Social media in your HVAC business: Engage, Adapt, and Evolve

Matt Plughoff is a guest blogger for HVAC Learning Solutions.

You're building a social media identity in your HVAC business. You're on Facebook.  You've sent out a tweet or two. But it isn't making the phone ring. It's a situation that many HVAC business owners find themselves in. After all, you're in the business of creating results, not just "being social." To see results, you have to engage your customers on their terms and in a credible manner.

A social consumer will only engage businesses that reflect their interests, lifestyles, and digital ecosystem. They probably don't care all that much about an "oldest furnace" contest. So establishing yourself and your business as relevant, likeable, and credible is the first step toward a more authentic level of engagement.

5 steps to social credibility 

Before launching (or re-launching) your social media presence, first establish these five focus areas:

• Relevance: Do you share items other people are interested in?
• Likeability: Is your social media identity a nice, likeable individual?
• Localized: How are you connected to your community?
• Reciprocal: Do you thank customers and participants? Do you 'pay it forward?'
• Integrity: Do you share the ways in which you resolve problems?

Multi-faceted social credibility

Your social media strategy needs to actively include each of these topics to show your customers that you're "good people." That is the first step toward engaging them. It's the first step toward converting them to customers and brand ambassadors. Simply put: it's about being relevant.

Guest blogger Matt Plughoff is a trainer for the Master Selling course series by HVAC Learning Solutions.