4 steps for tradies to get better engagement on facebook

Facebook is one of the best platforms for tradies and those in the construction industry to reach customers, establish brand credibility and increase sales. However, your content’s visibility will highly be impacted by engagement your posts receives.

Facebook calls engagement any action that someone takes on your page, e.g: if someone viewed your posts, likes it, comments on it, shares it or clicks any of the links.

So the trick is for you to ensure that whenever you go on Facebook with your tradie hat on, anything you do is done with engagement in mind. Below are our top four tips to help you get better engagement on Facebook.

Today we’re sharing with you 4 ways to help you grow that engagement without paying for Facebook ads. So whether you’re a tradie, a builder, a handyman or anyone that works on the tools all day –  read on.

Step 1: Create content that is relevant

Staying relevant and posting current content is a great way to encourage Facebook engagement. We’ve reviewed 4 handyman pages and Heath Home Handyman is the only page of the four to mention COVID-19 and their response to the pandemic.

How did they do it?

The business used their Facebook page to stay relevant by acknowledging the pandemic, as well as offer a new service which was in response to COVID lockdowns.

This post was relevant, relatable and also told a personal story about how the individuals of the business are keeping busy with their toddlers. This post lead to high user engagement. We can see that the post has 7 shares. One of the four comments was a recommendation to a friend who also has kids.

The business also did well to show their adaptability and varied services for when business can’t run as usual, which in this case was due to the Stage 4 restrictions in Victoria.

Step 2. Tell a story

Making a connection with audiences through Facebook can have a direct and powerful impact on your engagement level and business sales. As a tradie, make sure you use content that tells a great story to grab and keeping the audience’s attention, and helps them to visualise themselves with your story.

While Heath Home Handyman did a great job at this in his relevant COVID post, Handyman George tells wonderful descriptive stories in almost all of their posts.

Here is an example from February 2020.

How did they do it?

Rather than just saying “we are booked until March” they have gone a step further and used descriptive language. Note they have also stayed relevant by mentioning the season and weather.

Here are some other examples.

Handy Man Georges states where the property is located while using descriptive words like ‘elegant’. They let us know what service they did and that the customer was happy with the results. This could have been taken slightly further by adding why the customer wanted the work done – perhaps the previous paint colour was outdated, or perhaps they are planning to sell. Adding to the story provides more opportunity to reach a larger audience.

While Handy Man George didn’t have a job to post, they were creative in creating a check-list. Once again they have used the season and weather change to start their story. This example is more about their creativity to provide a winter checklist. It gives users the chance to connect by comparing their circumstance to the list.

The story is that the company is communicating they care about your property. Not only are they showing they want the most for you, but they are also showing many of the services they can provide.

Step 3: Go the extra mile with imagery (and organise them in albums)

Facebook posts that include a photo see higher than normal engagement rates. Some audiences may be visual learners, so you are widening your potential audience by including both written and visual storytelling.

Photos of past work are important in the trade industry because they provide the audience with a way to verify a handyman’s quality so make sure you take photos pre, during and post the job so that you can use them later on social media.

While Handyman Shayne’s descriptions are a little short, they use many photos to show their services and tell a story of the progress of the job.

Audiences really love a before and after photo – something all of our Handyman business page examples have done, however, Shayne takes it further with more imagery, highlighting the entire process.

You can see they received a great amount of engagement on this post of photos – including two shares.

Here is another great example with a more in-depth description.

Heath Home Handyman from Step1 has made it easy for potential clients to find examples of his work by sorting the photos into relevant photo albums depending on the service. You can see an album for Desk Restorations, Custom Cabinets, Fencing and More.

Video posts are just as effective at inviting engagement as photos. All our handymen businesses had at least one video. Like photography, videography can be easy and affordable. Most modern mobile phone cameras will do the trick for simple, beginner videos.

Fix-It-Fast Handyman’s High Response Rate

Our final handyman business, Fix It Fast, excelled when it came to customer interaction.

It’s important to respond to someone when they take the time to comment on your content, whether it be a photo, video or text post. Nobody likes to feel overlooked, and audiences who engage with your posts are looking for that interaction.

Here is a post where Tim used great vibrant images to show a recent job. An existing customer then mentioned someone else in the comments. This is already great engagement and a successful outcome for the post and maybe even a potential new client.

Fix It Fast could have left it there but instead responded to the existing customer and thanked them for their recommendation. Knowing their suggestion was appreciated will make the existing customer even more likely to recommend you again in the future.

Sometimes a simple comment response is all that’s needed. Sometimes further action may be required. Here is an example of both in the same comment thread.

Here you can see Fix It Fast has asked the customer to personally message them. Alternatively, they could have commented that they will follow up. Make sure you have a person in place to monitor and respond to all comments and queries if you’re not doing this yourself.

What is one small step all handyman businesses can do to improve their Facebook marketing?

Be Consistent. While all the Handyman businesses are succeeding at encouraging engagement in different ways, it should be said they all need more consistency.

To get engagement, your business needs to be posting consistently. This way your audience comes to expect posts from you and regularly look for content. Facebook’s algorithm also favours pages that post consistently and get good engagement from their audience.

Facebook suggests posting at least two or three times per week, however, it is worth trialling what works for your business and when you start to see the most engagement.