You probably have heard by now that you should be using social media. If you research any form of marketing strategy for construction companies, social media is going to be one of the main categories you see. This is understandable, as Hootsuite mentions in their digital trend update 63.2% of working professionals use social media as a work communication tool daily and 38% of business decision-makers say that they discover new services relevant to their work via social media.
So where are you when it comes to social media? Perhaps you have tried to use it but aren’t getting the results you want, or maybe you don’t know where to even start as it’s just something your kids use. What’s good to say right from the start is that even if you are not a fan of social media personally, it’s good not to dismiss it for your business. Social media is one of the most powerful ways of creating an online brand and if you don’t use it you are putting your business at a huge disadvantage. Social media is where your clients will be hanging out socially, consuming information in their private time or at work, and where much of their research is done before they purchase a product or service. You need to be in that space to have a chance of getting in front of your clients. If you’re not there, your competitors certainly will be.
When I work with my coaching clients, we spend a bit of time looking at social media strategy and how they can make it work better for them and their construction business. So in this article, I am going to be sharing some of the lessons I have personally learned and I will look at three main areas:
- – What Social Media Platform Should You Focus On?
- – How To Organise Your Social Media
- – Social media ideas for construction companies
What Social Media Marketing Should Construction Companies Focus On?
What social media platform you focus your time and energy on will depend on what you’re offering and who you are targeting. Each platform performs differently with different target markets, and so needs a different strategy and approach for each. So it’s a good idea to ask yourself; Where are your clients hanging out?
Typically you will find they will be using:
- Instagram and Pinterest
- Youtube
Read on for a quick guide to these useful platforms digital marketing for construction companies.
LinkedIn – With my construction company we targeted architects and other professionals through LinkedIn. LinkedIn is generally viewed as more professional, so it makes sense to use this for your architects, surveyors or whoever in your sector has a professional type of work profile. It’s a useful networking tool and can work really well to build connections business to business.
Facebook – On the other hand, to target our ideal clients, which for us was family homeowners, we used Facebook. We used Facebook for advertising and sharing interesting blogs or vlogs to try and generate engagement, as well as before and after photos, often accompanied by case studies and/or testimonials. If you are targeting your local area have you joined the local community groups on Facebook? Often this is the first place people turn to for recommendations for a tradesman.
Instagram and Pinterest are primarily visual platforms, so we used these to showcase our finished products, refurbishments, extensions, kitchens and so on. Especially on Instagram, you can make use of video to pump up views, increasing your following.
Twitter – Twitter has a limited word count so often, short phrases and sentences reminding people of what challenges or customer problems you are solving can be enough to attract interest. It is also possible to upload and tweet images with captions. Influencers are very proactive on Twitter so if you want to be an influencer in your industry then you must be there and present. Use relevant and also trending hashtags for more people to see your posts.
Youtube – Vlogs are a great way to get your personality across. People get to see who is running things, which increases trust. Try to get your personality out there by creating videos, Visual Branding and personal blogs – you’ll be amazed at the leads it can generate.
How To Organise Your Social Media
When it comes to digital marketing for construction companies it can sometimes take time to see a result. Slow and steady wins the race when trying to gain followers, so persist in following relevant people in your industry in the hope that they follow you back. If you take an active role by commenting, liking and retweeting, or sharing their posts, you’ll find that they do the same for you as a courtesy. It doesn’t take too long to build up a decent and, most importantly, relevant following. The point is, you need to set yourself up on the main social media platforms and use them to their full advantage by getting your personality across. Remember, you represent your company’s core values, so get out there and show people who you are.
Where most people fall down with social media is struggling to generate content. This can be a challenge at first, especially if you want to post something every day. The good news is, you can repeat a lot of your content and pictures, but you still need to get organised and prepare at least some content to get you through a month. One thing worth doing is getting a thirty-day content calendar together. Sit down for a few hours and write content for a whole thirty days (sometimes just a few sentences) for one of your social media platforms. It’s quite easy to then use software like Hootsuite to automatically post that content across all your social media channels.
If you write an article, share it 5-6 times over a 6-month period. Don’t just post it once. This way you will have content to share but also more people will see your content. Remember when you share a post on Facebook less than 10% of your page followers will be shown that post so it is important to keep getting your content out there (plus, it saves you time from having to write several blog articles a week).
Once you’ve got a month’s worth of content together, try to be more specific with what you post to each channel, bearing in mind the comments in the last chapter. Your message on LinkedIn targeting professionals will likely be different from the message on Facebook targeting homeowners. Their problems will be different, so your message needs to adapt accordingly. Most social media is very visual and needs to grab potential clients attention straight away, so the images you use need to be as professional as possible. You should work hard to build up a portfolio of pictures you can use and if necessary get some stock pictures to include in blogs and articles. There are lots of companies out there providing free or cheap stock pictures for the construction industry. It’s much better to use your own if you can, though, as you can often tell when an image is stock.
As you want to use your social media to represent who you are as a company and brand, remember to use your USP throughout your content. It can be helpful to write down five adjectives that you would use to describe your company and keep it somewhere where you can see it when generating content. Use these words to drive your messaging and tone when writing the copy for your posts.
Construction social media ideas
Here are a few of my favourite kinds of posts for construction companies, that you can then adapt and recycle month by month.
- 1. Who you are
Personal presence is a great draw on social media and you will find the posts that you include some personal element perform best on social media platforms. Include relevant personal details about your company and your story. People want to buy services from people, not machines.
- 2. Before and after
Before and after photos from recent projects go a long way to show off what it is you and your company do. As mentioned before good photography is key here, so try and get in the habit of taking photos in good light of all of your completed projects.
- 3. A day in the life
For a potential client, seeing your process can build trust in your company and answer a lot of questions they may have. This can save you time later and comes back to building personal relationships with your potential clients.
- 4. Testimonials
Reviews are crucial, as we all use them to make purchase decisions. Whether it’s eBay or Amazon, we are conditioned to look at reviews before we buy. It gives you peace of mind when you see a company has four- or five-star reviews, so make sure you get your clients to post reviews across social media, any trade body websites you belong to, and of course on Google.
- 5. Share the love
Highlighting collaborators or other businesses’ best work and practices can help build community. Are you looking to make more connections with developers or architects? Find their social media platforms and share their work, making sure to tag them so that they see it. This will also raise awareness of your work and make it easier to contact them in the future.
- 6. Design inspiration
Promoting the dream is what a lot of these platforms are built for, especially the more visual ones like Instagram and Pinterest. By including inspiration posts you are showing what is possible if they work with you. Light photos tend to work best for maximum impact.
- 7. How things work
Social media can be a great way to educate your potential clients. This not only encourages them to follow you for educational content but also shows off your experience and encourages trust in your skill. You could record a little two-minute video on the job and post it across your channels.
- 8. Meet the expert
Having the opportunity to show off your team’s expertise highlights not only your personal professionalism but your brands. You want your potential client to trust everyone who works for you, and so if they are comfortable post a picture and profile of different members every few weeks.
Make sure you remember:
- – One thing I often see in construction is they take a picture of a beautifully finished refurbishment, but they still have buckets and tools in the image, causing it to look unprofessional. Clean up your photos and make sure they are showing off your best self.
- – Resist the temptation to pay companies for a quick boost in followers, as these schemes are often worthless. They promise a thousand followers within a week, but these won’t be relevant to you and you won’t get many leads.
- – When posting on social media, it is important not to be cold and just show products and services etc to look ‘professional.’ People buy from people and that is still the case even on social media.
- – Include a strong call to action on your posts, make each post count and have a clear purpose. Do you want them to go to your website? Or do you want to create engagement through comments? Let them know every time.
The beauty in all of the above is that it’s free. Social media is free marketing. It does take time, but it’s essential in today’s world. People will expect you to be in this space and if a client sees that you have followers, post regular content and have good reviews, you will have already eased their concerns and selling to them will prove much easier. So put these tips into place today and see how having a social media strategy can really work for you and your company.
If you would like to know more about growing your construction business, then get in contact with me today here. We can book a chat to see what strategies you can put into place to scale up your business.
