Social Media Tips for Painting Contractors

Hey, every painting contractor wants to be on social media, and we are constantly harped at to chase after the newest, brightest, shiniest object that happens to show up in marketing blogs or something that we hear about in a forum or on a conference or in a private Facebook group. But the fact of the matter is, you can waste tons of time that you don’t have and lots of money that would be better used elsewhere in social media marketing, that doesn’t work for your painting business.

1. In Social Media, Consistency is King

So, the first thing I’m going to tell you and I’m going to give you three quick tips here is, number one, pick platforms and stick with them. You don’t have to be everywhere. But where you are, be good at it, enjoy it. Engage that community, post regularly. Video testimonials, projects, before and afters, community involvement, helpful information that frankly doesn’t even have to have and often it’s better if it doesn’t, anything to do with painting. Now that’s different than your blog content, which needs to be keyword specific, however when it comes to social media, it’s a little bit different. So once you pick a platform, be there. If you’re not going to keep up with it, just don’t be there.

2. The Powerhouses

Number two, there are two powerhouses, and I’m going to give you two specific tips in each one of them that can help you generate leads. The first one is Facebook. We know how to do the typical posting and engagement in building our followers list. But do you know about Facebook custom audiences for your painting company? It allows you to upload the email addresses of past clients, unconverted leads, referral sources, realtors, interior decorators and your commercial contacts and you can put ads specifically and only in front of them, which means that the waste is absolutely zero. Facebook custom audiences. You typically have about a 60 to a 70% match with your email list, and it means that you’re not only in front of good potential buyers, but you are in front of people that have purchased before, referred before or the people that you have hand selected to be quality prospects.

3. Social Media for Professionals

Here’s my third tip, LinkedIn. If you want to get into commercial painting, it is about major account prospecting. I used to be a major gift officer when I worked in the non-profit world and sometimes that still creeps up into my mind. But it’s major account prospecting. Just like if you did major account sales working for a pharmaceutical company or a major manufacturer. When you go after your top 100 list of commercial contacts, facility managers, maintenance managers and property managers, both those that are realtors who manage property and those that are housed in the building and work for the company that owns the building. They’re hard to reach, but once you reach them, most of them have a LinkedIn profile once you’ve identified the decision maker. So once you have built your top 100 list, you want to connect with them on LinkedIn. Now, did you know that you can download your list of contacts from LinkedIn? Not many people know that. I’m talking an Excel list with name, address, phone number, email address. It really helps you build your database for prospecting and when you post things it’s very often inside that feed because it is not as busy as Facebook. It’s a great way to communicate when they don’t respond by email, by phone, you can send them a LinkedIn message when they’re your followers.

So, number one, be there if you’re going to be there. Pick your platforms and stick with it. Number two, explore Facebook custom audiences for reactivation and retention. And number three, consider using LinkedIn for commercial prospecting because you can download the list and stay in front of those prospects. We’ve only scratched the surface here. So if you want to learn more about getting online leads for your painting business in social media, SEO and other places, simply download the free report and video training series on this page specifically and only for painting contractors where we reveal what’s really working out there all over the U.S., Canada, Australia and other English speaking areas. We cut to the chase, give you the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I’m Brandon Lewis with the Academy for Professional Painting Contractors and Painters Weekly. I hope these social media tips for your painting business have been helpful.

Take care.