By Lisa Bissonnette
Business owners, especially in the collision repair industry, know time is money and it cannot be wasted. Social media, business listings and reviews are great connection points for gaining and keeping customers. But with over 300 relevant sites in Canada it has gotten to an oversaturated and unmanageable point.
Luckily, with all the information on the internet there are solutions for pretty much everything. Listed below are some key time and money saving tips for facility owners:
1. Regularly Check Your Rank on Google
Your browser will naturally collect your search history to provide you with similar searches in the future. To temporarily block this, go on your Google Chrome browser, click File and then ‘New Incognito Screen’. This will allow you to search your business as a brand new customer would. Also try searching your keywords and competitors to see what else comes up. Goal: be in the top 7.
2. Claim your Google Business Page Right Now!
Your Google Business page is becoming more and more the first point of contact for your customers where review management is key. If you have no branding and unanswered reviews you’re most likely losing a ton of business. As most of you know, Google is the highest used search engine, so it’s crucial to claim your page. Check out https://www.google.ca/business/ for more.
3. Engage your Social Media Accounts
Many shops put up a few posts and wait for people to come to their social pages. But they’re only doing half of the job. The other half is actually engaging with other pages. Best thing to do is find all of your stakeholders’ pages and like or follow them, like a few of their posts, give reviews and share some of their content. Pages such as your suppliers, neighbours, local charities, and favorite lunch spots. Seems a bit trivial at first but it will act as a jump start for your new page or a boost for your idling page. More than likely you will receive many likes and shares in return.
4. Don’t Waste Time, Allocate Time
Set out time to properly set up your pages and schedule content or get a professional to manage it for you. For blogging, if you’re passionate about writing and have the time to do so consistently it can be a great method for increasing your search engine rank. If not, don’t waste your time as one or two blog posts every once in awhile can’t properly build a strong following.
5. Get Your Online Brand Reputation Score
Use this complimentary software to find out how your brand is doing online and how you can improve it: http://www.mediamanifesto.com/blog/your-online-presence/ Feel free to use the information yourself, get a friend to assist you or let us at Media Manifesto help you grow your online presence.
Lisa Bissonnette is the Chief Marketing Officer for Media Manifesto, a full service marketing and web design firm. She can be reached at Lisa@MediaManifesto.com.
