Supercharge Your Social Media with Mai Laskey

“If you can build a house, you can figure this out.”

Mai Laskey is a marketing and social media whizz. This isn’t only because she is the Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Bowens, she has had 15 years of experience in the industry working with companies such as Beacon Lighting, Hisense, Disney, Kraft-Heinz Group, The Good Guys and LÓreal Group. Her in-depth knowledge and savvy approach to paid and organic ads make her a marketing powerhouse.

And now she’s here to help builders and trades with her top tips on moving the dial on their social media business goals. If you’re a small or medium-sized business, take notes.

If you’re a builder or trade running your own business, where is the best place to start in terms of marketing on social media?

Before you even start looking at doing social media, you need to have a plan and some content banked. I would suggest you start by taking photos at each stage of your projects so that you can use them in the future or straight up front on socials.

You need to always have your phone with you. Phones these days, have amazing cameras built in them so you don’t need to invest a lot in hardware when it comes to photography. Some builders choose to hire a photographer and that’s fine too. But having your own bank of images and being able to showcase your projects, even trades working on the projects, is super important even before you start social media planning.

What are your top tips to boost your social media activity?

Three things are really important. We refer to them as the three P’s. People, promote and place.

Number one is people. You have to know who your audience is. Now that’s not just in social media advertising, that’s in all advertising. As a business, who is your ideal consumer and where are they online? A lot of them are on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest so you definitely need to start there.

Two is promote. What is my specialty? Is it renovations, new builds, custom builds or modular home building?

Three is, what’s your location or place? Residential areas, all of Victoria, rural areas or do you want to focus on a certain region or suburb? It’s possible to define certain areas when you’re looking at paid and organic social media.

Once they have the three P’s in place, how do they find the ideal consumer on social media?

Consistency. I would say that once you do it, you have to be dedicated to posting. You would need to on average post about three to four times a week. The reason why is that it hits the algorithm, especially on Facebook and Instagram. When Facebook and Instagram see that a profile is active it starts serving the ads to more people in their feeds.

If you want to build a following and get your name out there, you can consider doing paid social media advertising. You could achieve really good results as little as $5 a day to reach a new audience. That’s because with paid, Facebook and Instagram advertising, you can be really targeted with age, gender, household income, all the way up to postcode and demographic targeting.

Can business owners do this themselves or do they need to work with an agency?

I know that the people reading this are business owners. Some of them, have to be an accountant and HR. They have to be a therapist and a teacher, and so they’re wearing multiple hats.

For a business owner, it’s actually not that technical. Setting up meta makes starting a Facebook and Instagram campaign easy. It literally takes 4 steps.

Are you going to get it right the first time? No. Digital is something that you learn as you go and there are a lot of resources online to be able to teach you how. If you can build a house, you can figure this out.

What are the top social media platforms for builders to engage with their audience or potential clients?

I think people are going to be surprised by my answer. Instagram. And the reason is, Instagram is the platform for getting ideas and visuals. We’re in a visual industry, and it’s really important to show what you do.

Facebook would be number two. Some would say that Facebook is like the toilet wall of the Internet because people speak a lot and have a lot of opinions. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a great way to communicate with your consumers.

The reason why Instagram and Facebook are the top two is because they are owned by the same company. You can create a post and post it both on your Facebook and Instagram pages at the click of a button. It saves time and energy and it’s super easy.

If I was to give a third it would be Pinterest.

Pinterest is much more organic. It’s all about the keywords, hashtags and pins. Pinterest is mostly used by females, and we know that often females are the key decision-makers when it comes to home builds. That’s why Pinterest is also on my list for this industry.

Should small to medium-sized builders outsource their social media?

I think you should definitely have a go at it yourself first. That’s because knowledge is power. If you know a bit about social media and you’re actually immersing yourself in it, that’s when you can go, “Gosh, you know, I really want to do this and this.” In order for you to be able to outsource to a media agency, choose the right agency and understand what they can do for you, you need to have that knowledge.

In my opinion, social media is so personal to your brand reputation. You would probably want to run it yourself, especially if money is tight. I find that there are builders becoming these amazing influences in their field, running amazing content and getting really good business from it.

What is your biggest marketing tip for builders?

Have a crack. Have a go at social media advertising. If you put it in the too-hard basket right now and you’re wondering why other businesses are getting business over you, look at what they’re doing marketing wise and I can almost guarantee you they’re active on social media.

My biggest pet peeve that I have is when people say, “I don’t use social media. Why should my business be on social media?”

Buddy, your customers are on social media. Other people are on social media, and other businesses are getting business while you’re not advertising on these platforms.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or already have a following, building an authentic social media presence, having a plan and implementing the three ‘P’s’ will help you attract your ideal customer. But most importantly, “have a crack”, because marketing your business, no matter how big or small, can significantly impact its growth.