How social media engagement can drive website traffic and lead generation in the construction sector

When it comes to social media, companies within the construction and architectural industries (and those similar) have always tended to shy away.

Instead, most opt for the more traditional approach: newspaper ads, billboards, or even appearing on radio or local TV spots. There is, of course, still merit to each and every one of these marketing strategies. If you want to truly maximise the reach of your business, however, it is essential that it remains visible amongst the bulk of your target audience. In today's digital age, social media is the answer.

What many companies fail to grasp is that creating a profile and uploading a static post on Instagram once a week is simply not enough. Instead, adhering to a strategic approach for your social media strategy is a requisite, enabling you to showcase your brand's personality, skills, USPs, and more, in an effort to stand out in an increasingly saturated market.

When undertaken correctly, social media can be harnessed to grow your brand and facilitate lead generation, but how do you maximise this tool's potential for your own brand? This article shares my insight into how you can develop an effective social media marketing plan for your built environment sector business, and how best to utilise it to drive prospective clients to your website.

What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms – such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – to build up a company's brand; market products and services; engage with their audience; and reach prospective customers, with the intention of driving traffic to their website and translating it into sales. What's more, with tracking and monitoring metrics – such as Google analytics, or within each platform's in-built software – these analytical tools can help you precisely target the optimal audience, and even reach untapped audiences that paid media or local advertising typically cannot.

Just how useful is it within the construction industry?
Naturally, the construction and architectural industries have never been as engaged on social media as compared to others, primarily because digital media is relatively dissimilar from the typical brick and mortar approach that they are used to. There are, however, few better tools for businesses looking to drive traffic to their website and propel lead generation than social media, regardless of the industry. An effective approach enables you to grow your relationships with your existing and prospective clients, as well as solidify your reputation in the eye of the consumer.

Within the UK alone, there are as many as 57.6m active social media users as of November 2022 – a penetration rate of 90.02%. Whilst the majority of these individuals will be far outside of your target audience, not even remotely interested in what you have to offer, there will also be project managers, homeowners looking for developments, business owners, and more. In fact, according to research from the 'Construction Marketing Association', as many as 97% of construction industry professionals are now using social media in one form or another, so this is something you certaintly do not want to miss out on.

Failure to adapt to this will quickly leave you stuck behind your competitors, and with the continuous development in digital technology, companies from all fields, industries, and niches are turning to social media as a sales generation tool to help separate them from the rest.

Why should your construction company embrace social media?
First and foremost, it is important to remember that construction and architecture are both visual industries, and there are no better platforms to show off your company's impressive designs and creations than that of social media. Especially when considering the high value investments that clients in these sectors are looking to make, they will take a considerable amount of time weighing up each company individually before deciding which would be the best for them. With as many as 75% of internet users utilising social media to research products and services throughout the purchasing process, being able to showcase the finished product, whilst also enabling prospective clients to visualise the 'before and after' for themselves, will have a significant impact on brand reputation and credibility, as well as the likelihood of enquiries and conversion.

Being active and consistent on social media also holds a positive impact on your brand's search engine optimisation (SEO), meaning that your website will appear higher up on Google's ranking, and therefore, towards the top of its search engine results pages. The more mentions and interactions your company has online that link back to your website – whether that's on Facebook's construction communities or the blog of a satisfied client – the better you will rank. With the vast majority of people typically avoiding venturing past the first page of Google's search results, this can significantly increase the traffic to your website, in turn providing you with an influx of potential leads.

How to build a strong social media presence
Understanding your customers
Before even beginning to set up profiles and schedule posts, the most important pre-requisite to consider is ensuring you understand exactly who your audience is. This is of particular importance in industries, such as construction and architecture, where your products and services are designed for a specific market segment, and will typically have next to no appeal to those outside of it. Data for determining this can be collected from a variety of sources, be it Google or social media analytics, feedback analysis, and more.

Select the right social platforms to focus on
Once you have determined your optimal customer profile, the next step is to examine what platforms best represent and cater to your brand's target demographic. LinkedIn, for example, is considered one of the most effective social networks for B2B heavy construction firms, enabling brands to connect with like-minded businesses and individuals within the industry, share news, build connections, and network for new projects. For more B2C-focused businesses, however, Facebook will typically be your go-to option, with its tailored platform enabling customers to easily locate contact information, reviews, case studies, images, and all other resources collated into a single space.

Particularly within industries such as Architectural Technology and architecture, where the design and aesthetic of the finished product are of the greatest importance, then more visual platforms, such as Instagram and even YouTube, will prove additionally beneficial for your business.

Embrace and engage with social media interactions
Engagement and interactions with your existing, new, and prospective audience is essential for any successful social media strategy. As mentioned, due to the high value investments that clients are looking to make within these industries, it is only natural that they want to collate as much information as they can prior to contracting their project. Therefore, if someone was to ask a question, ensure you and your team go above and beyond to provide them with whatever help and information they need. Not only can it help to build trust and loyalty towards a brand, but also has been shown to positively correlate to increased enquiries, email signups and website traffic, as the more engaged your audience is, greater is the likelihood of them wanting to do business with you.

This article originally apppeared in AT Journal issue 144