Imagine standing on a stage in front of 3 billion people. Someone hands you a microphone and gives you the opportunity to promote your business.

What would you say?

It may seem overwhelming, maybe even a little scary – but you certainly wouldn’t let the opportunity pass you by. Or would you?

That’s essentially what you’re doing if you aren’t using social media to promote your construction business.

Of the approximately 3 billion people active on social media in the world, each one spends an average of just over two hours on various platforms each day. That’s a lot of scrolling and clicking – so why not try and capture a portion of it?

But how, you ask? And which portion?

Therein lies the science – and quite frankly, the art – of social media campaigns that get results.

At Star, we believe in the power of technology to give our builders every advantage, and we work hard to create innovative tools and services to help you meet the demands of today’s consumers. When you pair that with smart, effective social media marketing that both targets the right audience and delivers the right message, you open new avenues for business that otherwise might land on your competitor’s desk.

“We get the least organic interaction from our Facebook posts, because it’s more social”, Gerald explains, “We find that users on that platform interact more with posts that affect our local community”

One Star builder setting a great example is Conger Construction Group in Lebanon, Ohio. Conger’s director of marketing, Laura Gerald, has worked to build the company’s presence through weekly posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. They are currently working to create a YouTube channel to promote videos showcasing recent projects and other current news from the company. In the four years Gerald has been on the job at Conger, she has watched the engagement from their audience grow and also observed how people interact differently on the various platforms. As she plans posts, she tailors content to be the most effective on each one. “We get the least organic interaction from our Facebook posts, because it’s more social”, Gerald explains, “We find that users on that platform interact more with posts that affect our local community, so we try to make that the focus. Overall, it can be a little overwhelming because each channel is just different enough that you need to pay attention to each one. But if someone were just getting started, I would recommend they establish themselves professionally on Linkedin first and then add one channel at a time.”

Overall, construction industry professionals have been among the slow adopters of social media as a valuable source for lead generation, primarily because it’s been common belief that social media is designed for business-to-consumer messaging and not for business-to-business. Undoubtedly, it can be a bit trickier to get right, but the payoff can be worth working through the trials and   the errors.

Larry Conger, CEO of Conger Construction, has seen the results of social media and believes in using it as an integral part of their business-building strategies. “We use the analytical tools to see how posts are performing and how many people have been viewing a particular post;” says Conger, “For our company, we feel like having strong social media content out there in the marketplace is an invaluable tool. We want people to understand who Conger Construction is and what we do and how we go about it.”

If you like the idea of people understanding your company a little better too, but aren’t quite sure how to tell that story, start by taking a look at the people and the projects around you. For Conger, those are great resources for effective content. “We post information about our completed projects, groundbreakings for new projects, or just projects that have some unique attributes to them;” says Conger, “If we take a team to the national sales meetings or have project managers doing education courses or learning how to use new software, we’ll post things of that nature.” Taking the focus outside the office and their own company, Conger Construction often posts about new things in the construction industry in general or stories related to the business. It’s all just part of the strategy to keep the Conger name at the front of people’s minds and to be a valued resource not just for quality building construction but for relevant, meaningful information.

So builders, we encourage you: start building your social media presence. Think of it like metal construction – it’s a cost-effective and smart investment that will pay off for many years to come.