Social media. No two words have been this overused since “happy camper” in the late mid-90s. Still, social media is getting a lot of attention for good reason. The way people interact is changing at lightning speed, and companies are scrambling to react.
At NORDYNE, we believe a social media presence is a must-have for today’s HVAC dealers. Why?
First, word-of-mouth has always been a dealer’s #1 sales generator. Friends and family like to recommend businesses they know and trust, and homeowners like to base their HVAC contractor decision on these recommendations.
Social media sites such as Facebook take what used to happen around the water cooler with a few people and broadcast it out to hundreds of friends. Think of it as world-of-mouth. Now, when a homeowner is happy with your work, she can officially “like” your business and recommend you.
According to Jim Hinshaw of Sales Improvement Professionals, the average 35-55 year old Facebook user spends an amazing 3 hours a day on the site. They are asking their friends who does painting, where a good restaurant is, and, of course, who does their heating and cooling work.
Second, Facebook is easy to use and easy to keep up to date. When was the last time you updated your company website? With Facebook, you can quickly and easily add special offers, coupons and photos of recent work – keeping you top of mind with current customers and helping you find new ones. You can also comment on the weather in real time. Record 90 degrees in May? Maybe it’s a good time to remind your customers to schedule some annual service.
Oh, and did we mention that it’s free? Who doesn’t like free? The tradeoff is that social media does take a time investment, but that could be as little as 15 minutes per day. Surely, you could find 15 minutes per day in order generate some FREE marketing for your company.
Quite simply, we believe social media is only going to grow and can only build business for HVAC dealers. Want to learn how to use it? Check out our June 7 Facebook for HVAC training with Jim Hinshaw.
To see what NORDYNE is up to with social media, follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook.