Social media, only where it pays
For some businesses social drives real, traceable work. For many it is a time sink dressed as marketing. We will tell you honestly which one you are before you fund it — and if it is the second, we will point you at the channel that would actually pay instead.
The numbers go up. The phone does not ring
Followers, reach and engagement are easy to grow and easy to report, and none of them pay wages. Social becomes a treadmill when nobody defined what a result looks like, so the only available measure of success is activity — and activity is always available if you are willing to keep posting.
- You post consistently and cannot name one enquiry it produced
- You are on five platforms because someone said you should be
- Reporting is followers and impressions, never enquiries
- Posts go out with no link to anywhere a reader could act
- Messages and comments sit unanswered for days
- You dread it, which is why it happens in bursts and then stops
What we actually do
Two channels run properly beats six run badly. The first deliverable is deciding which two — and sometimes deciding on none.
Channel selection, honestly
Which platforms your buyers actually use, and which you are on out of habit. For a lot of B2B and trade businesses the honest answer is one channel, or none, and the budget belongs in search instead.
Content from your actual work
Photographs of real jobs, real premises and real people beat stock imagery and generic tips by a distance. We build a light process for capturing it so it does not depend on inspiration.
A schedule you can sustain
A realistic cadence, planned ahead, so posting does not depend on someone remembering on a busy Tuesday. Consistency at a low frequency beats bursts at a high one.
Responding to people
Comments and direct messages answered promptly, because an unanswered message is a lost enquiry and it is visible to everyone else looking.
A destination for the traffic
Posts that lead somewhere — a page about the thing mentioned, with a way to get in touch. Social traffic that lands on a homepage evaporates.
Reporting against enquiries
Tracked links and attribution so social can be judged the same way as every other channel. If it cannot be judged, it cannot be defended, and it will be cut in the first difficult quarter.
Who social actually works for
Visual trades and transformation work
Construction, landscaping, interiors, salons, dental, fitness — anywhere before-and-after is genuinely compelling and the work photographs well.
Hospitality and local retail
Restaurants, cafés, studios and shops where discovery is local, visual and impulsive, and where a good photograph converts on its own.
Businesses with a real personality
Where the owner is the reason people choose you, social carries that better than a website can.
Not, usually, B2B professional services
For a lot of accountants, consultants and specialist trades, buyers arrive from search and referral. We will say so rather than sell you a calendar.
How we start
The first step can end with us recommending you do not do this. That is a real outcome and it has happened.
Work out whether it is worth it
Where your enquiries currently come from, what your competitors get from social, and whether your category rewards it. You get this assessment regardless.
Pick the channels and define the result
One or two platforms, and a written definition of what success is — enquiries, bookings, direction requests — agreed before anything is posted.
Set up capture
A simple way for your team to send photographs and updates from the job, because the content problem is nearly always a supply problem.
Run the schedule
Planned, produced and posted, with responses handled and links pointing at real pages.
Report against the definition
Monthly, against the result agreed at the start. If it is not producing, we will recommend stopping and moving the budget.
What it costs
Scoped monthly work with no long contract, because the honest recommendation is sometimes to stop, and you should be free to take it.
- The initial assessment is free, including the recommendation not to bother
- Monthly management is scoped to the channels agreed, not a bundle
- Ad spend, if any, goes directly to the platform on your own account
- No minimum term — stop when the reporting stops justifying it
- You own the accounts, the content and the archive
Questions about social media
- Do I really need social media?
- Often, no. It depends entirely on whether your buyers discover businesses like yours there. A restaurant or a salon usually does. An accountant or a commercial contractor usually does not, and the same budget in local search would produce more. We would rather tell you that in a free assessment than take twelve months of retainer for a calendar nobody reads.
- How many platforms should I be on?
- One or two, done properly. Being present on five is how businesses end up posting the same thing everywhere with declining attention and no result. Pick where your buyers are and put the effort there.
- How do you measure whether it worked?
- Tracked links, enquiries and bookings — the same standard we hold every other channel to. Followers and impressions are reported because clients ask for them, but they are never the case for continuing. If social produced no traceable enquiries in a quarter, that is what the report says.
- Can you just post for me and I stay out of it?
- Partly, and it is usually the weakest version of this. The content that performs comes from your actual work — photographs of jobs, the thing you fixed, the people involved. We can make that require very little of you, but it cannot require nothing without turning into the generic filler that performs badly.
- Do you buy followers or run engagement pods?
- No. Bought followers are worthless people who will not buy anything, they distort every metric you would use to make a decision, and they are visible to anyone who looks at the ratio. If someone offers this, that is the moment to end the conversation.
- Is paid social different from paid search?
- Very. Search reaches people already looking for what you sell; paid social interrupts people who were not looking. Social ads can work for visual, impulse and local-awareness offers, and they usually disappoint for high-consideration services. If you have budget for one, in most of the categories we work in it should go to search first.
Still deciding? Book a free 20-minute call and we will tell you honestly whether this is the right spend for where you are.
Related services
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The full channel picture, and the tracking that lets you compare them fairly.
Read more about Digital MarketingPPC Management
For most service businesses, this is where the same budget produces more.
Read more about PPC ManagementBrand Strategy
Consistent social depends on knowing what you sound like in the first place.
Read more about Brand StrategyStart with the honest assessment
We will look at where your enquiries actually come from and whether social is likely to add to them. If the answer is no, you will get that in writing and a recommendation of what to do with the budget instead.