Social Media for Tradies
Social media rarely brings a tradie work directly — but it's very good at proving you're real to someone who's already been given your name. Here's how to get that value without it eating your evenings.
Plenty of tradies have been told they need to be on social media, spent a fortnight posting, seen nothing happen and quit. That's a reasonable response to a badly framed promise. Social media is rarely where a trade business gets discovered. Where it earns its keep is the step after: the referred client who looks you up, the homeowner comparing three quotes, the builder deciding whether you're worth a call. This guide covers what to post, where the content comes from, and how to keep it going in about twenty minutes a week.
Doing this job for a living? See job management in ServiceYak.
Be honest about what it's for
Set the expectation properly and social media stops being disappointing. For almost every trade business it does three things, and none of them is a flood of enquiries.
- It proves you're real. Someone was given your name. They search you. An account with recent job photos says the business exists, works regularly and does decent work.
- It shows the standard. Photos of finished work do the arguing about quality that copy can't.
- It keeps you in mind. Past clients and people who nearly hired you see your work occasionally and remember you when the next job comes up.
Direct enquiries do come, especially in the visual trades — landscaping, carpentry, tiling, renovation work. But treat them as a bonus, not the reason you're there. If the only measure is enquiries per post, you'll quit before the actual value shows up.
If you're choosing between a social account and a complete Google Business Profile, do the profile. It's where people search. Social is what they check afterwards.
The content is already on your phone
The reason most trade accounts die is that people think they need to make content. You don't. You need to photograph work you're already doing and write one sentence about it.
| Post | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Finished job, photographed properly | The workhorse. Do more of these than anything else |
| Before and after | The most persuasive post there is, especially for landscaping, renovation and restoration work |
| A short walk-through of a completed job | Shows the standard across a whole space rather than one angle |
| Answering a question clients always ask | Positions you as the one who knows. Also useful copy for your website |
| The crew, the ute, a day on site | People hire people. This is the post that makes you a person rather than a business |
| A problem you found and fixed | Demonstrates judgement, not just labour — the thing that justifies your price |
| A review, screenshotted with the job photo | Someone else saying you're good is worth more than you saying it |
What doesn't work: motivational quotes, stock images, anything about how passionate you are, and reposting someone else's content. None of it says anything about you.
A system you'll actually keep up
Consistency beats quality here, and a system beats motivation. Twenty minutes a week is enough if the photos are already being taken.
- Photograph every job as you finish it. Make it part of packing up, the same as loading the tools. Ten shots takes two minutes and you'll never come back for them later.
- Keep them attached to the job, not loose in a camera roll. A camera roll with four thousand photos in it is the same as having none. Photos filed against the job stay findable months later, when you want them for a post or a quote.
- Batch the writing once a week. Sit down once, pick three or four jobs, write a sentence each, and schedule them. Doing it job by job in the evening is what burns people out.
- Post at a rate you can hold in a busy month. Once a week forever beats daily for a fortnight and then silence. An account that stopped eight months ago is worse than no account.
- Reply to comments and messages. Someone asking a price in your messages is an enquiry. Treat it like a phone call, not like social media.
Get client permission before posting work at their property, especially the inside of a house. Almost everyone says yes when asked at handover, and asking afterwards is awkward.
Writing the caption
The caption doesn't have to be clever. It has to say what the job was, roughly where, and one thing worth knowing about it.
- Name the job and the suburb. Ducted system replaced in Rosebud. It tells people what you do and where you do it, which is what they're checking.
- Add the interesting bit. What was wrong, what was tricky, what you'd tell someone considering the same thing.
- Skip the sales pitch. A photo of good work with a plain description sells harder than any call to action.
- Write like you talk. Trade accounts that sound like a marketing agency are less convincing than ones that sound like a tradie.
- Don't publish anything you'd regret a client seeing. Site fails, complaints about customers, arguments in comments — that's your business name attached to it.
Knowing whether it's worth continuing
Follower counts are not the point. Judge it on things that connect to work.
- Ask new clients where they heard about you and write the answer down. It's the only reliable measure you'll get.
- Count the enquiries that arrive as messages rather than calls.
- Notice whether clients mention it. People saying they saw your work online before they rang is the value showing up, even when nobody clicked anything.
- Watch the effort, not the reach. If it's costing you two hours a week and producing nothing you can point to, cut back to fortnightly rather than quitting.
ServiceYak keeps job photos and notes on the job record rather than loose in your phone, so when you sit down to post — or to put a gallery together for a quote — the good shots from three months ago are still where you left them.
Frequently asked questions
Does social media actually get tradies work?
Sometimes directly, in the visual trades especially, but its main job is proof. A referred client who looks you up and finds recent photos of good work is much more likely to ring. Judge it on that rather than on enquiries per post, and it's clearly worth twenty minutes a week.
How often should a trade business post?
Once a week, held indefinitely, beats anything more ambitious. The failure mode is posting daily for a fortnight and then stopping — an account that went quiet eight months ago reads worse than no account at all. Pick a rate you can maintain in your busiest month.
What should I post if my work isn't very photogenic?
The problem you found and how you fixed it, the questions clients always ask, and the crew. Not every trade produces a photogenic result, but every trade produces judgement calls worth explaining — and those posts do more to justify your price than a pretty photo does anyway.
Should I pay to boost posts?
Only once the unpaid version is working. Paying to put a mediocre post in front of more people mostly buys you a bigger audience for a mediocre post. If you do spend, work out first what a job is worth to you so you know what you can afford, and treat it as a test with a stop date.