Our guest, Michelle Blevins, shares some of her Jedi ways for making the most of your social media efforts.

How is it that as a business owner, you can seek the least expensive options for marketing with the greatest options for targeting specific client segments and yet simultaneously be fearful of engaging in social media for your organization? 

How can these things co-exist? Social media is free. You don’t have to pay unless you want to “boost” your content. Social media provides you the means to meet people where they are, which is on social media (constantly). Yet, fear of failure, bad reviews, or an unwillingness to embrace the trends holds companies large, medium and small back from the easiest to access tools available. 

Take social media out of the title, and suppose I were pitching you a tool that was free and could guarantee you would get views from members of your community? Would you be interested? Usually the price tag alone would be enough for most business people to jump on board. But, here we are, in 2020 and many in a position of leadership are standing on the sidelines. 

I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down, via Zoom, with THE Michelle Blevins to discuss here vast experience with communicating, branding and innovating through the various mediums available to all property restoration, construction and insurance professionals. Rather than approaching social media with fear and loathing, for The DYOJO Podcast Episode 25, we discuss various means of thriving by building a clear culture, developing a consistent product and communicating what makes your organization unique. 

Michelle Blevins is the editor in chief of Restoration and Remediation Magazine (R&R), she is also a recruiter for Wylander Solutions and she is one of the few professionals we have had on the podcast that are working in the field they set out and studied for. Michelle is constantly working behind the scenes to keep relevant content flowing for the property restoration industries premier media outlet as well as innovating ideas such as the Women in Restoration Award and The Ladder Award for young professionals. 

One thought that Michelle brought up is that fear of bad reviews should not be a deterrent to engaging your market through social media. A negative review can provide you with an opportunity to address shortfalls in your process and perhaps by documenting that process you can turn a potential negative into a glowing positive. We know that it is impossible not to make mistakes, but a lot can be gained by how we approach and respond to those errors. 

In our discussion we touch on many facets of our great industry and people who are doing well to set an example for how modern leaders can utilize the tools available to them. Michelle talks about local vendors such as JC Restoration and Restoration Technical Institute’s efforts to assist local first responders. I mention recent help we acquired for Pro vs. Joe from the knowledgeable members of Restoration Rebels and NORRP. Michelle shares her hopes that events such as The Experience will resume this year which will include the announcement of the first annual Ladder Award as well as a COVID-19 panel with Jeff Jones (GBAC), Nate Seward, Kelly Kambs (ATI), Lisa Lavender (RTI) and Matt Jarvis (Jarvis Restoration, recently acquired by BMS CAT). 

The DYOJO Podcast exists to inform and entertain (INFOtainment) professionals in the property restoration, construction and insurance communities. Subscribe to watch us on Youtube or listen to us on Spotify, Apple, Google and Anchor. Keep an eye out for the soon to be released book Be Intentional: Estimating from Jon Isaacson.