According to word-of-mouth and social-marketing expert Gary Spangler, most businesses do social media wrong. Follow these rules to make sure you don’t fall into a social media trap.

The funny faces and colorful symbols you see, or use, in your texts, chats, posts and emails are one of the most distinctive aspects of online communication. Understanding them can help you be understood, or to understand.

The Internet’s become an easily accessible and influential forum for current or prospective customers to share their opinions of your company’s service. And, a negative review — whether it’s warranted or not — can crush your company’s credibility in just a few sentences.

I was browsing in Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and accidentally stumbled across a book titled "Facebook an Hour a Day." The hook was that amazingly, you could do Facebook marketing in — ta-dah! — ONLY an hour a day.

In part one of this series, I discussed how Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest can help your HVAC business grow. Now that you understand a little more about social networks, I want to take the time to share some general best practices for using social media and some platform-specific strategies that I’ve found work well. 

There are a lot of social media networks out there that can help you connect with your customers online and on their mobile devices. In part one of this series, I’ll share some of the networks I’ve put to work for me and why they should be a part of your marketing strategy.

Of all the social media sites out there, which are most important to use? What content should be posted? How often should that content be posted? These are all reasonable questions for contractors to be asking and, luckily, sufficient answers exist.

Good reviews on Angie’s List or Yelp can mean the difference between a customer looking into your business or scrolling right on by to the next option. 

I can’t get over how many HVACR contractors place social media icons prominently at the top of their sites — often next to their phone numbers or the schedule-an-appointment button. Why would you pay money to bring prospects to your website only to direct them to the world of endless distractions that is Facebook, Twitter, etc.?