Getting engagement on Facebook can be a challenge for contractors.

Oftentimes when it comes to home projects, people aren’t proactive. They’re reactive, meaning that they think about protecting their gutters, repairing their roofs, replacing their siding or windows only after a disaster has occurred. It’s not always top of mind.  People tend to use Facebook more for checking in with their family and friends, and less so searching for a local home pro.

Having said that, it doesn’t mean getting engagement and building a following of loyal evangelists on social media is impossible. There are a few tricks available to home services contractors that are effective.

1) Share educational content. Sharing 1/3 company-related content and 2/3 engaging content strikes a good balance. At Surefire Local, we encourage all of our clients to always share educational content. You want viewers to come away with learning something no matter what you share. If your business publishes great blog content and on a consistent basis, you can create custom images with key takeaways, tips, quotes, etc. from that content which you can post along with a link to the individual blog post.

2) Share photos and videos. Whenever possible, learn towards sharing photos or videos over text updates. We’ve seen video perform the best of the four types of posts you can share (link, text, photo, video). For home services contractors, a great source of video content that is easy to produce (using only a smartphone) is completed projects. Showcasing your previous work is the best way to convince someone who’s on the fence about your company to trust you. Similarly, you can turn multiple photos from the same project or a few projects of the same job into a slideshow movie and add a fun jingle.

3) Look at Facebook Insights. I highly recommend looking at Facebook Insights on your business page’s settings. Here you’ll find the exact times when your audience is most active. Each audience is unique. While you may hear 3 PM Eastern on Wednesdays is the best time to share content on Facebook if your audience is most active at 8 PM Eastern, why not schedule your posts to publish then and increase your chances of having your content viewed organically in the newsfeed?

4) Utilize Facebook Advertising with specific targeting. My final tip would be to utilize Facebook Ads. You can see great results on a relatively small budget too. We have many clients spending $300 a month on promoting their content with great success. You’re able to target people specifically within your service radius by zip code and people with specific characteristics such as being interested in home improvement, own a home, home value, income, etc.) The more targeted you can be with your audience and ad copy, the better results you’ll see.

If you would like to see more engagement and take your social media presence one step further, I recommend downloading this eBook: Making Social Media Work for Your Local Business (it’s free!)

This article first appeared on Surefire Local’s blog and the full post can be viewed here.