Social media marketing in Newcastle, NSW: posts that turn followers into customers.

Staying in front of the people who already know you: past customers, the people they talk to, and anybody who looked you up. That is what it does reliably, and it is worth more locally than it sounds.

The promise attached to posting is usually that it finds new customers. It does that occasionally and it is not what it is good at, because the people seeing your posts largely followed you already.

What it does reliably is keep you present with people who could refer you or come back. In a market the size of Newcastle that is a real job, because a lot of work here still moves on somebody mentioning your name.

What it does well

• Keeps you in mind. With past customers and the people they talk to, which is where a lot of local work comes from.
• Proves you are trading. Somebody who was given your name looks you up. A feed that stopped two years ago answers a question you did not want asked.
• Shows the work. Finished jobs, in your own photographs, which is more convincing than any description of them.
• Gives people somewhere to message. For some Newcastle businesses more enquiries arrive here than through the website.

A post that sells is advertising, and the ACCC sets out what has to be disclosed.

Because people check. A referral, a quote, a name from a local group, and the first thing that happens is somebody looking at your page to see whether you are real and still working.

The moment that matters is not somebody discovering you in a feed. It is somebody who already has your name deciding whether to ring it.

That check takes seconds and it is looking for very little: recent activity, real work, and a way to get in touch. A page that has those three passes.

Which is also why the guilt about posting frequency is misplaced. Posting fortnightly and answering every message beats posting daily and leaving the messages unread.

The work as you do it. Finished jobs, the before and after, the team, the answer to a question customers keep asking. Photographs you took, rather than anything designed to look like marketing.

The businesses that keep this up are the ones posting what they are already doing. The ones that stop are the ones who decided to produce content.

What works

• Finished work. Photographed on the day. Before and after where there is a before worth showing.
• The people. Who does the work. For a local business this matters more than any polish.
• The question you keep getting asked. Answered plainly. It is useful, and it is the post most likely to be sent to somebody else.
• What is happening. A new van, a new hire, a job in a suburb you want more work in.

The photographs need to be yours. Stock imagery on a local business page reads as stock imagery, and it undoes the one advantage a local business has here.

Count the enquiries that arrive through it, and ask new customers where they found you. Followers and likes describe an audience rather than a result.

This channel is the easiest to judge on the wrong numbers, because the platform hands you numbers that go up whether anything happens or not.

What to count

• Messages and enquiries. Actual conversations that started here. On some Newcastle businesses this is the largest single source and nobody had counted it.
• Where new customers say they found you. Asked on the call. It is imprecise and it is far better than nothing.
• How long it takes you. The hours are the cost. If it is two hours a week, it is competing with two hours of something else.
• Whether it is still running. The most common failure is quietly stopping, which is worse than never starting because the page now looks abandoned.

Followers are worth watching only as a slow trend. Bought followers are worth less than none, because the audience stops matching the people who would actually buy.

Pick one platform, take photographs as you work, post on a rhythm you can hold, answer every message the same day, and stop measuring yourself on followers.

1. Pick one platform

Where your customers already are. Two accounts done properly beats five abandoned ones, and one is a perfectly good answer.

2. Take photographs as you work

On the phone, on the day. The material problem is not a skill problem, it is a nobody-took-a-photo problem.

3. Post on a rhythm you can actually hold

Fortnightly forever beats daily for a month. The failure mode of this channel is stopping.

4. Answer every message the same day

This is where the enquiries are. An unanswered message is worse than no account.

5. Reply to comments

Briefly. It is visible to everybody else reading, which is the point.

6. Count what arrives

Messages, and where new customers say they found you. Then decide whether the hours are worth it, with something to decide on.

Nothing happens quickly here and that is normal. It works as a slow accumulation, and the businesses it works for are the ones still doing it a year later.

The order it happens in

• The accounts get tidied. Correct details, real photographs, and a way to get in touch. This is what the people checking you out are looking at.
• The rhythm starts. Whatever you can hold. Nothing much appears to happen for a while, which is the part that makes people stop.
• The messages start arriving. Slowly, and from people who already had your name. That is the channel working as intended.

If you need enquiries this month, advertising is the honest answer and posting is not. They are different purchases and it is worth being clear which one you are making.

Ask whose accounts they are, where the photographs come from, who answers the messages, and what gets reported. The photographs question is the one that predicts whether it will work.

We do this work in Newcastle, so we are not neutral. These are the questions we would want asked of us.

• Whose accounts are they? The business's own, with the agency added. An account created by somebody else goes with them.
• Where do the photographs come from? Your work, taken on site. If the answer is stock imagery, the feed will look like everybody else's.
• Who answers the messages? Enquiries arrive here, and the answer matters more than the posting. Ours go to the business unless it asks otherwise.
• What gets reported? Messages and enquiries. Follower growth on its own describes an audience.
• Am I locked in? Ours runs month to month and always has. Any arrangement you cannot leave at the end of a month is worth a second look.

This is the channel most worth keeping in house, because the photographs and the voice come from the people doing the work. The part worth handing over is usually the consistency.