Certified Rental is getting social
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By Sean McGuire
Corporate rental manager

In the June 2009 Bramco Today we reported that in addition to our Web site update we were taking notice and preparing for the next generation of Internet communication. Well, that time is upon us. As you read this article we will be actively engaging on-line through the ever popular social networking site Facebook.

People today are becoming more and more involved online and to stay relevant we felt it was a necessity to be where current and potential customers are interacting on-line. With well over 500 million users, businesses are finding out that this is the place to be. A Facebook page is quickly becoming a company’s new Web site.
Companies are consistently increasing the ways they look for information on the Web to help them make decisions. We felt it was time to engage in this form of marketing/advertising for Certified Rental to reach our current and potential customers on a more consistent basis. Certified Rental has three distinct customer personas: local/existing customers, existing transient customers that do business with two or more branches, and out of state contractors that enter our footprint to do work. Increasing our on-line awareness on the Web for all three types of customers is important.

Our industry is only beginning to embrace the idea of social media as far as I have researched. According to Joanne Costin in her October, 2009 AED article entitled “The Business Relevance of Social Media: It’s All About Conversations” just 20 percent of AED dealers were using the social media site Facebook.

By engaging in social networking, along with continuous improvement of our Web site, we will enhance the search engine optimization on the internet of the Certified Rental brand for customers who seek information for what we have to offer. It is a fact that this new media is only going to increase and become a factor of our success. Certified Rental’s initial goal with social media is to assist in building our brand, drive people to our Web site and ultimately become more accessible in internet search engines.

Our plan for utilizing social networking tools will only begin with Facebook. Over the course of the next 6-12 months we will be utilizing YouTube, Twitter, and an on-line newsletter. We want to master one platform at a time before we jump to the next. In short, the social media strategy for Certified Rental, should be one that embodies reaching existing and potential customers while also showing our expertise in our field, providing solutions, and increasing value. All of this from a strategic standpoint takes dedication, practice, and most notably an open mind with patience to see results. In a nutshell Certified Rental will be trying to humanize the steel, dirt and rocks of our brand. We would like to thank the hard work of Jami Frank especially along Steve Woodby, and Joey Ratliff for bringing all of this together for Certified Rental.

So go ahead check us out on Facebook and give us the thumbs up by clicking the “like” button that way you will be keeping up with what is happening at Certified Rental.