Ready for Your Close-up
By Kevin Hoffman
If you’re wondering what appearing on social media can do for your business, look no further than Ryan in Nashville.
Ryan was the definition of a small-time operator. He had produced only one job – worth $16,000 – from doorknock marketing. He was still working a day job to make ends meet.
Then Ryan turned on the camera.
Before he knew it, he was being recognized when he went out. It was like he was a local celebrity.
That’s when his boss pulled Ryan into the office.
Turns out his boss was on Facebook too, and was seeing Ryan’s face as much as everyone else in town.
“What’s going on?” his boss asked. “I can’t have you half out.”
Properly chastened, Ryan went back to his ad agency. “You’ve got to take me out of the ads!”
But the funny ads were what was growing his business. So Ryan opted for plan B: He blocked his boss.
That’s an extreme case, of course, but it shows the power that appearing in social media videos can have on your business.
“The biggest lever in the ads, and why they work, is the energy,” says Lucas Jensen, founder of Forward Media Marketing in Montreal. “Your smile, your eyes, your mouth, how you come across, and also just the enthusiasm.”
Bring your family
Not everyone is comfortable going on camera. We hear you. No one is going to make you dance on TikTok.
But that doesn’t mean you can opt out of social media entirely. In today’s digital age, social media isn’t just a playground for the young; it’s a critical platform for storytelling, brand building, and customer engagement.
But if you absolutely can’t bring yourself to do it, you can find a workaround, suggests Gloria Medina, suggests Gloria Medina, an Onboarding Specialist at FMM who helps painters take their first steps into content creation.
“If the business owner is not going to find a way to be comfortable in front of the camera, perhaps they can be accompanied by someone.”
You know that Beatles song, memorably covered by Joe Cocker, that goes, “I get by with a little help from my friends”? That’s one way you can conquer social media anxiety even if you aren’t the type to take selfies in public.
Take, for example, a painter named Carlos Munoz of Distinctive Enterprises & Painting in Happy Valley, Oregon. Carlos’ English was good enough to get by, but he didn’t feel confident enough to speak publicly on Facebook.
His discomfort showed in his on-camera demeanor. He looks like a nervous freshman at his first party – tight and withdrawn, with the neutral affect of someone trying to avoid attention.
All of that changed when Carlos invited his 21-year-old daughter Sofia to participate.
“With the daughter, he had a smile from ear to ear,” Medina says. “The daughter did the talking.”
If you have kids, chances are they’re more savvy on social media than you are. Bring your daughter to work! She can be an approachable, well-spoken representative of your company.
Tell your origin story
Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider. Superman escaped a doom planet on a rocket.
There’s a reason that nearly every superhero story starts with the origin of the hero. It’s compelling and builds instant rapport with the audience.
“Each person, each business has a story of how it came to be,” says Medina. “So whenever you share that story with your possible prospect, that’s something that tends to draw attention.”
One of the most important reasons to appear on social media for your business is to instill trust in prospective clients.
When it comes time to make a big expenditure like painting a house, homeowners can be justifiably suspicious. Making a personal connection – even if it’s through a video on Facebook – relaxes concern. It also shows that you are a prominent member of the community who is easy to reach and accountable for their actions.
“Part of it is understanding who you are and where you came from, how you came to do this,” Medina says. “The idea here is to capture both their trust and imagination.”
Are you a third-generation painter? A master craftsman?
Tell them about it.
A clean, well-lit space
In the age of cell phones, production values have certainly taken a back seat. Gone are the days of mult-camera shoots, daylong rehearsals, and extensive editing.
That doesn’t mean all videos are created equal. A dimly lit shot where your voice is a mumble and you’re wearing a pizza-stained shirt will do your business more harm than good.
You don’t need to buy a fancy camera or studio lighting. There’s some common sense advice that will improve your videos on the cheap.
Standing in the shadows won’t show you in your best light (pun intended). One easy way to prevent this is by doing your video shoots outside. Natural sunlight is the best lighting you’ll get for free, and if you paint exteriors, it’s a natural setting to show off your work.
Be aware that shadows can catch you in surprising ways. Many contractors wear billed hats on the job. The problem is that when you go on camera, the brim acts as a sunshade, obscuring your eyes.
Most of all, look clean and professional. You won’t win customers if you dress like a slob.
“Branded and clean,” Medina says. “Because you want to give that image of sharp and professional.”
Keep it light
Facebook can be a minefield of political opinions.
Gone are the days when the whims of Washington hummed along quietly in the background of daily life. Now, it seems, almost every issue can be divisive.
However you vote, the last thing you want is for your social media marketing to turn away prospects for reasons unrelated to price or quality.
“The purpose of going on social is to connect, not to highlight differences,” Medina says. “Each person is entitled to their opinion, of course, but I would say definitely a smart business practice would be to keep that to your circle, to your family.”
Instead, Medina advises being creative and showing a sense of humor. One contractor she worked with acted out a skit with his kid’s toys.
“I remember a dinosaur, and he was chatting with the toys, ‘We need to get a job, guys.’ And basically he tells the viewer, ‘Please employ me and my workers here’ and shows off the table of toys,” Medina says. “It was hilarious.”
The same creative owner also wrote and performed a jingle for his company with his ukelele.
Says Medina: “I would say the common thread of these examples is that it shows a casual, approachable and friendly persona.”
Local celebrity
In every media market, there’s at least one person who became locally famous because they plastered their face on billboards, or local television commercials, or – nowadays – social media feeds.
If this happens, you should expect to be stopped in grocery stores. Usually it’s someone who has seen you on Facebook. Suddenly, they think they know you like a friend. They’ve seen all your videos. They really like the one with the ukelele. “Those conversations often lead to a booked estimate,” says Sam Creaney, FMM’s Sales Director. “Usually someone chooses you as a painter not because you have the best color blue paint ever; it’s mainly because they trust you.”
