15 Social Media Tips & Ideas for Roofing Companies

Social Media Tips and Ideas for Roofing Companies

Every social media tip and idea we cover below shares a common goal—to humanize your brand so people see you as a friend they can call to fix roofing problems.

But as odd as it might sound, that won’t happen if generating sales is your primary focus on social media platforms. Users will likely avoid your posts instead of engaging with them.

Why? 34 percent of customers say too much promotional content is a major turn-off in how they perceive brands. And 56 percent of customers believe brands should be relatable on social media, not pushy or ‘salesy.’

“Sell to people on everything else, but make social media fun and engaging,” says Crystal Williams, founder of Lemon Seed Marketing.

Vanessa Gonzales, owner and co-founder of Albuquerque Plumbing, Heating & Cooling, takes the same stand.

“We like to use social media to brag on our team,” she says. “We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and other milestones. We’ll post our team member of the month. We keep it social. That’s what social media is.”

If you must sell your roofing services, run paid social media campaigns. Then, link the ads to your business page. This way, potential clients from the ad can forge an emotional connection with your brand and schedule their first appointment.

Here's a brief rundown of the strategies we'll cover:

Let's explore each one in more detail.

1. Upload images of your team in action

Posting images of your team gives customers an idea of your company's values and work processes and humanizes your brand.

This helps gain customers' trust, strengthens customer relationships, and convinces them to book appointments.

Scrutinize every roofer image before posting to ensure it shows all safety guidelines. Delete or blur sensitive information such as home addresses, license plates, and phone numbers to prevent liabilities and protect your brand's online reputation.

Take this post from Baker Roofing, for example.

Source: Instagram

The image shows a roofer using the right roofing tools without breaking any OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) guidelines. The accompanying caption further explains the image and showcases the firm’s roofing expertise.

Before you post any image of your employees, seek their consent. That’s why it’s recommended to have an existing social media policy and include image usage guidelines in hiring contracts.

If you don't already have such policies, don't penalize employees who withhold their consent. They may be camera-shy or have a fear of stalking.

2. Spy on competitor social media profiles

Spying on competitors' social media pages can reveal insights, industry trends, and marketing strategies for improving your social media game.

It reveals potential threats and shows how your social media performance compares with the rest of the industry

You can also use customer feedback on your competitors' social media to improve your own services and value proposition.

To find your competitors:

• Run social media searches with a keyword that's relevant to your business.

• Use platform-native tools such as Facebook's Audience Insights to find the roofing companies your customers follow.

• Leverage social media tools such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or Brand24.

Once you have the list of comparably sized competitors, go through their social media handles and answer these questions:

• Which social channels do they use?

• What's their audience growth rate?

• When do they post, and what do they post about?

• How many times do they post daily and weekly?

• What's their average engagement rate?

• What is the demographic and psychographic profile of their top followers?

• Who are the people they’ve partnered with?

These questions can reveal their strengths and weaknesses that you can learn from and take advantage of.

Pro tip: Don’t copy and paste competitor posts and social media strategies; what worked for them may not necessarily work for you. Use them only as a source of inspiration to create better posts and strategies.

3. Use hashtags and mentions

After posting your content, the next step is to ensure members of your target audience see it. Hashtags are one way to do that.

Using hashtags ensures your posts are grouped with others relating to the same topics, so your post appears when people search for those topics.

For example, say you use #roofingcompany in an Instagram post. That means your post will appear whenever users search "roofing company."

In addition to getting inspiration from competitors, you can find hashtags for your posts using the social network's search engine. You could also use hashtag generators.

To get the best out of hashtags, keep them short so they’re easy to remember.

Also, don't spam your posts with too many hashtags. They could make your posts look suspicious and unappealing.

How many hashtags are sufficient for a post?

The optimal number of hashtags per post depends on your platform.

Hootsuite, a social media management platform, recommends using the following number of hashtags per post on each platform:

• 1–2 for X (formerly Twitter)

• 3–5 for Instagram

• 2–3 for Facebook

• 3–5 for YouTube

• 1–5 for LinkedIn

• 2–5 for Pinterest

• 3–5 for TikTok

Pro tip: Always make your social media account public so that both followers and non-followers see your hashtagged posts.

4. Leverage reels and video content

Due to time constraints and changing content-consumption habits, social media users rarely have time to read through long, text-based posts.

So they scroll through their feeds, only stopping when something like a video or reel catches their attention. That’s why online videos had the largest reach in the third quarter of 2023, reaching 92.3 percent of internet users worldwide.

Further, knowing the effectiveness of videos, 71 percent of marketers say they created social media videos in 2022.

You can create testimonial, teaser, or explainer videos like this one from Professional Roofers:

Source: Instagram

Notice how the video showcases the company’s roofers on a metal roofing project. This demonstrates their expertise in metal sheet roofing, making them the first company potential customers contact whenever they have such projects in mind.

Above everything else, ensure your social media videos and reels resonate with potential customers to elicit a favorable response. You can use the language, music, memes, or even pop culture references they're familiar with.

For example, Armando Ramos, owner of Plomero en Phoenix, started creating TikTok videos in Spanish to connect with his target audience.

Today, he is one of the top Phoenix plumbing companies, with a very strong online presence.

For example, his recent TikTok video of plumbing tasks accompanied by fast-paced Mexican music has almost two million interactions—1.8 million likes, 7k+ comments, 25k+ bookmarks, and 13.1k+ shares.

Source: TikTok

“Oh, man, the response was amazing,” Ramos says. “We get lots of comments, and people have gone crazy. Everywhere I go, people start singing the song to me. Everybody loves it.”

Pro tip: There’s no need to hire video editors or spend hours editing and polishing the videos yourself, especially when running on a tight budget. Besides, as Ramos’s story proves, customers value authenticity.

“I think a lot of people identify with me because the videos aren’t perfect,” says Ramos. 

“People say, ‘Dude, you're genuine. You're not doing crazy editing stuff.’ I just do them, and they work, you know what I mean?”

So, be authentic. Forget about showcasing an overly polished image; social media users will instinctively connect with your brand.

Pro tip!

Repurpose long-form videos—webinars and seminars—into reels and other short-form videos. Considering their popularity, this can generate a significant amount of traffic.

“Investing in this format [15-30 second videos] has been exceptionally effective for our business,” says Farhan Siraj, co-founder and CEO of OSHA Outreach Courses.

“After one of our videos garnered over 10,000 views on YouTube, we experienced a significant influx of website visitors. More than 50 of these visitors converted, which was a pleasant surprise to us, considering we never thought of short videos as a source of conversions.”

You can also turn quotes from your articles into graphics and share them on Instagram and TikTok.

5. Respond to comments

Social media involves interacting with others. That makes it best practice to respond to comments, whether complaints, neutral comments, or glowing recommendations.

51 percent of customers in a recent Sprout Social survey say the most memorable brands respond to customer comments. Plus, 38 percent believe that such brands prioritize engaging directly with their audience over publishing a lot of content.

Also, responding to comments and reviews broadens your posts’ reach, especially since social media algorithms use engagement rates as a ranking factor.

What's the best way to respond to comments or reviews?

• Respond on time, preferably within 24–48 hours. This lets customers know you're always listening to them and are ready to do anything to resolve their roofing challenges.

• Always thank the customer for their comments and reviews, even if they're negative. Appreciate their opinion, acknowledge the problem, and tell them you're committed to resolving it.

• Take advantage of customer inquiries and questions to show your expertise. Give a helpful comment and link to materials they can consult for more information.

• Leave public comments on negative reviews. Then, take the conversation private to discuss the issue further and resolve it.

Pro tip: You can use ServiceTitan’s Reputation Management feature to respond to reviews and comments from all your business listings in one place.

The tool centralizes all customer comments and reviews from different listing directories into a single dashboard where you can respond. This can reduce unattended comments and customer complaints 

ServiceTitan’s Reputation Management platform also allows you to manage company listings on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Foursquare in a single location. This ensures your company details are consistent, which builds customer trust and can increase local search rankings.

6. Interact with social media users

The primary goal of being on social media is to interact, connect, and build relationships with users (read: existing and potential customers). That’s why it’s called a social platform.

Interacting with other users also grows your page’s reach and following.

So, always respond to customers who talk about your roofing business. Reply to direct messages. Provide helpful answers to their questions. And amplify commendations from satisfied customers.

You can also initiate conversations with prospects posting about the roofing industry without tagging or mentioning your brand.

For example, you could start a debate on choosing asphalt or metal shingles and explain their suitability for different climates and budgets.

7. Create “how to” content

Aside from entertaining and connecting with potential customers, social media is a great opportunity for roofing companies to demonstrate their expertise.

How? By creating how-to social media posts about roofing. 

It could be a post about spotting roofing issues or a link to an article on roof maintenance. Or a video tutorial on shingle installation, like Everything Roofing does, in this TikTok...

Source: TikTok

As the engagement numbers of Everything Roofing's TikTok prove, people associate with brands that resolve their pain points before they ask.

Also, providing value using how-to's establishes you as an industry expert, attracting potential customers.

8. Run contests and giveaways

Another tried-and-tested way to grow engagement and brand awareness is to run social media contests.

The prize incentivizes people to participate and grows your account’s visibility.

For example, you could test your audience's knowledge of roofing materials, awarding those providing the most correct answers with a roofing discount.

Another contest idea is encouraging people to like, share, or comment on your post to enter sweepstakes for a free roofing inspection.

When running a contest, you should:

• Lay out the rules and guidelines for participating in the contest.

• Outline the criteria for picking a winner.

• Obey local legal guidelines related to contests.

• Decide on the time frame, preferably a short one. Running a contest for too long can damage your engagement rate.

Most importantly, the prize should be something that excites your audience. Give them a prize that will help them resolve a problem and persuade them to trust your business so they return to book a job.

Finally, consider collaborating with complementary businesses that can contribute to the prize. For example, if you serve small businesses, you could collaborate with an accounting firm to offer discounted account audits.

9. Create “before and after” content

Nothing convinces prospects more than a video or image of a completed project.

It proves you can resolve their roofing complaints, having done the same for someone else. This aligns with the psychological phenomenon of social proof—people's tendency to let people like them influence their buying decisions.

That's why before-and-after content is so effective.

When creating it, use close-up shots to make the transformation visible. Take this video from True Roofers, for example.

Source: TikTok

There's a wide gulf between the appearance of the roof before and after True Roofers’ work.

This paints a vivid picture of the outcome that prospects grappling with a similar challenge crave, making them more likely to book your services.

To add more context to before-and-after content, add an audio narration explaining the specific challenges the customer faced and how you solved them. 

You can subtly incorporate your roofing company's logo or slogan in the video. This way, even if the video is shared outside social media platforms, viewers can still connect with you and learn more about your services.

Finally, always seek the client’s permission before you film and post before-and-after content. Not every homeowner will be comfortable putting images or videos of their homes online.

10. Share local events

As a roofing contractor, you're most likely servicing residents of a specific geographic area, like a town or county. This presents a great social media content idea.

You could post about roofing events in your local service area—especially if you're participating. Examples include trade shows, local fairs, home shows, etc.—the list goes on.

This demonstrates your commitment to your local area, making residents view your company as a valuable part of the community. It also demonstrates your industry expertise and builds deeper connections with community members.

11. Share industry news

Another way to prove your expertise is by sharing industry information. This includes discussing new roofing techniques, industry events, materials, etc. 

It shows you’re in touch with the roofing industry and have all it takes to deliver high-quality modern roofing.

There are many content formats you can use for sharing industry news:

• Live streams with industry experts

• Summary of an article on your website

• Reposts of content from accounts of trusted roofing industry news sources

To find industry news to share, follow top roofing industry experts and publications. You could also encourage your roofers to share industry news or helpful roofing tips with your social media team.

12. Schedule posts

Social media algorithms reward consistency—the more you post, the greater your account's reach.

That said, you can't spend all your time on social media strategy unless you have a dedicated social media manager.

So, what's the solution? Schedule your posts.

Instead of spending hours on social media sites, create several social media content items and schedule them to be posted at specific times.

Some platforms, like LinkedIn and Facebook, have built-in content scheduling tools. However, for platforms that lack such tools, consider using social media management tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social.

When’s the best time to post?

In a recent podcast episode, Mike Kyle, content manager for Contractor Growth Network, said the best times are early morning, lunchtime, and evening.

Early morning because people often check their socials after waking up; afternoon because people sometimes go through their socials at lunch; and evening because people will be resting and may want to check their socials on the way home from work or just before retiring to bed.

13. Leverage sponsored posts

Sponsored posts are a paid offering that involves paying social media platforms to promote your organic posts to people's feeds.

This approach costs a lot. But the return on investment (ROI) it generates justifies the cost.

It expands your post's reach, ensuring your content gets to people who may not have seen it.

Also, sponsored posts resemble organic content, seamlessly integrating into users' feeds. This prevents ad fatigue and encourages higher engagement.

In addition to paying social media platforms to boost your posts, consider promoting them through roofing influencers.

Collaborating with influencers is an effective type of sponsored post, especially since 30 percent of U.S. social media users say they've bought something after seeing an influencer or content creator post about it.

You can find roofing influencers by running a search on any social media platform of your choice.

14. Share “behind the scenes” footage

Behind-the-scenes footage gives people a sneak peek into your company.

It shows the real people behind your company, humanizing your brand and connecting with your target audience.

You can film a walk-in video showing employees tending to their daily tasks like Artistic Roofing does in this video.

Source: TikTok

Other variations of behind-the-scenes footage that you can use include:

• Day-in-the-life videos filming employees as they tend to their tasks.

• Meet-the-team videos where you ask employees questions about themselves.

• User-generated content (UGC) where you interview satisfied customers.

15. Analyze the data

After creating and posting content, the next step is to track its performance using the relevant metrics.

This can reveal areas for improvement, helping you fine-tune your social media strategy. You can also use performance data to spot when to change strategy.

Start by tracking the number of engagements your posts receive: likes, shares, views, clicks, and comments.

However, to better understand your social media strategy's performance, you should also track:

• Amplification rate: The ratio of shares to your number of followers. Simply divide a post's shares by the number of followers you have.

• Reach: The total number of people who see your post.

• Impression: The number of times people saw your post.

• Audience growth rate: The number of new followers you gain within a certain period. Calculate it by dividing your net new followers by your total followers and multiplying the result by 100.

• Video views: The number of people who watch your video.

• Video completion rate: The number of people watching your video to the end.

Social media platforms have inbuilt analytic dashboards for the basic performance metrics.

But if you want to go beyond the basic performance metrics to better understand the performance of your content, consider using a social media tool.

Social Media Marketing Best Practices Roofers Should Know

Now that you know all the strategies you can use to grow your social media presence, here are some key roofing social media marketing tips.

Before we explain each tip in detail, it’s worth noting that they are not limited to just social media. You can use them for every marketing channel.

Speaking of other marketing channels, you can always use ServiceTitan’s Home Services Marketing software to keep track of your marketing campaigns.

The platform lets you create and assign a unique number to each campaign, helping you track its exact ROI.

It also showcases your campaigns' performance using a marketing scorecard filled with relevant metrics. There’s also a heatmap that shows your campaign’s performance in each zip code—the bigger the blue circle, the greater the revenue generated in that area.

This reveals areas to spend your ad dollars to achieve the best ROI, helping you maximize your marketing budget and grow your business.

Another important ServiceTitan’s Home Marketing software feature is the Local Services Ads platform.

This helps roofing companies track and manage local services ads (LSAs). The platform pulls job bookings from LSAs directly into ServiceTitan, so you can follow up on prospects.

Now for those best practices…

Know your audience

Creating an effective roofing social media strategy starts with finding your audience.

Are they homeowners? Do they own commercial properties? Or are they DIY enthusiasts?

This will inform the type of topics you’ll post about and the tone you’ll adopt.

To find your audience, survey existing customers. Or analyze the audience composition on competitors’ social media pages, noting the most active ones.

Balance educational and promotional content

The primary purpose of social media is to engage with your audience. No one logs into Instagram expecting to be sold roofing services.

So, create a healthy balance between promotional and educational or entertainment posts. 

“Create 80 percent of your content around your prospect's problems and how to solve them,” says Hanna, a growth marketer at Niceboard.

“Only 20 percent max. should be about the business (news, announcements, milestones). You want to make the profile valuable and informative to your audience, instead of talking about your business.”

Remember, you can showcase your industry expertise to attract top talents with educational posts like “How to use a roofing calculator.”

Be consistent

“Content is the king, but consistency is the queen,” says Diana Zheng, head of marketing at Stallion Express.

When you post consistently, people connect with your account and start engaging with it. The social media algorithm senses this connection and starts surfacing your posts in other people’s feeds.

Posting consistently can mean three, four, or five times a week. The most important thing is setting a posting frequency and doing your best to abide by it.

Here are some tips from Diana you can use to remain consistent:

• Follow a content calendar

• Use user-generated content

• Use a mix of visual content, video content, and interactive content

You can also encourage employees across all departments to chip in with post ideas. Plus, mandate techs to return with two or three photos or videos from every job, showing the before-and-after transformation or featuring themselves at work.

Set your goals

What do you want to achieve with social media?

Improved lead generation? Greater brand awareness? Or building expertise?

Remember this: social media strategy is a marathon rather than a sprint; the goal isn’t to generate sales immediately.

So, when setting goals, aim for the future. Once you begin to meet those goals, sales will likely start happening.

Now Over to You

Roofing companies like yours have a lot to gain from social media. 

So, stay active on social media channels to grow your brand awareness and generate roofing leads. 

Also, consider using other marketing channels like search engine optimization to generate more leads and roofing software like ServiceTitan to boost your social media efforts.

ServiceTitan is an all-in-one software home service companies use to automate business processes. Over 100,000 contractors across the country use the tool.