Social Media & Pest Control – Guest Turns the Tables!

0:00 When you got into, obviously, because the first time I spoke to you, you were like, I was like a message. I was looking at your LinkedIn. I was like, I've never heard of this company. And you were like, have you heard of shatterproof glass? Yeah. Yeah, you were the reason I changed my bio because you said to me I don't actually know what you do from your LinkedIn bio. Yeah. So that that was kind of a little help, helpful comment to make me realise that it's not obvious to people who don't know me where we sit in in pest control.

0:32 So thank you for that. Yeah, that's fine. Just you know, me, I'm honest. Some people might like it, but what your LinkedIn doesn't say what what it what it is, you know, probably not more.

0:46 Social media is quite new territory for for us and the business. To be honest, we've never really had a strong social media presence for the obvious reason that we've never been kind of market facing until now. And actually I'm so glad we've made that change because I've met so many really engaged people who not even, it's not even just about the product, it's just about networking and getting to know people such as yourself. So yeah, I'm, I'm really glad that we're now kind of a bit more market facing and it, and it's allowed me to kind of meet a lot of really good individuals who give you good feedback.

1:20 I think feedback is, is really important when you're putting a product into market and knowing, you know, what do people actually want? What do people need? So. So. Yeah. It definitely is. It's I should make it. It's I can see why you you social media to say isn't easy. You are you are churning more content out. I've noticed optic catches but let's get their wheels turning more. I think it's my personal LinkedIn doesn't post enough. Now the company LinkedIn page is posting very actively and we do get good, good views and a bit, I'll tell you what it is.

2:04 Is that really social media? Like, I like what you do because you treat it almost like a diary and that what you're thinking you'll make a post about and you'll, you know, you shared a post recently that was quite divisive, but it was a healthy divisive post and it sparked that one. And I liked that. And I think I need to do more, more stuff like that personally, because I don't treat my social media like a diary. And perhaps that's the way things are going these days. So what it is, is it's about personal.

2:35 If you ever want to look up a guy called Gabby Vee, Gabby Vaynerchuk, but be prepared. He does swear a lot, but his company is a major company. They're like Vayner Media. They work with like Coca-Cola and all the top brands. And he, he, he had a lot of his content helps, but it's all about personal branding because it's like he explains, you don't have to just say it doesn't mention pest control, but say you, I don't know, a paper company or, or a clothing company on LinkedIn, you don't have to just post about clothing.

3:12 You can post about whatever you want, the personal brand. And that's kind of where I got a lot of this all from was from him because although, because my, my, since my Instagram has been blow up, blowing up a bit now since that one VR post I'm not making. Another one. See if I can enrage them even more, but the reach is at 125,000 at the moment. That's impressive. Yeah. It's still all the other posts as well. But yeah, you've got to, it's a hard one with social media because you've obviously I've had to learn you've got to be prepared for if you get a backlash as well, because you, you often will when the divisive post was all right, was the divisive post I made, which was don't put animals on social media, dead animals on social media.

4:05 I was actually worried going on the Beasties and Beasties podcast about that, although I said it was all, it was all good. I thought the chat was going to eat me alive and they didn't. Everyone was everyone was nice. There was different different talking points and it was all different angles. The. Community because everyone had different opinions in that chat, but no one was cutthroat about it. You know, it was just literally sharing opinions. And I was in the chat as well, obviously making a few, few comments and and it was nice, you know, it wasn't, wasn't cutthroat.

4:37 And like you say, you've got to be prepared for some backlash on social media. And I think for me, social media that the main kind of reason I don't post more is is like a more of a timing issue. But I'm very mindful. You mentioned that person that you sort of learn about content creation from. I heard a good analogy once, which is like if you go to like a dinner party or something, you don't gravitate towards the people that only talk about themselves. You gravitate towards the people that ask you questions and speak about more than just what they're interested in.

5:08 And I guess that's a good example to social media as a whole, isn't it, that you need to, you can't just talk about one thing on there.

5:17 No, it's not an easy thing, social media, but even like the Gabby Vee says, you can't just give it two weeks. I've done, I've tried it. You've got to get better and try different things. It's like I, I will give you it. You are correct, social media takes a lot of time. If you were to ask my missus how long I spend messing about on LinkedIn and content, yeah. You'll get to speak to her in November. She'll tell you yes. She'll be a. Perfect. Yeah, yes, yeah. And. He's always on social media. I am.

5:54 I am but but. You have to like you say. Well, it works to a degree. Obviously a lot of it's personal, my personal brand, and the podcast is boosted massively due to that. But you know, it's a case of learning, though, you don't have to. Yes, yeah. Sorry, I was going to say, do you find that speaking specifically about oak and pest control, do you find that you generate more business from social media? Because I guess when we were talking about, you know, on the Beauties and Beasties podcast about the dead animals, the point that I made that I stand by is I'd love to know, does it actually generate revenue to put those kind of outrageous posts out there that prompt a reaction?

6:35 I know it means more engagement, but does that engagement translate to more business as a pestic controller with their kind of, you know, at the rock face? I don't actually post that animals that you know, but I post on actually weirdly Next door and I use I actually use Next Door as a content platform just like I do anything else, right. And I have got a lot of work through Next Door. I'm posting videos how I did post videos of wasp nest, you know, but I never actually did the you know when you do it.

7:10 I didn't show that better just showed the before and after and that used to get a lot of but that got hate as well. Oh, you're killing all the Wasps but the reach the. But with that, the reach on the post skyrockets upwards. Believe it or not, when somebody complaints, it goes up because. It's just. Engagement isn't it? I always thank them and say thank you for your input. My post has gone up now, but yeah. More people never see it. I've never posted dead animals, but I would say that in general made locally because of when the local paper 2 at local papers.

7:51 I'm on all the socials. I would say that a lot of people do ring through a lot of my social content. I'm not saying all of it because Google guarantees a very good way, but we also have our recurring customers that come back year after year for like Wasps nests or say they've got moles, things like that. But this yeah, you are right. They someone says Stephen, Stephen says next door actually works quite well for generating local work. But I really couldn't cope with all the negativity rubbish from The Who who wanted the local rats to be roam free.

8:32 Yeah, you got to your problem is there Stefan, you got to you got to get the mindset where you don't actually care what they say, right. But you you don't go back at them like a child. You don't. I often ignore some of the comments because I only because some of them want you to bite and not there to argue. But like I had to correct something that moles weren't. It's not illegal to kill moles and I had to explain the laws and how it works because it's the point of suffering that's illegal. If you do proper mole capturing, it's instant death.

9:08 It's perfectly fine now regardless to say I didn't. I didn't get a response after that because I explained it. I did but. Well, I suppose going back to that point of what people wanting local rats to aim three, I think that's all about perspective, isn't it? Because the minute that the rat is in your property, I think you'd want that rat taken care of. And until then, does it matter what they say? Like you say, you kind of just have to rise above, please. Yeah. Yeah, you have to judge what I had bought on one post.

9:40 It was a post of my, I was in another local thing and it was like, I didn't bite. Oh, it depends what you call the pest. Come on. Depends what you call the pest. I didn't reply. They're looking for you to bite and tell them what the pest is so they can argue back. But I just ignored it. That's yeah, that's what they're looking for. They're baiting you in. That's what they were trying to do.