Having an online presence doesn’t mean having an account on every social network in existence. That’s just exhausting. Having and maintaining an online presence is about choosing your field and caring for it.
The debate of “quality over quantity” is important here. A lot of people seem to think quantity trumps everything else on the internet — that if you post incessantly about something you will eventually rank well, but that’s not the case with social media.
It doesn’t work like that because search engines also have algorithms to judge the quality of content.
However, it is true that neglecting to post regularly will cause you to fall back. So what’s the compromise? What to focus on? How often do you post to stay relevant? You’ll find the answers below.
Let’s start with the social media issue.
Post on social media regularly
This is a basic unspoken rule, but a lot of people get wrong how often to post — usually by too much. To keep it simple, let’s say this: unless you’re a multinational news outlet, you don’t need to post every day.
Posting at least once a week is enough to preserve your online presence. Remember this is not about getting the most views and likes — it’s about movement.
For Facebook, in particular, you can post something new every week to keep things going and make sure to have your contact information updated and reply to messages there.
For quick daily updates you can go to Instagram and post stories, but now Facebook also has that feature. It’s quick, simple, and you don’t need to plan much — just whip out your phone while on the move and make sure people know you’re there.
Use Automation Tools
To make things a little easier you can schedule a number of posts for automatic publication during the week.
These tools have a neat system that allows you to create a queue of posts with a set time of publication — when the time comes the next post on the queue is automatically published.
But you can also plan ahead for holiday posts and offers, to make sure you don’t miss that date on busy weeks.
Here are some of the most popular options:
Boost a Facebook post from time to time
Got a really cool project going? Want to offer customers a special price on a holiday? Or how about special prices for inspections on the start of a new season?
Then it might be a good time to boost a publication. You can hire someone to create a nice graphic for you or choose a post that had a good reception, and boost the publication — Facebook makes it easy to focus the boost on your region, and it’s quite accessible for small businesses. You can boost spending $5 or $50, it’s up to you.
Make your website mobile-friendly
This is a MUST — the great majority of customers will find you on their phone, and if they land on a website that looks like it’s from 2004, they will automatically give up on it.
Luckily, making a website is made much easier nowadays. You can make one yourself with little to no experience using services like WIX or Squarespace and it will already be mobile-friendly from the get-go.
Google yourself regularly
A fantastic way to know how you show up online is googling yourself — it’s not 100% reliable since results can show differently depending on how’s searching, but it works well enough to get an idea.
So type in your business name and check how long it takes to land on your website or landing page:
- Is your contact info easy to find?
- Are your social media pages updated?
- Are there any typos or broken links on the way?
- Are bad reviews showing first?
If any of these problems show up, take immediate action. In fact, let’s talk about dealing with reviews:
Care for your online reviews
When working as a contractor you will be registered in databases like Facebook, Google, Yellowpages, etc. — and all of these allow for customer reviews.
Replying to reviews is always good practice — even to good ones. If you got a kind one, don’t hesitate to thank the customer for their words.
And for bad reviews, the best course of action is still replying. Trying to delete the review or bury it with new ones will only anger the complaining customer even more. First, leave a reply to their original review — it’s important for potential customers to see you care.
Then, try to work it out. You’d be surprised how often you can win a customer back by going that extra mile.
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This post is not sponsored and has no endorsements of anyway. All suggestions are based on providing you options based on solid research and contractor advice.
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