In this episode, we're joined by Shannon Vogel from Reach Social (https://reachsocial.media), to unlock the secrets behind harnessing social media for the flooring industry. Discover how to craft a brand and reputation that resonates with a wide audience, turning followers into customers. Shannon will share her expert tips and tricks on effective social media strategies, content creation, and engagement techniques that make your business stand out. This episode is packed with insights on elevating your online presence. Tune in to transform your social media approach and drive your business forward.

The Huddle was created by Paul Stuart of Stuart & Associates and Go Carrera, alongside Jose and Daniel Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring. Aimed at helping you maintain forward progress in your flooring career, they cover topics from personal and business growth, to installation tips & tricks and everything in-between.

Want to be a guest on The Huddle? Email thehuddleforwardprogress@gmail.com today!

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https://www.preferredflooringmi.com
https://www.stuartandassociates.com

what's up team welcome to the Huddle we're your weekly Playbook where we not only strategize on the game but changing

it from mastering the fundamentals of the craft to distinguishing ourselves in the marketplace which is really of

important today uh we are here to give the installer a a voice and a leg up in

everything you need let's band together and create a new Legacy and flooring this is where you belong

so today we didn't have our fancy music and

things were going haywire before the uh the show and uh we just uh had to uh

call an audible so sorry you didn't get that they like to update the the software without letting anyone know

yeah and it sounds like that might be a standard um standard operating procedure

in uh a lot of different platforms which I'm sure Shannon will share a little bit

about that today so today we're going to be discussing marketing yourself and

using social media for this um and and how you guys can

really you know I'm no social media expert in fact I'm pretty terrible at it Shannon is an expert and so we have an

expert on that's going to help us uh you know kind of navigate these Waters so Shannon can you tell us a little bit

about you and your exper experience in flooring and how you what you do and a

little bit about um Shannon sure um first thank you so much for having me I

love any opportunity to educate and Inspire anybody about crazy world of social media um so I started out

actually going to school to be a therapist and um at the very last minute got rerouted back to the family

construction business and my dad goes hey what do you think about coming back to smalltown USA and selling flooring

and I was like no I'm going to Atlanta and I'm gonna wear heels and I'm gonna do all the things in this fancy life and

I ended up in construction it's the best thing that ever happened to me um worked for you know my dad was really really

great at his craft and I got to learn so many things the right way and then um

eventually outgrew smalltown USA again for the third time and then uh went to a

bigger city to work for a bigger flooring company and really found my love and passion for flooring because

every body has to have one and why not make it the foundation of your home why not make it the thing that makes your

house a home and make your home better so I did um retail flooring sales

commercial flooring sales um residential and Commercial interior design and at

one point um somebody asked me in 2007 to start the blog for the world Floor

Covering Association and when she called me she said do you know what a Blog is and I googled the answer and I was like

yeah it's um online articles that you put on the internet and she well we're going to do one and you're the one

because we don't know anybody else that understands design flooring and technology so I said great you know

we're We're Off to the Races so in 2007 somewhere around there we got the

blog up to 15,000 readers a month and was like holy cow we had no idea that

there was this much interest that people wanted to know so then that turned into um the company said well if you can do

that well can you do Facebook thing and I was like it's brand new let me figure it out so then you know as each platform

came along I got to figure it out for the flooring industry and then it finally got to the point where um

retailers dealers manufacturers installers everybody they were like how do we do it for ourselves and there's a

very small percentage that want to do it themselves which is actually why I have a company because nobody wants to do it

nobody understands it and nobody could figure out you know how often that it changes so um when Susie homeowner broke

me because she did not understand that her she I remember the woman complaining

to me she said that her brass on her floor vents didn't match the brass on her faucets and I was like

lady what I tell you in the beginning like wait until the bathroom is finished wait till the towels are hanging on the

wall wait till the picture's hanging and then if you don't like your bathroom call me but right now like bro these

things aren't even made in the same country like they're one's not even brass so anyway so she drove me to look for another opportunity and then um so I

just hitched my wagon to the internet and have been doing this for 15 years and then um recently went out and left

the agency I was with because they got purchased and went out on my own and um just helping helping the flooring

industry one person at a time wonderful so you're you're uh your organic

flooring person turned turned uh social media and marketing expert yes and what

was cool about it was getting to learn it when nobody did it nobody there was no road map it was just figuring it out

um so it funny how the universe works and things come around my background in Psychology ended up playing such a big

part in meeting with customers for interior design but it plays a lot in social media because you have to

understand what people think how they think what they need and how to serve a

message up to them in a mindset where it's not about you and that's something that I preach all the time to people

that are doing their own social media this is not what can you say buy from me buy from me buy from me this is you have

to think about your customer and think about what they're nervous about and what they need and you need to hand them the solution in a way that works for

them not in a way that that patch you on the back your

solutionist so is that the if to kick things off for uh a lot of our audiences

uh installers we we have some companies and even manufacturers that that uh

watch the show but um from the installers perspective is that would

that be your first piece of advice is don't make it about you okay so I'll say half and half it

depends if you're an installer that looks at yourself like an artisan and

you have you understand that your personal brand and you work your personal brand then absolutely it can be

about you as well but first and foremost I tell people to think about social media like a relationship and where we

how are we on um can we do language in a little gray area or yeah yeah yeah do whatever you need to I tell people to

think about you know did you walk up to your wife Paul are you married did you walk up and say hey would you like to

get married and have sex the first day I would have got slapped I think exactly gota ease into this thing like you have

to build a relationship it's truly separate social and media it is media that first and foremost has to be social

so in a relationship you have to like ask about us you have to send us flowers you have to do all the things like you

have to keep showing up so supp Court your audience a little bit you have to cour your AI you gotta woo them you

gotta woo them about a relationship so how are you gonna get somebody to say oh my gosh I have to work with them like I

will only have them crystal is the only one I'll work with so if you have a personality and you're a kind person and

you know you do good things in the world and you want to promote that part of yourself and absolutely do because that tells the whole story because your job

is to tell a story that somebody can fall in love with and follow the other

thing I'll tell installers is um and I was so waiting for the opportunity to say this so we get pictures all the time

from the installers or from our clients our retailers from their installers and

I give them the whole speech about you got to think about Susie homeowner as your audience right so I'm generally

most person's Susie homeowner I'm 46 years old I can afford to do new floors I love my home and I I want to do my

friends right I'm a woman so if I mean is what it is so when you're one upper

you're a one upper don't want to be but you gotta be you know it's a doggy dog we gotta do it you got have the nicest

place to drink mimosas thank you so when I'm scrolling through social um you know I'm on the

couch at nine o'clock at night in my bathrob I've done all my work I've you know put done everything with the dogs everybody's had dinner and I'm scrolling

through with my iPad in one hand a glass of wine in one hand right so I'm scrolling through and I'm seeing who

went out to dinner who had a baby who ate a grilled cheese sandwich right when your post shows up in my feed first of

all do not punch me in the face with I can install hardwood for $1.99 don't punch me in the face with

price show me something pretty and then make me want it after

you show me something pretty and make me want it make me trust you how do you make me trust you you either have

somebody else say how great you are are because people trust what other people say 80% more than they trust when you say it so when I talk about telling that

story if if you'll go in that order and show me something beautiful that I'm like oh I don't have that that looks new

that looks shiny that looks better than my neighbors I want that then I'm like yeah but I don't really know because every woman in their mind has in the

back of their head you're going to come in my house you're going to take too long and you're not going to clean up so

if you show me something pretty then you tell me a little a bit about yourself you your company however depends on the size that you are and you tell me that

you're going to take care of my home you're going to get in and get out you're going to treat me fairly I'm going to be safe and you're going to

vacuum on the way out you have my attention and by the time we go through that whole process and then you show me

maybe a testimonial that says you know somebody else said oh my gosh they were so great to work with and it turned out

even better than I imagined I have everything I need to not only pick you but not argue with you about price

because I want to feel safe I want to feel secure and I want to feel like you're I'm going to give a good job and

you're going to be there for my warranty that's another thing that people don't want you to think women don't want to

think you're going to come in make my house a mess leave and then drive off

back yeah you know so a couple of tips like if you um have branded swag and you

wear that to the door you're lowering yeah you're lowering her anxiety already 20 points because it's

the right person showing up for the job and you look professional So to that in her mind says they're good company they

can afford nice swag so they're going to be there for my warranty right so the soap box that I get on so go back to me

I'm in my bathrobe got my glass of wine I'm sitting on the couch and I'm inspired now and I want a new shower right I want a new tile shower

and you you hear me and then you submit a picture and there is a tool laying on

the kitchen or the bathroom sink the toilet lid is up and

there's still trash in the corner you know what you just told me not so much

you're not going to clean up yeah you're G to break my [ __ ] you're G leave my house dirty no thanks but if you show me

a beautiful picture that all I need to see is I don't have that and I want that

and this is where I go get it so even if you're not a good photographer please close the toilet lid

move the tools out of the way or use editing software to erase things right

anything that you can do to make it look as good as you can so that's step number one you really want to knock somebody

out of the park take a picture of a 1970s bathroom and do like you know before and after when you see for like

weight loss supplements or whatever girl couldn't look any worse in the beginning and she looks like a supermodel on the

other side it's not really fair that she should have had like on a nice shirt and a ey shirt and her hair brush and her hairbrush and she's all sad in the first

picture Mo she's all sad in the first picture so go ahead and make that bathroom look as sad as you want like

you know the towels not straight on the towel bar kind of thing in the before picture and then take the after picture

at the same angle and all somebody has to do is go I have that same pink tile I

hate it and my husband won't fold the towel then you see this beautiful light bright bathroom with the towel properly

folded and I swear to you she will think if I buy this tile and upgrade my bathroom my husband's going to start

folding his towel it's like the you remember the stain master commercial where the dad was laying on the floor

playing with the baby and every woman in America thought if I buy stain Master carpet my husband's going to come home he's not going to go to the bar after

work and he's gonna lay on the floor and play with my baby you have to paint the picture of

what you want them to see and a lot of this is not his baby though not like a conscious thought necessarily is I I was

just saying I missed Jose's joke because I'm over here talking

but um some this is a lot of this just subconscious right like it just kind of

clicks and they don't even know it so exactly right so can you uh reiterate

one more time the in order those those most important steps show me show me

something pretty right and I'm inspired then show me how you work show

me that you're going to do a good job or that you have a professional presence and then show me that I can trust you

with a review or testimonial tell people all the time at social media currency if you can get a video testimonial 20

seconds or less from a customer think about it if if someone writes a testimonial and you type it it looks

good and it really really helps but in the back of my mind I'm like is that true like did they just

make that up I mean is that their sister is that real that's that's what I was

just thinking it's still nice if somebody says oh I you know I worked with such and such installer and it

really I my expectations were exceeded and my shower came out better than I could imagine if you type that that's one

thing but when I'm enthusiastically saying that as a happy customer you can't fake that and I realize you know

if you're listening to this I'm gon throw a lot of information at you that just let 10% of it soak in figure out

one thing that you can Implement today and then when you get comfortable with that then start adding on the other

things and a lot of this stuff will come back to you once you get going but somebody told me one time they said

Shannon sometimes it's like drinking shamp hang out of a fire hose with you like it's a lot but I want to give you a

ton of information that you can go back and listen to this over and over and and get what you need so

yeah so um show me something pretty prove that

you can do it and then build trust and then if you're an artisan you said earlier you can make it a little bit

about you because you're showing more of your product but you don't you still wouldn't recommend anybody be like like

you can have this shower yourself for $5,000 or something just just show that

you um the special little things you do some of the videos I watch when I'm on

Instagram or whatever or when guys are doing little you know trinky things on

the tile like on schlutter metals or they're doing something special with a carpet seam or a set of stairs or

something you know that's the kind of stuff that snags me but from your perspective uh showing that before and

after is that enough for an artisan or is it should they go further if you are

like really I know one guy he was on the podcast last week he does really pretty

much high-end carpet work right Jorge and he does very beautiful ridiculous

stuff yeah beautiful work um does he when he's showing the process

that seems to grab a guy like I want to know how he did it so like when he's

doing the thing that kind of grabs the guy but that before and after or something really beautiful is kind of

the catch to get the main buyer in a home which is the women to respond that I have to be fair

it's not all women and I don't mean to imply that you shouldn't cater to men and do all those things because there

are a lot of men that are making decisions but generally when people are learning this process it's easier to stick with the Susie homeowner

idea different but there's also statistics and I mean I

hate to say it statistically flooring purchases at least the ultimate decision and usually

the kickoff is the is the female in the house the woman you know makes the final

color choices and can talk the husband into the extra money to get what she

really wants and yeah it's kind of that crazy that's that's what statistics tell

us but surely uh there's other ways I'm just trying to like hone in on when you

show a process that's going to grab a guy and that's probably okay to do as

well if you show that like before and after as well like maybe on the next slide or or vice versa so you're gonna

want to rotate different types of content to a tell a story but to grab different types of people so I think

it's a great idea if you're somebody like Jorge that has been doing it a long time I assume and if you do something

that sets you apart think about what your differentiator is if um you know I'm a big Crystal fan so I'll use

crystal in a lot of examples women are typically more meticulous and thoughtful and mindful about detail I would

absolutely as preferred foring I would promote that I would talk about Crystal and because she's a woman she pays more

attention to specifics and details and things like that I would say something like you were talking about the carpet

seams I do it short though like guys want it this long and a step by step process women want the little tidbit of

oh you do it this way because you've been and you slide in because you've been in business for 30 years what am I

hearing as a woman you've been doing it a long time you're not a rookie you're not going to screw it up and you're

gonna be around to service my warranty so if you are an artist and you can talk

about the process and say this is how I do it differently or say this is how they do it at Home Depo or a box store

or this is why you know you could do a series on and be you know everybody likes funny everybody likes dogs and

everybody likes babies I don't recommend bringing a dog or baby to your install um but but if the homeowner's dog walks

in then certainly don't cut that out but anything that you can do to reinforce that confidence and talk about what sets

you apart and if you aren't comfortable being on video then just start with your

voice like let your voice be heard um and just set it up where they can see like part of you working preferably not

you're behind and your your underwear crack um the other side of you like maybe you're working um but anything you

can do to show why somebody should pick you so if you're an individual installer you're telling a little bit different

story than a company that hires installers so if you are a single person or a small crew and it's your business

you're going to talk about yourself your business your differentiators and drive all of that back to you the voice for

somebody like preferred flooring is a little different where you're going to say you know these are our amazing installers and this is what makes our

installers what sets us apart and the company's going to take the credit versus the individual person you can

certainly call out your individual installers that have been with you a long time that you think are going to stay

100% um but really if you'll you know just make a mental checklist of you know

trust and safety and inspiration and education if you mix those things up you're going to be

successful so I'm gonna V in now finally can you guys hear me all right my butt in a little bit because I I want to go

over a lot of what you just talked about so three PS pretty process proof right

that's and then and then the the the difference between the men and the women and and I so you had mentioned something

about uh getting your foot in the door whether they're talking about using humor uh puppies or babies is it okay

that I just naturally do that all the time like I will plug in a one liner with a total stranger and then and then

laugh a little bit and try to G gauge where they're at nothing inappropriate obviously

but so that's then I would comfort them then I would comfort them like no okay I'm just playing that's a joke no this

is what we do this is what we're about um and have you looked at the website no you haven't well we have it on social

media there there we have a few projects like that um and you can check it out and if you see anything else that stands

out just let me know uh we're always open to suggestions yeah don't forget your your call to action at the end and

again if you're overwhelmed at this point just bear with us because you'll this will come later but at the end don't hesitate to say if you want to see

more of my work check me out over here if you want to see yeah testimonials or

there's no shame in saying at the end if you've had a good experience leave a review on Google um it's it sometimes it

doesn't feel natural to self-promote but if you think about it like you're helping them help you then women like to

help so that's okay it's it's totally funny you say that um just yesterday I

was at a church looking at a church with with another flooring store large commercial job and um she was like well

I just kind of want something like this but I don't really know so I said well pull up our website we have some pictures of what you're talking about

there maybe it to give you some inspiration and she pulled it up she's like just like that yes and she's like

maybe not those colors but yeah that's the right idea and then she's like can I go visit these job sites can you give me

the addresses I'm like of course so on that note one of the things that you can do that will blow somebody away

is get on Pinterest and build boards that show different areas so do one that

shows showers one that shows backsplashes one that shows living rooms bedrooms think about how people shop

because like if I'm if I'm doing a kitchen I don't care about your bathrooms I don't want to see a shower if if I'm on a kitchen I'm in a kitchen

mode so separate those and house all of your install photos like it's cool if you pull them up on

your phone but you know you're scrolling through and then it might pop out you know what you ate last Wednesday or your mother-in-law's something or something

you might not want people to see so if you will put it all on Pinterest if you'll say to the woman hey and we're

Gathering ideas for your installation if you're the salesperson if we're Gathering ideas for your installation hey are you on Pinterest if that girl

says she's on Pinterest you say can I take a look at your boards oh my gosh

yes you want to look at my boards and then I I say that this is like getting into a woman's panty drawer you will

know if she is a thong or a granny panty in two seconds you will be able to see

if she's high-end or cheap you'll be able to see if she's light or dark Coastal or Mediterranean or conservative

you'll be able to see their style and not wear yourself out and not wear her out trying to figure out what they want

so then you look at hers for a minute then you go would you like to see some of my installs and first when you have more than four she's going to go oh so

this isn't your first rodeo just the sheer number of them is going to say I've been in business for a long time

and then you scroll through and she's going to go man I mean this is a you know the madeup exaggerative example but man I came in here thinking I want a 12

x 12 White Tile laid straight I saw this personal spa retreat now I want four

different tiles I want she doesn't know this but a $60 a foot shower floor I want a feature strip I want a bench and

a shampoo shelf and you have all of a sudden taken a $2,000 shower to 10 and you you just been on your phone for five

minutes and now now she wants the new LED lights in the bathroom yeah and if

you your own photos you can still go to all the manufacturers and just repin their stuff and put it on a board for

inspiration you don't have to have done it in order to inspire

her that's a you know what that's a great idea I never even thought about Pinterest that's really good Insight

like going and looking at their Pinterest and getting a fill and then if

you have your Pinterest set up in room room by room scene I think that's that's

a if nothing else that's a great nugget that you guys can do it's

actionable and um straight from the horse's mouth as far as what works so

how much I had a question I wrote down how how much of your own life like on your company's uh socials you sharers it

all just like quarantined company only or do you show any of you I mean we all

have usually like a business page and then we'll have our personal page and

people will go over to the personal page I assume is kind of the you know

checking you out kind of thing but do you do you recommend any

sharing of personal stuff or like a vacation or anything like that or do you

just keep that for your personal thing and leave it leave it alone if I don't touch on the thing make sure I come back

to that because that's really important so if you have a personal profile you have to think do I want to be friends

with all of my customers because that's going to happen so if you can manage a personal profile and a public like a

business page do that if you can't manage both and manage them well just do the one if you are

comfortable talking about your personal life and don't mind people seeing about your personal life I mean what woman

doesn't want to connect it's like when you go to a restaurant if you know the chef you're so much happier like if you

know major food so I think if you put a little ideally you put a little mix you

tell a good clean story on your personal page don't start talking about Jesus politics and complaining about things

because nobody wants to work with that person keep that to yourself go do it somewhere else you do whatever you want with Jesus in politics just don't do it

on social and then on your business page I would love to follow an installer especially if I'm trying to decide who

I'm going to work with if I'm looking at installer a and installer B and installer A's got you know tools on the

counter and I see you know butt cracks and all the things but over here I've got inspiration education all the things

we talked about and I got to think about this like tell me if this is like an OSHA violation but like if your daughter

stops by for to say hi for lunch or you know having daughter with your lunch on the break and the kids's cute or you

know the wife and I are doing some personal work life balance and this is what we did this Saturday showing who

you are as a human is going to make me connect with you the vacation thing

everybody deserves to take a vacation everybody should take a vacation and everybody should have work life balance

but if you post that you were in Maui for 14 days I'm probably gonna think

they think they're paying for it I think I just bought you that truck and I just bought you your vacation at least at

least my part Le you charge you overcharge me which it's not true anybody that runs a good business should

be able to drive the most expensive truck and should be able to go on vacation all of that is fair but that's

not an American mindset yeah the perception is definitely not there keep

it um keep it off or keep it short probably just keep it humble but if you

have a cute kid and your partner wife spouse agrees that that child can be on the internet then yes I mean show a

family photo show that you're you know if you're a family guy or um and again I feel bad because talking

about male installers and I know we have female installers but percentage oh talk about them rip them apart um a good I

just don't want to be too heavy on one side or the other but um but absolutely tell tell your story just find that

balance and don't talk too much don't not too much business on your personal not too much personal on your business I

will also say on your business page that's not where you need to hustle

like that's not where you want to say you know come Bu from me say I'm proud

of my work like I had a really great client that I really had enjoyed working with or um the other thing I'll tell you

I tell installers all the time to go get on social see what other installers are posting join some of the flooring groups

and see what people are talking about and what they're posting and look at that and go oh man I really like that

I'm going to use that for my social or that's terrible that girl said not to do that I'm not going to do that or you

know that lighting looks terrible maybe I'm going to Google to figure out how to take you know how to take better pictures so go see what other people are

doing and trust your gut on how that represents you and how you tell your story that's yeah great advice there too

because I know that I share a lot of uh a lot of my life on my personal definitely not on the work right but I

do a lot of live video feeds for sports events um or short videos or or I share

something that I find humorous and that's just a little bit of insight into like who I am but I also do troll

Facebook for people I know and care about and I drop a lot of on liners and then I just leave and just leave it at

that you're still showing up and being seen and you know back to the baseball thing like if you post um you know if

you sponsor a little league team or your kids in little league and you go play um all somebody needs to choose you is a

connection and that connection can be anything from you have colored hair or big thick glasses or my kid also plays

Little League they know what it's like to have to come home from practice at 9 o' and still be at work at 8:00 the next morning um so any anything that you can

do to find that human connection is going to be helpful that's awesome so um we've

talked about a lot of the the best practices what what are huge don'ts like

kind of touched on the the vacation thing but what are the huge like just

don't do this um I'll throw one out there that turns me off every single

time and it's particularly in um well actually it doesn't just have to

be in groups complaining like just bitching and moaning about something

especially talking about a customer being a pain in the rear or just

anything like that just turns me off pause right there think about so if I'm

Susie home on the couch with my y my iPad right and I see you complaining about a customer do I want to put myself

in a position where you're going to piss and moan and [ __ ] about me yeah that's that's the that's the point yeah that

yeah that to me is like the big my I mean I'm no social media expert but you

don't have to be for that that is like a big don't uh to me so definitely don't

complain do not post in all caps do not

post with I mean cap do your capitalization put a period at the end of the sentence and put a capital letter

to start the thing because if people see that you can't even punctuate a sentence right how are you going to get my shower

right if you don't pay attention to those kind of details um next is don't

let chat GPT write all of your content because every we can all see it

now they have the same pattern they use the same words I love the word Elevate but everything chat GPT splits out has the word Elevate in it and then it puts

two emojis at the beginning and two at the end so don't use chat GPT for everything um

yeah don't complain um don't post pictures that are blurry um if you take pictures or video that um

what if you're just that fast and the picture cannot caption you properly

saying tell it where it's not me it's not me definitely I've never been in a blurry action

picture um but anything that um you can do with an app like if it's dark you can

lighten it um don't post pictures of people or home addresses or jobs that

you don't have permission do not post a picture of someone's child in their home

do not post a picture of someone wealthy that has a private life don't post anything and you can turn it into a

positive you can say hey your shower turned out so great it's literally my favorite job that I've done this year

would you mind if I took some pictures and then you hand them hopefully your card or something that has your social

icons on it and then say hey when I post this you know we'd love to put this on our website and we're going to post this on our social because what's she G to do

she's going to go tell all of her friends I'm on the internet and they like my project and then she's going to share it to her personal then she's

going to share it with her friends and then her friends are going to say well I want something better than that and I know where to go because I read it on

the shirt so

um it it's best practice and probably required to get

release from the homeowner to post if it's just a shower that's like your

standard 3x5 shower that's non-descriptive of the

property it's probably still best to get release I'm a rule follower I would I

would ask verbally always I think that's enough nine times out of 10 um you can

have somebody sign a release but I know half the people have already left this conversation if they hear they have to now take a picture of their stuff they

have to talk to the lady again and they have to get a waiver there nobody's doing that um as long as you the 3x5

shower yes all day long that's your work it could be anybody's and you literally could say no no no I did that Three Doors Down and what nobody knows the

difference but if there's a family picture or the house address or anything that identifies them some people don't

want other people to know that they can afford yeah yeah just don't want your

house address posted on someone else's page because you don't have any way to vet anybody or whatever so that that

makes complete sense so does the family photos so being mindful of that I I

think it goes without saying but you did mention it earlier don't get pictures with other

people's children I think that may be up there with complaining on the do not dos

like and that's kind of just weird I'll be honest that's a little weird and there are things that you know that you

have to think about like if you take a picture of a woman that is I mean she wouldn't probably be in witness

protection but if she has an abusive ex-husband that doesn't know where she lived because she packed up and moved the kid and you just exposed them you

don't want to be that person just be mindful and I don't want to scare anybody off talk to the person

and I nine times these are pretty simple things I mean it's not like you're you're not saying uh don't take pictures

just be mindful that I mean you see through the camera be mindful when you're taking the picture that the towel

straight when you're doing your picture but also that there's not a family photo up right above it that's going to get

captured and if it does you know how to move it you know how to photoshop that

off and you do that before posting it's it's just being con courteous to

people's privacy um um also we've been in that situation before we we've actually um

posted pictures of just a floor right just up close floor and we're asked to remove it it's like we don't have any

information we don't say we didn't say where where it is location family's name

is you know we posted a picture of uh a very intricate floor that we did um and

it was for obviously for um our our portfolio but also for um training

purposes and informational purposes and they were like take it down we're going to sue you I'm like well there's no

information there yeah so I guess uh go ahead like if someone's gonna know where you live by this little uh picture of a

two foot by two foot area of your floor then yeah I guess uh I guess we we would have to take that down but it didn't

make sense yeah I got two quick things um don't post any OSHA violations like if you're supposed to do something and

you're not doing in that photo don't get yourself in trouble um and the other W

have to come back to me well the OSHA violation when I have a good story on I

had a guy I had one of our crews have you heard that song uh that's

the only thing I can think of a world of violations parody of Willy Wonka yeah

yeah so um he's hanging on a door he had

spread some glue and he's hanging on a door and and Swinging himself out over

this glue to the doorway so that he can get out of the room and not only is it like terrible

practice his fingers could have got caught whatever uh but this got uh

videoed and then posted by his helper it

had I don't want to misquote but I think it was 178,000 views in 24 hours and

then it got up to like ridiculous numbers and then I found out about I was like take that down yeah I mean we

should be following the rules guys and we do um we have a very strict I feel

like I got to like uh say this we have very strict safety policy but guys are

got people are people and they make mistakes and you just don't want to post them out there in the world but that was

uh one where it went viral so quick had we left that up it

would have had millions of views within that's a week and that's not the equivalent to uh the crystal jumping

over the glue video yeah it's like um or or when uh Jeremy recorded that H

burst and then the job boss came up after I already posted and he was like hey don't post that

anywhere take it down you know that's a that's a good thing and I got maybe that's a question for for you Shannon is

um you know like how long does someone have after they post

something to remove it before it can be shared by someone else's account and then like like there's your answer you

have no time you have zero time because you don't know that I'll give you an

extreme example that somebody like if I'm videoing the kid opening the

refrigerator door back and forth because I think it's funny and I happen to left my computer open and that thing was on it and it was in the video you might

have taken it down but it's still running around from some other source and somebody's gonna sell it even more

and say look what I caught kind of thing I know nobody okay um you have no time

so slow down read everything that you post and before you hit Post stop and

think for one second and if you say to yourself This doesn't feel right don't do it or just take a minute and go you

know maybe I don't want to take this risk I did I remember the other thing the other thing you don't want to do is

do not steal photos from Architects or designers they will cut you um if you want toct of your work that they hired a

professional photographer and they paid the money they'll probably let you use it you just need to give them and the photographer credit but just because you

installed it doesn't mean you own that picture whoever took the picture owns it I feel like that's happened to someone

us or somebody pretty close to us at one point somebody's picture was used on somebody else's uh

profile I will tell you a quick story of uh being at a conference

and to piggyback on that is make sure you um don't steal other people's work

now I think that goes without saying but we actually had a guy that me and

another gentleman at go Carrera was talking to um that had just finished a

conversation with a gentleman and this guy was showing him pictures of work that he had done supposedly just so

happens it was that guy's install and that guy called him out

right then oh my goodness but didn't just call him out it was like oh really

that's a really intricate uh Medallion it was a wood floor uh H how did you do

this part here and he was like oh well I did this and that and he's like well what about this over here and he's like

oh I did and he says dude you didn't do any of that I custom made that that metal insert myself at my

shop wow so don't use anybody else's stuff because you you when you get

caught like that I'm sure uh nothing feels worse I have one more question

that I had on my list to make sure I asked can we back up one second Paul yes stealing thing don't steal pictures from

Google either because there are little Bots and things on the back end that you will get a letter and a lawsuit you do

not own that image just because you saw it amen all good

stuff so the the last question I had was uh

consistency so is there a consistency in timing is there a good time better time

to post than others and what type of consistency should people um you know

kind of is there a Cadence to this thing and or does that change on per platform

or best practice just round us out this whole uh awesome you know podcast with

that kind of nugget so the great news is

that the data will tell you the answers okay so I first tell people do the best

you can do what you can do well most people I say post three times a week but

if you can only post once a week I'd rather you do one really great post and three half-ass posts if you can't do one

a week and you can only do two a month you're still showing up you're not going

anywhere you're not you know the algorithm is not going to kiss you on the forehead but you're still showing up

if you can't do two posts a month I probably wouldn't get on social and only get on the platforms

that you can get on and man well if you use software a lot of times

the software will tell you the best day and time to post if you use um meta

business Suite it will tell you the best day and time to post for your audience

but also don't Google it because if you Google it you're gonna get the answer to the person that's trying to sell you

something use sense so go back to me in the bathroom and the wine and 9:00 on

the couch right when I'm at 9:00 my head is clear I'm in a good mood I got a

slight buzz you show me something pretty and my head is not cloudy if you show me

a pretty shower at nine o'clock in the morning maybe I think about it all day but typically as a rule consistently in

this industry if you will post at something 50 10 minutes to the top of the hour think about it when you like

right before this podcast started you were doing something else right but you had to end right before what were you doing in those 10 minutes most people

are on social media so if you do it around lunchtime at 10 minutes till the top of the hour if you were asking a

question which is another good thing to add to your strategy even if you don't care about the answer ask questions like

which do you prefer this light or dark left or right this shower this this installation if you'll do that on a

Saturday you're more likely to get more interaction and engagement but use common sense of when the person on the

other end wants to receive this information the last thing I'll tell you that we know for sure is if you're posting on LinkedIn

that by the way is not just a platform if you're looking for a job or for hiring it is the place that you go for

business only information so your Builders are there you're you know

that's where the all the business conversation is you don't want to post more than two times a week on LinkedIn

and the best times overall are 7 AM and 4m so if you think about it people get

to work and they see what's going on just like they check the news and then everybody's brains checked out at four o'clock and they're ready to go home so

they're on social but let your data do the talking look at your reports and look at your insights

and if it shows that nobody clicked on anything if you post Thursday at noon stop posting Thursday at noon yeah but

try to use some common sense about what the what the content is and who's receiving it on the other end yeah

that's good stuff I mean just best practices

um it's it's funny quality over quantity folks same thing as

flooring like quality over quantity and consistency two times a week of quality

is better than five times a week of not not as quality not well as well

formulated posting right and um also

that top of the hour thing is super accurate and I never thought of that so

that's that's another one of them things that you know uh we hope the audience

really pays attention to because it makes complete sense and it happens all

the time usually when I go to lunch or go go to eat and I come back to my

office and if I'm like five 10 minutes before you know my my little half hour I

take I may I sit in my truck and I'll I'll be on social uh in some manner so

it makes a heck of a lot of sense that's that's really good Insight so um we are

rounding out the podcast I have to be off of here myself pretty quick um so if

I leave the guys will close it out but I did want to go around and see if there's uh any questions uh or final insights

from anybody I think my favorite thing about today is that it's about social media and we couldn't get it on any

social platforms today I think uh you you guys so I don't

know if you can see that Shannon but there's a whole conversation going on on both sides of the screen here um but I

was doing get distracted just it did not for whatever reason and Daniel's been he

disappeared for a moment trying to solve the problem uh but um the we typically

go live to and we'll have 20 participants and be post showing their

comments and such and today our platform decided to not go live and uh couldn't

figure that out but we'll get it posted on there and everybody will see this it's okay they blamed it on us yeah 100%

yeah well it happen such is the world of of technology sometimes it doesn't work

perfectly so um that's that's great Daniel thank you

uh what what else guys do you have any other questions because Shannon the way you delivered all that information was

like I every time I leaned over I was taking notes because we do a lot of Social and to me these things are

actionable things that we can all do to improve our businesses

so if you guys aren't taking notes uh and you're probably you're not watching

this I know but you will be uh or sh there's a lot of really insightful

important information so I do have one other little tidbit that's easy to execute um if you have a company van or

you know a truck that you show up with put the Facebook and Instagram whatever sites you're on put those on the back of

your truck and so people can follow you it'll it's a easy thing to do that anytime they see your truck and your

name um people will do what they're told and anybody right now it's I watch this all the time it doesn't matter what the

QR code is for people will scan it so if you have a cars made a huge comeback they've been around forever I hope

everybody thought they were worthless and now they're they're awesome Q code owes

hilarious yeah you want to know what's funny is is a lot of the things that you've mentioned here today is we've

kind of done on accident to be honest with you like we just thought that hey let's just do this hey let's just do this didn't realize um that we were we

were following some kind of it's not a set list right but we were following um a progression list and uh and and by the

way a shout out to your vest today um thank you for the support um and that was that was going to go with the

question I had is um depending on the size and what you're trying to do um what are thoughts on on branding and

trying to um go through making sure that your brand is protected if you're on

socials is that something that should be done is that something um is all individualized um protected how like

somebody's using your content or your name or um just let's just say the logo uh like say

somebody's using uh the logo or or uses um a very similar name uh to kind of

gain the attention of that one company um and and the reason I say that

is um a thing that I used a little while ago a while ago on like Tik Tock is I started hashtagging everything that was

popular um in the media at the time and it was getting a lot of traction over to my personal Tik Tok but I was like

hashtagging like the Johnny Depp thing and Milwaukee tools and and I started noticing I was getting a lot of traffic

that I necessarily didn't need or want I just wanted to see if it it would work and it did so yes it works but that

traffic you're getting is not quality traffic um and and I'm gonna unfollow you if I see that because if I want to

go see what's going on with Johnny Depp I want to see all Johnny Depp and if I see anything else I'm like you just

wasted my time you just tricked me and now I don't trust you so puppies it was puppies I had pictures of puppies videos

but in just super quick I gotta go I got a four clock thank you Shannon I'm not

I'm not going to shut down I'm just going to leave into the my office and uh it was a pleasure having you on and I I

learned a ton so uh if you guys like the content and the uh the the podcast

please consider giving us a like And subscribe it's the best way to support us um and you guys can close it out I

appreciate it thank you guys and I will see you see you guys next week thanks Shannon thanks great questions