Now that you have established a social media presence using Part 1 of this guide, let’s 
take a deeper dive into developing quality content that will be shared by your followers. Quality content done the right way is what can set you apart from your competitors and is the key to customer trust. Read on to learn what quality content is and how to create it.
What to Post
To determine what you should be posting, you have to define your target consumer; there are probably several. Don’t overlook this step as it is a vital component that will naturally guide you to what kind of content to put out there. Ask yourself some of these questions: Who is your target customer? What kinds of problems do they have? What questions do they have? What value do you bring to them? Once you have defined who they are, only post content that would be important to them. If you educate them, answer their questions and prove that you are knowledgeable, it makes you stand out as being trustworthy and customers will be more likely to utilize and suggest your services to friends and family.
For example, inform your social followers about the emergency items they should keep in their vehicle in case of an accident during the winter. Think of some of the things that you tell your crew about safety or any other topics and decide if it would be relevant to share with your audience. Are you going to attend an upcoming tradeshow? If so, tweet about it while you’re there. Share what’s going on and what you’re learning there and post photos on Facebook and Google+ about it. Social media doesn’t stop with your snow removal business, if you are a landscaping business in the summer, post relevant information about that too. You could post before and after pictures of a job or post safety tips about how to stay properly hydrated during the hot summer months.
Rich Content
Now that your audience is defined we can dive deeper into what you should be posting to ensure you post quality content that will help you get found through search and also content that your audience is interested in. Optimize your content by using industry key words, most likely these words for you will be, snow, snow plow services, snow and ice removal etc. Try to make your content rich with keywords to help you get found.
Of course you want to sell your services, but you don’t want to oversell. The people on social media generally don’t want to have a sales pitch thrown in their face constantly. Remember to focus on your audience and what they want. List out their common interests and concerns, and that’s where you should start with your content. 80 percent of your posts should be dedicated to showcasing your expertise and knowledge about their concerns and interests, and the other 20 percent should be selling your snow removal business.
Your content should also be engaging. Think of social media like a cocktail party. Nobody wants to hear you talk about yourself the entire time, you should make conversation with other people and ask them to talk. Engage your audience in the same way by asking them questions and having them comment. Ask them to post photos. For example, you could ask them to post a picture of their freshly plowed driveway or parking lot. Tweet about an upcoming snow storm and link to a weather forecast and ask if they are ready for the storm. Ask them if they prefer the winter months or if they are ready for some summer landscaping weather. Get them talking and participating.
Quick Tips for Using Social Media:
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Plan out posts ahead of time and use an app like Buffer or one similar to it, which allows you to schedule and automate your content to be posted at a later time of your choosing.
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Post often, but don’t sacrifice putting out quality content for a higher quantity of posts if you don’t have the time
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Share links
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Use visual content
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Find relevant users to follow so you can engage and share their content as well as your own
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Don’t make a page and later abandon it. To the consumer, it shows that you don’t care
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Analyze your results and data and make any necessary changes with your social media use
With these guides, you should be able to get started, or improve your existing presence in the social media world. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results overnight, it does take time, so get started and get social.
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/findyoursearch/5202301465/">FindYourSearch</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a>