Who Should I Follow On Twitter

I decided to follow a wide range of people and companies on Twitter and go through and narrow them down later. I wanted to see if their posts would be beneficial and have something in common with our company. The tweets should be interesting and from people/companies that may want to follow us. They are mostly architects and general contractors that we are following.

When searching for these, I used the words general contractor, builder, construction, architect, custom builder, and custom remodel. When searching all of these terms and narrowing it down, I actually came across a couple of contractors that we are currently working with including Watkins Landmark Construction. There are so many different businesses to follow that would totally benefit our company, especially since Contractors tend to post when they win a contract for a job. This lets us know that they have a job that we could possibly bid to them, possibly getting us work.

I also followed real estate companies and anything to do with real estate. When searching for these businesses, I used the words real estate, realtor, realty, and brokers. I came across hundreds of choices when using all of these different descriptions to search, so I had to narrow it down by city. I used all of the same words to describe what I was looking for in my search, but I added Palm Springs as the city, then Los Angeles. I came across a few of our suppliers, including Walters Wholesale, when searching all the different terms. I was really pleased with all of my choices and all of the different businesses that Cockrell Electric is following. I will narrow it down after I get an idea of what all of them have to offer.

How Are Similar Businesses Using Social Media

The first company I found that is similar to ours is Mr. Electric. They are an Electrical Service Franchise based out of Waco, Texas. We have been approached by them to buy into their franchise, but found that we are on the right path to maybe eventually franchise our own Electrical Service Business and did not want to tie ourselves down with Mr. Electric. Currently they are using Facebook and Twitter. It seems that they are using Twitter to mostly give shout outs, re tweets of anything to do with Electricity, tips and ideas. There are a few other types of tweets, but mostly it's just anything to do with Electricity. The Facebook page is the same, in fact it is really close to what I have been trying to do with our page. That makes me feel good about the way our Cockrell Electric Facebook page is going, seeing that Mr. Electrics is so much like what I am doing.
The next Electrical Service company that I found is System Electric. They are a local competitor of ours. Checking their website, I found that they are using Twitter and Facebook for their Social Media Marketing. The Facebook page has just a few posts and none of them really have anything to do with Electricity. The last two posts involved a camel and a monkey. When I clicked on their Twitter link it didn't go anywhere. This page is also making me feel good about how well our Cockrell Electric Facebook page is doing, seeing that System Electric only has 6 "Likes" and it has been up since January 2012. Cockrell Electric on the other hand has only been actively posting since October 8th 2013 and now has 194 "Likes."
I'm glad this was an assignment. I have been wondering how we are doing, compared to other businesses in the same industry as ours. I am proud of what I see and very excited about the future. I'm excited to find out what else I can do with Social Media Marketing and what it can do for us.

Are The Visual Networks Right For Us And Our Brand

At the beginning of this class I had no idea how I was going to be able to market Cockrell Electric, Inc., on Facebook. It absolutely did not seem like it was a good fit. How can I market an Electrical Contractor on Facebook. I obviously had no idea what I was talking about. As we have gone through each week and each new assignment, Facebook just becomes more and more necessary for us in our marketing future. It is truly amazing how many people you can reach through just doing a little five dollar boost on one of your posts.
The best part of the whole thing is the Facebook Insights. They make you feel like you have been in the marketing field for the last twenty years and not just in your seventh week of the class. They make it so easy to know when and how to market to your own key demographic. It really shows you where not to waste money on advertising and where to put in the big bucks. After the beginning of this class and going through a week doing online marketing on Facebook, I now totally see what Facebook can do for us, especially what it has already done for us in just the short period of time that we have had a page up.
We are deciding on what Social Media platform for Cockrell Electric, Inc., to try out next. We know that we are not really a Pinterest kind of business, although, I know if I really tried, I would absolutely figure out a way to utilize it. Pinterest is another Social Media platform that gives businesses a way to market themselves to the niche demographic. I don't know exactly what we could be "pinning," other than photos of jobs. I am well aware that I also thought Facebook was a bad idea and it is now the number one Social Media platform. Due to our majority demographic, our customer makes about 250,000 to 10 million in income a year.
Instagram is another platform we could possibly utilize, since it is mostly pictures along with Tumblr. I know that right now I am not seeing how these two sites can help to market Cockrell Electric, Inc., and I'm not finding anything. On the other hand, You Tube would be perfect for Cockrell Electric, Inc. I already have ideas about short do it your self types of video. I will be starting an account with You Tube and we are will be filming various types of instructional video. I think the customers will love the You Tube videos.

Scheduled Posts

These are the posts that I have scheduled for this entire next week. There is a good reason behind each one of them. I have found with the help of Facebook's insights, that Cockrell Electric's status posts are doing better than anything else. The links are also doing great, but I did not schedule any Links. I am leaving the Links for the owner, since his posts tend to be friends posts that he shares and most of these are Links regarding construction or other relevant information.
When I posted a "Tip" about electricity it did great and got a ton of attention for the page. Instead of a "Tip" this time, I posted a little tid-bit about electricity and the brain. Just a short trivia piece. Next I posted a silly electricity joke since the last one got such a huge organic response in such a short period of time. The next two posts will be pictures for the projects album and although pictures have not done as well as the status posts, this particular job is interesting because it is the nation's largest multifamily housing project to receive the US Green Building Council's LEED Platinum Certification.
The first post at the top is a short Bio about our General Manager. I would like to introduce the entire work force eventually, posting a new employee and a short bio every month. Something for everyone to look forward too and to keep  people interested to see who will be next. It will definitely keep our own employees checking the site. I would like this to be something they are proud of and want to be a part of. Each post is scheduled to be released at a different time of day. They will be released 15 to 20 minutes before each our busiest times of the day for engagement with our page. This has been such a great assignment and I feel like everything I am doing on Facebook is a precursor to what will work best for the actual business website.

Why I "Liked" These Businesses

I chose to "Like" the businesses I did, because there is a very clear line between Cockrell Electric, Inc., and each one of those businesses. It may seem odd that to think there is any kind of line at all between Cockrell and a couple of the businesses that I "Liked," but there really is. For instance someone might not get why I would choose The Globe and Mail. We live in Palm Springs, our business is in Palm Springs and from June to September it is practically a ghost town out here, but from October to March, our population grows like you wouldn't believe! It seems like it goes from about thirty thousand people to three million, and in just happens all of sudden. I may be exaggerating a little, but it does seem like the change is that much. A good majority of these people are wealthy people from Canada. The Globe and Mail online newspaper is my way of keeping up with what is going on in Cananda and attracting some of our wealthy Canadians to our page for Service Call referrals by being able to connect with them through Social Media.
All of the businesses that I "Liked" represent the core of Cockrell Electric. Marmol Radziner is an architect that we work with often. We did The Desert House with Marmol and it turned out to be really incredible. I posted a link to it on the Cockrell Electric website if you are interested in seeing some of his work. Walter Construction is another one of the businesses that I "Liked" and not because they are a General Contractor that we work with, but because they are one we don't work with. Watkins is a very large company that works on high end luxury projects and large resort type projects. They have been around an long time, have an impeccable reputation and have work all over the country. This is a company that has more to do with the commercial side of Cockrell than the Service Department that I am implementing.

Luxe and Bighorn Golf Club are two more favorites that I "Liked," but this time it is because these are our customers. This is our Demographic. Our customers are 40-75, very wealthy, and very intelligent with 2nd and 3rd homes. Luxe is a magazine that our Demographic reads and it is one we have decided we are going to advertise in, because we have decided that paying for a commercial and puting it on TV would go after a Demographic that is not ours. It would totally defeat the purpose, but Luxe magazine would put our advertisement on our future customers coffee table. Bighorn is were we actually have jobs now. It is a gated community consisting of between $6 million and $30 million homes. We are currently working on six different homes in the Bighorn community, but are always working to expand and "Liking" Bighorn to get even more exposure with them is a great step in the right direction.

The last "Liked" business is Kohler. That one I have put in favorites because we are a Palm Springs Kohler dealer and "Liking" them on Facebook will get their attention onto Cockrell Electric, pushing them to highlight us on their page and helping us sell Generators. Kohler is just as important as the Canadian online newspaper when it comes to marketing ourselves through Social Media. These companies represent our company now and where we are going in the future. They are the core of our company.

Difference Between Post Reach and Post Engagement

After only a few days up, the new Cockrell Electric, Inc., Facebook page has already acquired 159 Likes. The positive feedback we have gotten is just incredible. I knew that we would have some fans, but this has been mind blowing and the speed in which all of the new content has reached all of these people is also extremely amazing.

What also is incredible and has just blown me away is the detailed extent to which the demographic information goes in Facebook's Insights regarding the people that we reach with our business pages and the amount of those people that actually engage in the site. Post Reach is the amount of people who have seen something we have posted. Post Engagement is how many times those people have clicked on our post. They show us who we are reaching and how we are reaching them. Data about the people we have reached with our Facebook page includes Gender, Age, Countries and Cities they are from and the Language they speak. The information shows us how we reached them, whether it was organic, viral, or paid. They also tell us how many page views there have been and the number of times people click on our page from an outside URL. My favorite is the frequency graph that shows us how many people have seen content about our page. Any time anyone clicks on any of the posts or Likes anything, they are engaging in the post.

All of this information is priceless. It not only points you to exactly who your site is connecting with, but also who you should market to in the future. With the information that is available through Facebook's Insights, we are able to narrow down our demographics and find who our customers are that we should invest in. Instead of blanket marketing our community, we are able to exactly pin down what area, specifically what cities are most engaged in our site and what age our clientele is. In our community here in the Desert where people either live in Gated Community's or they don't, we are finding, through Facebook Insights that a majority of our Customers live in these gated community's. It is minor details like these, that are going to make a huge impact on our General Marketing budget and a huge impact on the attention and time we give our new Social Media Marketing platform. The information in Facebook's Insights regarding post reach and post engagement gives us information that would normally take years and a lot of work to find out.