questions about using facebook for finding a tractor related business or advertising

[Piston]

I don't know where to put "business" related threads, but since it has to do with "operating" a business then maybe this is the right spot.....


Do any of you business owners use facebook for advertising?

Can anyone with facebook comment on if you use services you find on facebook?

I'm trying to get the word out more and more now that I'm finding more time to expand my business, and I'm wondering if facebook would be a good option.


What's your most effective advertising techniques? Most of my jobs are word of mouth which is giving me a lot of repeat customers and working out well for new customers, so since facebook is mostly a social networking site, I figured it would be a good way to "spread" the word of mouth advertising.

 

[davesl708]

Personally I don't use FB or Twitter or any social network similar to that. Millions do and some of my friends use FB for their businesses. Not sure they are getting the results they hoped for. Your customers may be already spreading the word through FB.

I guess it depends on your business. Are your customers and potential customers using FB? Where do your customers go for information?

If cost for FB is negligible then no harm to try it.

Good luck with your business.

 

[jenkinsph]

I find word of mouth to provide the most leads. Truck signage also provides some good leads too, better than internet and phone book. If you do good work and the customers are happy with you and the results the jobs will slowly increase. For larger projects such as landscaping an entire lot with a good budget I try to get a sign out front. I have had a lot of people walk up on a jobsite and ask about their project needs too, if they see you do a good job that can seal the deal for them.

Most of my work now is larger projects for small acreage hobby farms, people who need tractor work done but don't feel they have a full time need for a tractor. Lots of finish grade work on small fields and irrigation pipelines is what I stay the busiest with. Most people can't grade well enough and have to pay others to do this work, I guess I am a work in progress. If you like this sort of work and I do that can make a huge difference.

 

[Piston]

I find word of mouth to provide the most leads. Truck signage also provides some good leads too, better than internet and phone book. If you do good work and the customers are happy with you and the results the jobs will slowly increase. For larger projects such as landscaping an entire lot with a good budget I try to get a sign out front. I have had a lot of people walk up on a jobsite and ask about their project needs too, if they see you do a good job that can seal the deal for them.

Most of my work now is larger projects for small acreage hobby farms, people who need tractor work done but don't feel they have a full time need for a tractor. Lots of finish grade work on small fields and irrigation pipelines is what I stay the busiest with. Most people can't grade well enough and have to pay others to do this work, I guess I am a work in progress. If you like this sort of work and I do that can make a huge difference.

That is sort of what's happening now, I've done a fair amount of jobs locally, and it seems to be picking up this year, so perhaps it will just take time to get the word out. I do really enjoy doing this type of work. I have fun doing it and get the "satisfaction" of a job well done even when it's not my own property. I do this as a secondary business at this point and really don't plan on it ever being my full time job, but with my full time job, I get 6 months a year vacation and can do a lot in that time off. I will probably try to stay busy once my kids start full time school, which will be in 3 years. I'm trying to plan long term to slowly build the business to the point where I can stay busy at home when the kids are in school. As of now, I only want a couple jobs a week as to not take time away from the family (the boys have preschool twice a week so it works well).

Personally I don't use FB or Twitter or any social network similar to that. Millions do and some of my friends use FB for their businesses. Not sure they are getting the results they hoped for. Your customers may be already spreading the word through FB.

I guess it depends on your business. Are your customers and potential customers using FB? Where do your customers go for information?

If cost for FB is negligible then no harm to try it.

Good luck with your business.

I believe FB is free so I may as well give it a shot. I've never used something like that before but it seems like everyone is on FB. Even the tractor dealers I go to seem to have a facebook page.

 

[jenkinsph]

Years ago the phone book was king if you had a service business, today with cell phones and phone books being forgotten using the new media formats is a good option. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a job completed with curb appeal would work the same. Just need to link the drive by view with a sign to link it to you.

 

[RDrancher]

Years ago the phone book was king if you had a service business, today with cell phones and phone books being forgotten using the new media formats is a good option. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a job completed with curb appeal would work the same. Just need to link the drive by view with a sign to link it to you.

I know you remember...those phone book listings could get pretty expensive, so I'm glad things have changed for the better in that respect. Advertising for small businesses has never been cheaper and there are lots of free places to advertise online. I'd avoid CL unless working for beer money is your kind of thing. Thumbtack is a good free one, and it always ranks high on local searches so it's a good place to start. It was a great way to be "seen" while my website was working it's way up the search charts. The website now ranks higher (usually dominates the first page) in most of my service areas, but thumbtack pops up from time to time and helps out. Hint - The search engines picked up the photo page on my website with locations in the descriptions first. As jenks mentioned, truck signage works and referrals are golden. As far as advertising on FB, I'd never do it, but I do have a business page. I think I added an update to it a year ago.

 

[RDrancher]

Update - I just received my Google report for the month of May. My google places listing got 6 views and my website 711. That explains why I can't keep up with the phone calls. Google Places is free, and I built and maintain my own website, so cost is negligible.

One suggestion I'll make is to go read everything on Construction Marketing - Contractor Websites. Tons of free ideas an an awesome newsletter for construction related businesses.

 

[Piston]

Update - I just received my Google report for the month of May. My google places listing got 6 views and my website 711. That explains why I can't keep up with the phone calls. Google Places is free, and I built and maintain my own website, so cost is negligible. One suggestion I'll make is to go read everything on Construction Marketing - Contractor Websites. Tons of free ideas an an awesome newsletter for construction related businesses.

Thanks for the link, as I was reading your first paragraph, I thought to myself "how do I build a website?" I'll check out the link now.

 

[Piston]

Also, thanks for the tip on thumbtack, I signed up for it, we'll see what happens.

 

[RDrancher]

Also, thanks for the tip on thumbtack, I signed up for it, we'll see what happens.

When you're working on your thumbtack page, there's a spot where you can use towns / cities as keywords. The Googlebots don't "punish" Thumbtack for stacking location keywords for some reason. If you try to do the same thing on your website, you WILL be punished and your site will never rank well.

On the website building...I used a template from godaddy to build mine. It was tweakable enough to make it my own and looks nothing like the original template. The website is here www.jnb-construction.com if you want to check it out. I haven't tried it, but I've heard that wordpress has a very easy format to use for site building.

 

[davesl708]

I forgot to mention. I had a contractor recommended by my hot tub dealer to pour my pad. He did a good fast job so I had him bid my new driveway. He wasn't the low bid but had him do it. Turned out great and the way I wanted it. Took more gravel and concrete than was expected but he honored the bid.

Couple months later four neighbors asked who did the work. Also the HOA needed some spillway work done on the lake. He got five jobs from the two he did for me.

 

[TSO]

I started out in Craigslist and word of mouth. I still keep an active CL listing, but mainly it's just for exposure and recognition. My website gets lots of traffic, and I also built and manage it myself, so it stays current. But, I like using FB too, as it allows for quick networking and exposure... Plus a great medium to add current info and job photos. Seems like many people use FB for everything these days, and I like how easily you can be "shared" around that way.

I still get a lot of "New" customers calling (more than I can keep up with), but what really turned the corner for me was taking jobs for builders/contractors... If you are reliable, honest, INSURED, and do good/quick/reasonably priced work, they will pass your name around and do much of your advertising for you.

Best of luck!

 

[RDrancher]

I started out in Craigslist and word of mouth. I still keep an active CL listing, but mainly it's just for exposure and recognition. My website gets lots of traffic, and I also built and manage it myself, so it stays current. But, I like using FB too, as it allows for quick networking and exposure... Plus a great medium to add current info and job photos. Seems like many people use FB for everything these days, and I like how really you can be "shared" around that way.

I still get a lot of "New" customers calling (more than I can keep up with), but what really turned the corner for me was taking jobs for builders/contractors... If you are reliable, honest, INSURED, and do good/quick/reasonably priced work, they will pass your name around and do much of your advertising for you.

Best of luck!

Nice website TSO! You do some fine work.

 

[Piston]

John and TSO,
What are you guys using to build your own websites?

 

[TSO]

John and TSO,
What are you guys using to build your own websites?

I use GoDaddy

 

[RDrancher]

John and TSO,
What are you guys using to build your own websites?

Godaddy here too Matt.

 

[Degolyerent]

Did y'all pay extra to own your own Domain name? If you didn't Go Daddy owns it and you have to buy them out to change server or change names and abandoned the original Domain name.
John

 

[RDrancher]

Did y'all pay extra to own your own Domain name? If you didn't Go Daddy owns it and you have to buy them out to change server or change names and abandoned the original Domain name.
John

Yes, I own my domain name, and several others related to my business.

 

[streamin]

I do reputation "marketing" which means I help businesses get a 5 star reputation to get more customers. The more places online you can put your brand the better. When a person refers your company to someone else, usually the first thing they do is go online to check you out. What do they see? They will look for social proof (reviews) of your business to see what others say about you. So you need to be getting reviews from your customers, post them on Facebook, your website, LinkedIn, and anywhere you can. We do videos for them as well which rank really well, video is powerful. You have started your business on your reputation, that is what should be first before any advertising. You can advertise a lot, but with a bad reputation you won't get the work. Hope that helps...

 

[JJZ 109]

I've got a FB page for my business, but the vast majority of work comes from the website or word of mouth. I started out having a local guy build the site and GoDaddy hosted it for several years. I own my domain name. This spring, right as my season began, the site was hacked and redirected to a knock off item shopping site. I had to pay Jim Walker from TVC.net to clean up the mess. When he contacted GoDaddy, they admitted that a server had been compromised but didn't see fit to let me know about it. So GoDaddy was fired and the site is now hosted by TVC.net.
TVC.net checks the site nightly to make sure nothing malicious has happened to it. I had a completely new site built by Hibu (the Yellowbook people) and as stated, TVC does my hosting. Hibu also does what needs to be done to optimize the site for Google and other search engines. The site looks great, but these things don't come cheap. Phone books are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, so I believe that I'll drop the Yellowbook ad at renewal time.