Social media marketing can be a powerful tool in your digital marketing strategy, but a lot of commercial cleaning companies don’t use it effectively. Most commercial cleaning companies either don’t have a social media marketing strategy or they have improper expectations on what social media can do. In this post, you’ll learn how to create a social media marketing strategy for commercial cleaning companies.
Setting proper expectations with social media
The first aspect of building a successful social media marketing strategy for commercial cleaning companies is to have realistic expectations of results. Most people tend to overestimate the results that can come from social media marketing for a cleaning company.
There are people out there that are influencers in various industries that make significant income from their social media marketing efforts, however, that is not the norm. This is especially true for cleaning companies using social media marketing.
The likelihood that a cleaning company is going to reach influencer status is extremely rare. Most people who follow a commercial cleaning company on social media likely aren’t going to engage with content the same way as other niches.
Another misconception with social media marketing for cleaning companies is that most people over-emphasize the importance of it. Certainly, you want to use social media marketing for your cleaning company, but to create massive results with social media alone will require massive efforts.
There are other factors that impact the success of your social media marketing as well. For example, even if you posted content every day, but have little to no following, the chances those posts convert into clients will be next to zero. Social media marketing for cleaning companies works, but it needs to be combined with other digital marketing strategies to see the best results.
Setup and optimize your social media profiles
Once you have proper expectations set with the potential results you can achieve with social media marketing for a cleaning company, you need to set up and optimize your profiles. For the most part, potential customers will see the fact that you simply have a social media profile, and if it looks professional, that’s all they care about.
If you don’t have a social media profile or business page on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc. it can seem like you don’t take your business seriously. Similar to not having a website for your cleaning company, this could be a red flag for potential customers.
Another benefit is that simply claiming your profile and listing your website on various platforms can build an authoritative backlink to your website. This can help your site gain more authority from search engines which can help with your site ranking well.
Optimizing your social media profiles doesn’t have to be overly complicated either. You want to make sure you have appropriate photos like your profile image, and cover photo. Also make sure to fill out your about section and link to any appropriate places like your website, free estimate request, or contact page. Then you want to post to the profile on a consistent basis.
Grow your following and build connections
Another misconception with social media marketing for commercial cleaning companies is that posting alone will get you leads and sales. Certainly, it is a part of it, but you need to have a following of your ideal potential customers and then post content to see results.
You could have the best content and posting strategy, but if you have no followers and no one sees it, you will most likely not generate many leads. This means that you need not only a content strategy for social media but also a strategy to gain and grow followers.
One place to grow and build connections on social media for commercial cleaning companies is on LinkedIn. LinkedIn has some great targeting options that allow you to connect with people in specific job roles that are likely to hire a commercial cleaning service.
For example, you can search and filter by people in the role of facility manager. A great growth strategy is to send connection requests to those that are 2nd connections and that have roles like facility manager or that fit your ideal customer.
From there as your following grows you can start individual conversations to turn these new connections into customers. You can also post engaging content and as your targeted following grows, it can drive those connections to your website. For more information on this process check out this post on growing your commercial cleaning business on LinkedIn.
Post engaging content and follow the 80/20 rule
Another key factor is that the content you post to social media needs to be engaging. Unfortunately, most content cleaning companies post is not actually content their ideal customers are interested in.
Part of this problem is caused by only posting about your sales offers. Certainly, you want to post about hiring your cleaning company but when that is the only thing you post, your followers will tune out your content very quickly.
Ideally, you want to follow the 80/20 rule when it comes to posting content to social media. 80% of your content needs to be value-based and educational, while only 20% of your content should be aimed at selling.
For example, an educational post could be something like a cost savings guide or a blog post on hiring a commercial cleaning service. You might create a post explaining production values. You could explain how a customer may hire a company that claims they charge a lower rate, but the time they take to clean ends up being longer because their equipment and staff have low production rates.
When you post content that educates potential customers it helps build credibility and authority for your cleaning business. If a potential customer sees your company as an expert in commercial cleaning, they will be more likely to hire you vs the competition.
Be consistent
Being consistent is another key to building a successful social media marketing strategy for commercial cleaning companies. Often we see people make the mistake of not being consistent with their posting.
They might post aggressively for a month or two and then skip posting for several months in a row. It’s better to post consistently on a regular basis vs inconsistent bursts of activity.
Look at it like working out and getting in shape. Working out really hard for a few days and then taking the rest of the month off will lead to little to no results. However, if you did something every day the results would compound.
You need the same mindset when posting to social media. Your main goal is to showcase that you are active on social media. Most people are not looking for daily content from commercial cleaning businesses. Instead, they are just looking to see that you post from time to time and that your business has a presence on social media.
Certainly, if you can consistently post daily that would be great. However, for most companies, you are fine with just posting around once a week.
Run paid ads
Once you have optimized your profiles, are growing a following, and are posting valuable content on a regular basis, you can choose to scale your results further by running a paid advertising strategy.
Most social media platforms have become a “pay to play” platform. This means that you can get little to no exposure organically even if you have a decent following.
Charging companies to run paid advertising is how companies like Facebook make money. It’s advantageous for them to stifle organic reach on business pages to force people to advertise.
When you understand this, you can better utilize social media marketing to your advantage. This means not stressing out too much about the organic posting. Rather you can focus on spending your marketing budget on paid ads to see more results.
Build a base foundation of organic content, and then focus more of your time and budget on running paid advertising. This allows you to be more targeted and effective with your marketing dollars.
You can use organic social media posts to test the waters and see if something is likely to perform. If you see that it is working you can scale results by putting advertising dollars behind it.
Conclusion
Overall, social media marketing for a cleaning business can be effective when your strategy matches your expectations for results. You should start by optimizing your social media profiles. This means uploading proper profile images and filing out the about sections, websites, hours, etc.
Next focus your time on building a following and also posting relevant value-based content. Don’t just post content focused on selling as that can turn off potential clients if it happens too often. Use the 80/20 rule which is 80% of your content should be focused on value and 20% on sales.
You also want to make sure that you are posting consistently. Don’t feel like you need to post daily if that isn’t feasible. However, something like posting weekly can work well for commercial cleaning businesses.
Finally, with your organic marketing strategy in place, you can scale your results by including paid advertising. Most social media platforms have a limited reach with organic posting. By adding in paid advertising you can see results faster.
Follow this social media marketing strategy for commercial cleaning companies and you’ll start to see results from your efforts!