Twitbook and social media...

[MrBump]

I do not use twitbook, myface or any other social media, I think it is bullet to the head of any freedom we once had and nobody cares that your bored or that your cat looks cute with your hat on or that you are going on a new carb free diet.

Anyway... I have heard that all these virtual socialites are good for business, so as I know nothing about how the business side of these things work, if any of you have any experience, please fell free to share it here...

Is it free? Or do you pay? If so how much?

Do you have to just get loads of followers/friends and then post adverts to them or can you advertise somehow?

How do you get followers? Or do you have to join lots of groups to get noticed?

Or is it just for recommendations so they can link to your business page easily? (Even though they could just as easily link to a website surely?)

If I set up a business page on some of these sites, how would I get work from them?

I am clueless

 

[Tuffers]

I dunno, I don't do all that :turd:

My understanding is facef00k people want bargains. I don't do bargain bins /emoticons/biggrin.png

 

[boarcity]

facebook for raking in work for window cleaners absolutely rocks!

set up a FB biz page , load it up with photos of you at work and update it daily. then join the various buy n sell FB groups in your area and post your biz page news/photos/offers on them Every Waking Day .

i probably added 300 jobs to my business by doing this on Facebook and its all free!

iv also done the paid advertising on FB , its Fairly cheap [fiver a day touch if you stay local] , iv probably added 80 new customers via the paid ads

heres my page https://www.facebook.com/jonnywindows

 

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

I use paid local advertising on FB, only £3 per day but gets a steady 3 customers per week at a minimum of £10 per customer.

 

[Jake]

So funny Mr bump! That's exactly what I call it! 'Twitbook' and sometimes 'facetwit'

Never had Facebook,

Twitter i started using about 6 months ago for business and to help the website rank well

 

[MrBump]

I dunno, I don't do all that :turd:
My understanding is facef00k people want bargains. I don't do bargain bins /emoticons/biggrin.png

That's what I thought too, but my price is my price.so they can takr it or leave it, I just need to do more quotes in the first place and was hoping this might help :thumbsup: Leafleting takes ages and I am running out of time during the days and summer feels like.its passing so quickly!

 

[MrBump]

facebook for raking in work for window cleaners absolutely rocks!
set up a FB biz page , load it up with photos of you at work and update it daily. then join the various buy n sell FB groups in your area and post your biz page news/photos/offers on them Every Waking Day .

i probably added 300 jobs to my business by doing this on Facebook and its all free!

iv also done the paid advertising on FB , its Fairly cheap [fiver a day touch if you stay local] , iv probably added 80 new customers via the paid ads

heres my page https://www.facebook.com/jonnywindows

300 customers, wow that is good! I only want 200 total lol. You must be up in the thousands

A fiver a day is £150 a month, far too rich for my blood. I can't afford that at the moment, I'll stick to free for now and hope for the best. If its priced on area, there are literally hundreds of windies round here so that will up prices more. I only did 2 window cleaning jobs today and saw 3 new vans, all un-signwritten, all wfp, I usually see a new one EVERY day, but now its getting ridiculous. I need to get my round up to speed before it all gets coined by everyone else round here, I need facebook now lol. Thanks for the tips, will try out asap

 

[MrBump]

Ps. When you eventually go wfp your going to need a bus for all your workers and a big ass water tank! :grouphug:

 

[MrBump]

I use paid local advertising on FB, only £3 per day but gets a steady 3 customers per week at a minimum of £10 per customer.

I guess when you look at it like that, £21 a week to get £30 a month / bi-monthly extra its kind of worth it, good to hear it works though! I still can't afford £100 a month for facepoke though, lets hope free is as good..

 

[MrBump]

So funny Mr bump! That's exactly what I call it! 'Twitbook' and sometimes 'facetwit'
Never had Facebook,

Twitter i started using about 6 months ago for business and to help the website rank well

Do you know if twitter specifically helped your site rank higher? Or was is just part of a combo of things that got you to numero uno? Ever got any work actually from twitter?

 

[boarcity]

300 customers, wow that is good! I only want 200 total lol. You must be up in the thousands
A fiver a day is £150 a month, far too rich for my blood. I can't afford that at the moment, I'll stick to free for now and hope for the best. If its priced on area, there are literally hundreds of windies round here so that will up prices more. I only did 2 window cleaning jobs today and saw 3 new vans, all un-signwritten, all wfp, I usually see a new one EVERY day, but now its getting ridiculous. I need to get my round up to speed before it all gets coined by everyone else round here, I need facebook now lol. Thanks for the tips, will try out asap

before i discovered the Facebook thang my round was mired , by that i mean it was stuck in the mud and yes it was growing but too slowly for my liking . id been leafletting 2 yrs solid and that was slow going and bleedin hard work - facebook was like a breath of fresh air

 

[adamangler]

Im in the same boat bump, cant afford the paid adds so struggling on with the free ads and occasional leafletting which is shite tbh. cant wait to get to the point where i can invest in marketting.

Got a canvasser coming up next week though, cant wait to get stuck in, that should see me being able to afford to invest in websites/seo/facebook and get some carpet cleaning training so i can start pushing that

thought about paying a canvasser @MrBump ?

 

[boarcity]

I guess when you look at it like that, £21 a week to get £30 a month / bi-monthly extra its kind of worth it, good to hear it works though! I still can't afford £100 a month for facepoke though, lets hope free is as good..

normally id set a limit on the spend,say run the Ad only the saturday and sunday at a fiver a day . if you do the paid advertising you MUST take your time setting it up, narrow down the area you want to target -or else it will go Nationwide!!! then pick the age range of the audience . Dont rush in the set up of the ad

 

[MrBump]

That inspiring boarcity, glad facebook got you out of the mud... And into the stratosohere by the sounds of it :thumbsup:

I'd never pay a canvasser adamangler, even if I could afford it (which I can't lol) at least not while its just me, I can leaflet myself for free, see the houses and if someone happens to be in their front garden I would rather meet them myself, can keep track of what roads are done and I'll know for sure they are all leafletting (I do alot of 'long-driveway' roads) etc. But wishing you the best of luck with it, I'm sure it works, just not for me.

Thanks for the tips there boarcity! I had no idea you could tailor your ads so much or select days or anything. I wonder if I can just run ads on sunny days? :thumbsup: Great info there, maybe I could pay for one or two days week and see what happens...

 

[adamangler]

Fair enough bump. Im too impatient to build slowly i quite like the idea of getting a big batch at once, ive been leafletting/facebooking for months picking up a few here and there but losing some as well so its been a real slow process.

My personal plan is to use a canavsser maybe once or twice a year until i have a full round, and maybe keep using one after that to top up or refine my round, it only works out to £100 per month which if you consider the cost of leaflets, the effort to deliver, fb ads, etc etc. this way you dont even have to think about it just get on with clenaing and let someone else do the donkey work. i see it like employing someone or outsourcing.

 

[MrBump]

Yo be fair that all sounds good, much cheaper than I expected, makes sense and I actually kind of agree with all of it. I just feel it loses that personal touch I want and I am just stubborn and want to be able to say I've done every thing myself, its only a small factor, but it'll still play on my mind if I let someone else do it. I guess I am a control freak when it comes to my second child - ie. My business lol. I'm not great at it, but every time I go out I feel I learn something, so I'm hoping over the year I will get better at the sales side and feel more confident and natural in a sales situation, which I would lose that experience if I got someone else to do it.

Even though it makes complete sense from a business point of view and a practical one too. Maybe I would feel different if had met the person already, I have visions of someone who doesn't exactly uphold the values of the business and target market I'm after, but they could be smart, well spoken and presented and are most likely far better at it than me, but I would still want to quote myself though anyway, the only thing I would save would be walking the streets leafleting, which to be honest I have 3 days free next week so I will get on it. There are soooooooooooo many windies around here, I have to keep that personal touch I think, its mostly what gets me my business, people like that its just me, you keep that trust and friendliness etc. I have also managed to gently upsell to almost all of my customers so far, although I could still do that on the job if a canvasser had got them I suppose.

My aim is to pick up 1 new customer a day, ie. 7 a week on average, until I hit my target of around 200, currently I am only getting 2-3 a week though, but I really want to hit my target by xmas ideally. At my current growth rate it will be next xmas haha, but I hope as I get a bit bigger word of mouth will take over. Let us know how it goes with your canvasser! Best of luck. How many customers are you after in total? And whats your average price? I'm averaging 23.50 at the moment but still a long way to go so that could go down a long way yet! haha

 

[Dave B]

Facebook is a funny thing

I have stopped bothering with it now I'm busy and don't hear anything for days..

Then out of the blue i get 4 enquirys yesterday ..somebody in one of the groups asked for a local windy and my niece tagged me..suddenly others see it and all contacted me

Once you are in enough groups and have a few customers from them it sort of advertises for you as people will always tag you when someones is looking for a windy

I like that as it means they were actually looking for a windy rather than being convinced on the doorstep

You do get some messers but you get that any way you advertise

 

[adamangler]

Yo be fair that all sounds good, much cheaper than I expected, makes sense and I actually kind of agree with all of it. I just feel it loses that personal touch I want and I am just stubborn and want to be able to say I've done every thing myself, its only a small factor, but it'll still play on my mind if I let someone else do it. I guess I am a control freak when it comes to my second child - ie. My business lol. I'm not great at it, but every time I go out I feel I learn something, so I'm hoping over the year I will get better at the sales side and feel more confident and natural in a sales situation, which I would lose that experience if I got someone else to do it.
Even though it makes complete sense from a business point of view and a practical one too. Maybe I would feel different if had met the person already, I have visions of someone who doesn't exactly uphold the values of the business and target market I'm after, but they could be smart, well spoken and presented and are most likely far better at it than me, but I would still want to quote myself though anyway, the only thing I would save would be walking the streets leafleting, which to be honest I have 3 days free next week so I will get on it. There are soooooooooooo many windies around here, I have to keep that personal touch I think, its mostly what gets me my business, people like that its just me, you keep that trust and friendliness etc. I have also managed to gently upsell to almost all of my customers so far, although I could still do that on the job if a canvasser had got them I suppose.

My aim is to pick up 1 new customer a day, ie. 7 a week on average, until I hit my target of around 200, currently I am only getting 2-3 a week though, but I really want to hit my target by xmas ideally. At my current growth rate it will be next xmas haha, but I hope as I get a bit bigger word of mouth will take over. Let us know how it goes with your canvasser! Best of luck. How many customers are you after in total? And whats your average price? I'm averaging 23.50 at the moment but still a long way to go so that could go down a long way yet! haha

I have 70 customers, im wanting about 200 eventually as i plan to do other services mixed in with it, dont like the idea of doing windows 9-5/5 days a week. i would like 3-4 days windows. My average price is £12 which i thought was good, £23.50 seems insane to me lol did not think that was possible certainly not up here unless i was soley targetting 6 bed detacheds in the posh areas of town.

still 200 custies @ 12 quid is 2400pm plus other bits, would be well happy with 3k a month especially since most ive ever earned is 1200 per month!

to be honest im just trying to get over that initial lump, once i can start earning enough to pay my bills and have a chunk of money left for fb ads, adwords, seo, leaflets, canvassing etc i expect the business to grow at a much faster rate. At the minute im limited by the fact im skint lol

 

[MrBump]

70's pretty good, your a third of the way there and you have more than me /emoticons/wink.png How long have you beeen going for? I have a few big jobs which bumps my average up, most jobs are actually 15-20 (have a 15 minimum). My idea is to solely target those bigger houses /emoticons/wink.png That and bungalows of course to give the neck a break lol. Half of my customers are every other month too, not all monthly like it sounds like yours are. I know all about being skint, having a broken elbow and being out of 90% of my work for almost 2 months crushed me. Hence I will be delivering my own leaflets for a while and not paying for any ads either lol

 

[Dave B]

A lot of mine are £12-£15 but are monthly and close to each other

Easy to knock 15 out in a day if needed

Bigger houses round here are further apart and more hassle

 

[MrBump]

See 23 sounds good on the surface but you've found the downside there. To be fair the bigger ones are monthly and the smaller ones are bi-monthly as it happens lol. But I only have 1 group, the rest are all spread out a good 10 miles or so and take longer to get to and I'm doing well fitting 5 in a day! Although I am mega slow lol. A 4/5 bed house took me 1 1/2 hrs yesterday on a maintenance clean lol. My target is 10 and that will take all day. Daveyboy are you fitting in more a day now wfp or just finding it easier or just finishing slightly earlier? Can't ever see myself managing that many in a day