Written by
Ms. Minara El-Rahman at http://seblog.strongtie.com/
Here are
some tips for any structural engineer looking to grow his/her online presence:
Map out
your social media strategy
Think about where you want to be in terms of online
presence. It is important to be where your clients are online.
Do your
potential clients have a page on Facebook?
Do they gather and share industry
news from LinkedIn?
Once you decide where your clients are, start listening to
their conversations, reading their posts and following them on their social
media accounts so you can determine where you should be online and start to
build your presence. Try to narrow it down
to a few social media platforms at first so that you can devote your time and
resources to growing your social media presence. This is especially true if you
are managing your social media content yourself, or requesting someone on staff
to do it for you part time.
Make sure to take the time to think about how you define
social media success at this stage.
Is social media success a lift in
brand/company awareness?
Is it an increase in your social media fan base,
number of retweets or traffic to your site?
Once you have figured out what
success looks like to you, write it down and craft your strategy and content
around that criteria.
Create engaging content
Offer content that is informative and interesting to the
audience you want to reach. For structural engineers, content that explains
concepts such as the importance of a continuous load path in structures in high
wind or seismic areas may show potential clients the value in working with a
professional engineer. Whether you are writing a blog post, or sharing an image
on Pinterest, content should improve knowledge, help to solve problems and
spark conversation.
Map out your content ahead of time in a content calendar. It
could be as basic as writing down your posts in a Word document and setting
reminders in Outlook. Planning keeps you consistent and accountable.
Consistency is key when it comes to engaging with clients on social media.
Think about creating content specific to the platform.
Pinterest and Houzz are social media platforms that rely heavily on visuals, so
content such as infographics, photos and BIMs are appropriate.
For LinkedIn,
in-depth articles about your industry tend to perform very well. Craft content
around the platform so it appeals to who you want to reach.
Measure successes
Don’t forget to check in on your measures of success on a
monthly basis. This will help you gauge whether your social media efforts are
paying off. If you are doing well, that’s great! If you notice that you are not
quite hitting your goals, look at the numbers and adjust your strategy.
Are you
posting at a time when no one is looking at your content?
There are a number of
articles that recommend the best time to post content so that it will be seen.
Is your content not resonating with readers?
Try to change it up so that it
really connects your readers with what they want to know.
And one final tip: be committed. Posting every once in a
while or not responding quickly to readers’ comments and questions can
negatively impact a firm’s brand and reputation. However, those that are active
on social media and post regularly are able to build stronger relationships
with clients, demonstrate their expertise and ultimately grow their business.
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