(6) Social Media Marketing for Contractors
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Corey Halstead
Owner, HALSTEAD.
Not unlike search, social media marketing for contractors can effectively be broken down into two categories—paid and organic. Depending on the platform, both are worthwhile to include in your budget, but the tactics deployed on each vary greatly based on expected goals. One thing is consistent, however. To squeeze ROI out of social—paid or organic—it requires dedication to content production.
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Content Fuels Social.
Videos, photos, and written words are the currency to creating connections with prospects on social platforms. Because if you don’t have something meaningful to say, then don’t bother paying to say it. Today’s consumer is way too busy, discerning, and in control to act on a subpar message.
So what are the platforms you should be concerned about contractor? This answer is often contested by generic marketing agencies—including those advising design/build clients as they service clients across different industries—that advise being active on all the platforms, all the time.
This could not be further from an ROI-focused strategy. Choose the platforms that deliver the best return based on the user base alignment to your ideal customer. For design/builds, this means Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Houzz. Until these four platforms are being utilized to their fullest, both organically and paid, stay focused on exploiting them for all their reach and value. Based on the hundreds of case studies we have, using them correctly, especially on the paid side, will likely be your most powerful tool this year and beyond.
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Organic Social Media for Contractors.
Organic social refers to the practice of logging on to your business social account like Facebook or Instagram, uploading an image or video, adding your text, and posting. In this scenario, there is no ad spend behind the post—it’s organic. And while this is certainly a foundational thing to do regularly, there is very often confusion in the business community about the reach of those said organic posts. And that reach varies greatly depending on the platform. Facebook in the beginning, back in 2007 and 2008, for instance, had incredible organic reach. We’re talking, if you posted something, your followers would see it. But as more people join any platform and became more active in posting content, the platform needs to evolve their algorithm—the news feed has very limited real estate after all. So fast-forward to 2012 and the reach was down to 16%, and to today with Facebook organic reach down below 2%. This is how things have gone throughout marketing history, and it’s critical to understand if you are going to maximize your budget. Still, today, so many design/builds pay agencies to post generic content on Facebook without the backing of ad spend, only to reach next to no one. Many have simply not realized the changes that make that exercise silly in silo. Facebook is a pay-to-play game, so as the leader of a design/build firm, paid social may just be your best kept secret this year.
But not all your target platforms are pay-to-play, exclusively. Instagram still has substantially more organic reach than Facebook, so take advantage while it lasts. Why say “while it lasts”? Because the reduction of free reach on Instagram has already started. It’s just basic supply and demand in the news feed. So while a paid strategy is recommended here in addition to organic posting, it is not as critical a line item that Facebook Ads are in 2021.
So for Instagram, multiple times a day is not too much. Remember, not everyone is seeing, everything—far from it. While the average age of Instagram users was too young to make it attractive for your company in years past and it still skews much younger than Facebook, its users are aging nicely into a viable client base for design/build contractors. (Keep in mind while they may be willing to indulge in some bigger projects, they do have a built-in expectation of financing options—so much so that if financing isn’t on the table, Instagram marketing shouldn’t be in your strategy. Yet.)
Another super interesting opportunity for you is LinkedIn. Organic reach is incredibly high as of now. So take advantage. The strategy here, though, is different from that on your business Instagram page. LinkedIn should be used for owners and leaders to build thought leadership that will fuel the company brand. Produce content around topics that are interesting to your ideal customer. Post project photos and updates as well. LinkedIn is of particular interest to those looking for commercial projects—the platform is ideal for networking with developers, architects, and LAs.
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Paid Social Advertising for Contractors.
A secret weapon of leading design/builds across the country is definitely paid social. When we talk about paid social for your business, we’re talking primarily about running paid Facebook ads. Totally different from posting on Facebook, paid ads are created, deployed, and optimized on the backside of Facebook on the Facebook Ads platform, or Ads Manager. The targeting capabilities are second to none today, as is the cost. But the real magic of the platform is that it offers incredible branding power along with the best in direct response, or advertising designed to evoke immediate action. That’s complete control of the branding, content, and messaging, and the most powerful targeting. A powerful combo. Want to reach wealthy homeowners in three specific service areas around your shop, and then educate them about why they should choose the type of in-ground pool you offer? Done. Want to reach potential employees to drive your talent? Done. How about reaching other professionals to begin networking for commercial opportunities? Done.
The key to your success will be dependent on achieving the ideal match between the creative (the photos, videos, and words) and audience (the targeting). This is not an exact science, however, and takes constant trial and error, optimization, and testing. A very common mistake with Facebook ads is treating them like TV commercials. This approach, and lack of understanding of what makes paid social effective today, is so common across not only contracting businesses but also manufacturers and dealers. Many spend a large budget making a commercial-style video, take a handful of “perfect” photos, and write one or two copy variants and deploy them as Facebook ads with large budget behind the four or five ads. But when it comes to successful Facebook ads, it’s about how many ad variants are running and how many audience variations. Think of it this way: It’s a much better strategy to have 200 pieces of content with a $2 budget on each than to have two pieces of content with a $200 budget on each.
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What About Paid Instagram Ads? LinkedIn?
Facebook owns Instagram, and the Facebook ads manager controls ads run on both platforms. While Instagram targeting (as of late 2021) is not as dialed in as with Facebook, it’s still a great use of budget to run your ads on both platforms. At least to test things out. Run the ads, monitor the performance in nearly real time, and make educated decisions on which ads are working best on which platform.
LinkedIn Ads is a hot topic at HALSTEAD. For our commercial-focused clients, it has become a core part of their paid outreach efforts. Why? Being able to target professionals based on company, title, and seniority is huge for driving ROI.
