April 7, 2017 – These days, you would be hard-pressed to find a marketing “guru” who didn’t demand you establish a presence on social media. Some will suggest you find a few social outlets to which you will actually commit (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), while others will recommend you have to be everywhere!

Let’s say you take their advice and jump into social media… now what? What do you do? What do you say? How do you become social?

One possible answer is provided by Arash Aryapour of Master Electric (Windsor, Ont.), who contacted me a couple of months ago to let me know “We’ve basically brought the selfie stick to our industry!”.

Master Electric is already on Facebook, with the earliest post dating to May 2015 and, recently, they started posting selfies to Instagram—a photo-sharing platform whose “mission is to strengthen relationships through shared experiences”.

And that’s precisely what Master Electric is doing: they’re strengthening relationships with both clients and prospective clients—as well as anyone interested in the trade—by sharing light-hearted “day-in-the-life” experiences interwoven with important electrical knowledge.

For example, one selfie is taken at the local Tim Hortons when it “ran out of maple pecan danishes”. It establishes the guys as regular folk… people to whom you can relate.

Another selfie (this photo in black & white) shows the guys working on a panelboard. The caption reads: “Breakers and panels may seem black & white, but trust us when we say there’s more to it than you think”.

And here’s where the knowledge comes in. They mention several red flags that should be of concern to a homeowner—like whether their lights dim or flicker randomly, breakers are engaging often, discoloured or sparking outlets—and they conclude with “Give us a call if you’re a part of the above”.

Whether by design or by accident, Master Electric’s combination of both lighthearted and knowledge-based selfies establishes the company as a crew of electrical professionals who know what they’re talking about, all while initiating a kind of friendship with people who don’t even know them.

They are, in fact, being social.

And, without any heavy-handed sales tactics, they’re doing a fine job of promoting themselves and their services. Well done, guys!

P.S. What’s been your experience with social media? Let me know.

• Anthony Capkun, Editor • acapkun@annexweb.com .