Forecasting Social Media Trends

Social media is all the rage today for HVAC contractors. Today, we hear stories about contractors around the country that are leveraging social media to grow their businesses. In some cases, they are substantially growing their businesses through blogs and social media tools like Facebook.

You receive emails from HVAC industry associations and see articles like this one in trade magazines telling you that you are late to the social media party.

Now take a deep breath. Relax.

Do me a favor … forget everything you think you know about social media. Forget what you think about Facebook and Twitter and how your kids use social networking tools.

In many ways, social media is the new word of mouth. Remember how you've built your business because your customers say nice things about you to other contractors? That same thing happens online for the contractors you service.

The reason why you or HVAC contractors want to be an active participant in social media is because you can influence the conversation.

What do I mean by “influence the conversation?” That means that doing certain things online, listening to what is going on in your region and distributing the right content in the right places can motivate people to behave differently and positively affect your brand and your business.

Ultimately, social media must do one of three things to work for a contractor:

• Increase revenues.

• Lower costs.

• Keep customers happy (leading back to #1).

Social Media Trends

Since some of you may be nonbelievers, just look at these stats:

• More than 90 percent of consumers use the Internet when making purchase decisions (Forrester Research).

• As of November 2011, Facebook has more than 800 million users. If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world.

• According to the Content Marketing Institute, 91 percent of companies leverage social media in some way.

• A recent Hinge Marketing study found that 66 percent of service companies are increasing their online marketing spending in the next 12 months.

Almost all consumers have access to the Internet at all times. According to PC magazine, smartphone sales surpassed PC sales in February 2011. At any moment, people can share content, talk about you on Facebook and even take a picture of an installation one minute after completion (and share it with thousands of friends).