Does social media work with boring clients?
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OK, I'm not being rude, but I have a few clients who work in areas that really don't stimulate people - they are just needed.
Examples are:
Accountants
Chartered Surveyors
Forklift truck suppliersNot the most inspiring list...
So my question is whether to pursue the whole social media side of SEO with them. I mean, who wants to "like" their chartered surveyor? Do they have anything interesting to "tweet" about?
If anyone has experience of this type of field, then any suggestions would be greatly appreciated,
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Accounting, at least, doesn't have to be boring. They could use social media to share their own content about small business tips, home budgeting tips, tax tips, etc. or to share and comment on news stories about the industry. Will you have a giant following? Probably not. But it's still worth a few minutes a day.
As for the other companies, those are very niche and not sexy. In that case, social media might be primarily about branding and relationship-building -- positioning yourself as a friendly, fun, family company by sharing stories about the workplace, the owner, etc. Then again, there might be a B2B network in those niches. You just have to expand a little. Who buys forklifts? Who hires surveyors? What would they find interesting?
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We are an industrial manufacturer and although it probably does not help us directly, it still helps.
An example of this is for branding purposes. If someone is doing research on us, the content that we generate and distribute in social media may help them to chose us (we may be a "subject matter expert" in something they are looking for).
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A lot of different niche's don't necessarily benefit from social media but as mentioned previous it is still good to have them. You need a platform to keep customers/users updated when things happen, such as site going down, press information, and relations.
Social media has a wide range of platforms, and it will most likely take time to find out which platform is most beneficial. Google+, Facebook, Twitter are usually obvious pluses, but I noticed LinkedIn works very well for a lot of these businesses.
LinkedIn is extremely good at connecting B2B relations.
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Thanks for the tips, but I've got to say - a chartered surveyor trumps an attorney on dullness - or at least mine does!
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Very difficult to get off of the ground and getting it to convert into any significant traffic is definitely a challenge and often not worth the effort.
However, how strong are social signals to Google. For instance does setting up automated twitter feeds to make 20 posts a day benefit you more than simply having a twitter account? For all we know Google could just give your site a checkmark yes or no if your company has a twitter account. I would at very least set up accounts for FB, Twitter and G+ and reciprocally link between them and your site so that Google knows you are in the social media space. Post a couple times a week, for an attorney there should always be some interesting cases in the news you could comment about for example, or just post about your work or a collegues work.
example: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tom-Anelli-The-DWI-GUY/127968698749
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Niches like this are in the need for an advertising company if they will need to get social about it.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI - that was not done by an SEO company - it's done by an advertising company. It's a boring vertical and they did it. It's not an exact recipe for success but the basic idea is the same - if tehy can go viral they have the social side covered - if not - the ROI on social will be for sure negative.
If going this route - with something exceptional - is out of the question I would focus on other areas - you can have a good visibility and organic coverage without social with no problem - a lot of people are doing great without being involved in social.
I might be wrong - this is juts an opinion
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