommendation to “boost your post” with dismal results. If you have ever paid Facebook to boost a post, stop now because it is a waste of time and money.
Social Media is unfortunately full of scammers defrauding consumers. This type of misrepresentation and fraud is especially rampant in Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter. Thousands of bots now artificially inflate influencers “Followers” and “Likes” on their posts, so they can get more money for selling their endorsement of a product or service. Many who endorse a product or service on social Media do not even use the product or service, making their endorsement weaker because it lacks sincerity.
Should You Use Social Media to Build Your Brand?
The purpose of advertising is to get the phone ringing with new business and sales. But I see local service businesses using Social Media as an attempt to build their brand. Building your brand should be a by-product of making the phone ring, not the other way around. Any adverting or Social Media sales rep. that tells you calls do not matter because you are building your brand is selling you advertising that does not work and never will. You should end that advertising immediately and implement advertising that will make the phone ring right now with new business.
Click here for advertising that Increases Calls and Slashes Advertising Costs.
The problem with building your brand is you can’t deposit a gain in your brand visibility in the bank. You can’t even borrow against it. The fact is most brands that stand out are big multi-national companies, franchises and chains that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year to build their brand. These are companies like Nike, Target and Coca-Cola. Truth be told, local businesses rarely if ever build their logo into a recognizable brand because they are competing with a limited budget with these multi-national brands that have a hundred million dollar a year advertising budget to spend on branding.
Prospects rarely respond to local service business logos, and a logo is NOT an Advertising Response Trigger™. When I did Yellow Page ads for clients, the logo was always the first thing deleted when space was a concern. Prospects respond because their interest is peaked by reviewing the Advertising Response Triggers™ in your ad, not your logo.
My recommendation to you is implement advertising that makes the phone ring with new business, and don’t waste money on advertising that does not make the phone ring.
You can see the best place to Increase Incoming Calls and Slash Advertising Costs here.
For 9999 out of 10,000 practices and local service businesses, Social Media is not the place to maximize your advertising dollar, and should only be tested for viability after other Medias are used that generate new business at the lowest possible cost.