Stop selling! Social media is for creating awareness and developing relationships

Social media marketing is very different than traditional marketing. You shouldn't login with the intent to sell your roofing services. Instead, look to create relationships. If people feel you are part of their community they will support you and recommend your company to their colleagues, family and friends.

Here are 5 tips for getting started on creating relationships with existing and potential roofing customers using social media:

Dedicate Resources
Building relationships in social media requires both time AND people. At least one person needs to be responsible for communicating with those you are connected to, including reading status updates, Tweets, and blog posts; writing comments, joining groups, uploading photos and videos, participating in discussion forums, writing and sharing blog posts, responding to questions, etc.

Be Real
Building relationships in social media is predicated on trust and familiarity. Be yourself, and let your employees be themselves as representatives of your roofing company. Creating a stale, robotic profile and only posting sales messages and links to your website or blog are pointless activities, and honestly a complete waste of time. You want to discover a suitable mix of personality and professionalism.

Communicate Early & Often
It doesn't matter if you send email newsletters, write blog posts, update your status, send Tweets, or post to a group discussion - just be sure you are actively communicating. Get a jump start on topics that are hot in the industry and respond to them earlier than your competitors. Communicating often helps to build relationships with your audience so they can trust you will be there and will inform them of the valuable information they need or are looking for.

Get Involved
Engage your connections with questions and provide relevant context to what you post. People will start to ignore you if what you post isn't a two-way conversation. Get involved - if people are looking for assistance, point them in the right direction when you can or introduce them to someone who can. If someone posts something funny, interesting or personal, "Like" it, comment on it, re-Tweet it, etc. Show them you are interested in what they have to say as well.

Remember to Listen
Building a relationship requires that you listen more and talk less. As much as you want to spend time promoting your roofing services, that is actually the last thing you should do on social media. It is amazing what you can learn just by listening to what your customers are saying. Take the time to read their posts, the comments they leave on your blog, their Tweets, what they say in reviews, etc. This will help you understand their needs, concerns and interests.

If you have any questions about creating relationships with roofing customers on social media or would like help coming up with a social media strategy for your roofing company, please feel free to contact RoofPal any time.


This episode of the RoofPal Marketing Podcast is brought to you by The Contractors Alliance. Diversify your service offerings by integrating Conklin reflective cool roof coatings, foam, single-ply and other systems into your roofing business. For more information please contact Stan Volkman at (612) 750-6639, via email at Info@TheContractorsAlliance.com, or by visiting them online at TheContractorsAlliance.com.

How to find potential roofing customer contact information online (Part 1)

When developing contact lists for commercial roofing companies, the first thing I do is create a spreadsheet with columns for Name, Title, Company, Phone, Fax, Email, Mailing Address, and website URL. You can add more columns for information such as links to their various social media profile URL's upfront, or just add them later as additional information becomes available.

Next, I do a Google search for "commercial property management" plus each city name in their service area. I copy and paste the company name, website URL, address, and general phone and fax number into the spreadsheet as I find them. Sometimes you can also find aggregation sites or directories that have many of these companies listed in one document or page.

Once I am satisfied with my company search, I start at the top of the list, insert a dozen or so rows under the first entry, and visit their website. Most companies will list all of their property managers, brokers, agents, etc. somewhere on their site. I then copy each name, direct phone number or extension, cell phone number, email address, and any other pertinent information into the spreadsheet. Repeat this for each company on the list.

For companies who do not list any or all of their property managers, you can copy the company's website domain and do a Google search for the word 'email' and the company's domain. That usually results in more contacts, especially for managers of specific properties such as onsite managers of multi-housing or apartment communities. To find more information on those people whose email address you found, one at a time do a Google search using quotes around the email address.

I target property management companies first because many commercial buildings are professionally managed, which includes filling vacancies, managing contracts, collecting lease payments, and (most importantly for your roofing company), dispatching repair work and managing capital improvements.

You now have enough direct contact information to execute an extremely targeted cold call and/or direct mail campaign.

The information you have is also helpful for planning an outdoor media campaign. By creating a heat map of the physical addresses of each property management company, you can geo-target the best areas to put up billboards, bus stop signs and more around the most populated property management buildings in the city.

You also have enough information, such as their name, location, the company they work for, their email address, etc. to begin searching for these property managers and brokers on social media and requesting to connect with them.

In future podcast episodes (and blog posts) I'll go in to more detail about finding facilities managers, building owners and even homeowners online, as well as planning outdoor advertising campaigns and connecting with potential roofing customers on various social media sites.

If you have any questions about finding potential roofing customers in your service area online or would like assistance doing so, please contact RoofPal any time.


This episode of the RoofPal Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Hail-Track. Hail-Track combines real-time storm maps with geo- and time-stamped pictures and videos online as well as several other powerful tools to help hyper-target your advertising after a big storm anywhere in your service area. Learn more by visiting Hail-Track.com.

Why you should share pictures and videos of roofing jobs on social media in real-time

There is so much great content a roofing company can share on social media beyond direct sales messages or links to their website, blog posts, manufacturer product information, or 
miscellaneous industry-related articles.

One of the best ways to demonstrate your quality workmanship and scope of service offerings is to show potential customers the actual work you are doing, indirectly advertising your  services by sharing pictures and short video clips of jobs you are working on.

The pictures you upload to your website are usually just the select few you are most proud of, and some may be a few years old. Most contractors don't prominently feature everyday 20-square shingle installations, routine maintenance work on a grocery store, or leak repairs at a warehouse.

For a roofing company, social media is great for updating the people you are connected to about what you are currently doing (as opposed to just sharing the best of what did in the past). It is a perfect forum to post a few pictures and even a 30-60 second video clip or two of the work you did earlier that day, or better yet - the work your company is doing right that moment.

The first step is develop a habit of taking pictures and videos of the work you are doing. This can done easily with most modern digital cameras and cell phones.

The second step is to determine which social media platform or platforms you will post them to, how often you'll do it, and how many pictures and videos you feel is appropriate to post per day.

The third step is to decide who will post them - whether allowing someone on the crew to post on the company's behalf from a smartphone, or to have them email the pictures back to the office for review, selection, editing (if needed), and sharing online.

Regardless of who posts the pictures and videos, make sure to include brief descriptions written in a way that would make sense to potential customers.

Also, don't forget to ask permission to tag the homeowner or company in the post. This is an excellent opportunity for virtual word-of-mouth advertising, as everyone they are connected to can see the quality work you are doing for someone they know.

Taking pictures and video clips also provides you with great content to share with the customer offline, giving them a first-hand look at what exactly was wrong, how you went about fixing it, and the quality of your finished work.

One other benefit to developing a habit of documenting the work you do with photos and short video clips is that, over time, you develop an extensive database of content to use for your website, blog posts, video blogs, sales presentations, brochures, and other marketing materials.

Something I often recommend is to watermark pictures with your company logo so other companies don't use them as their own. If you aren't sure how to do this, please feel free to contact me - I would be happy to show you how.

If you have any questions about real-time social sharing or would like assistance setting up a structured, repeatable process for your roofing company, please contact RoofPal any time.


This episode of the RoofPal Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Hail-Track. Hail-Track combines real-time storm maps with geo- and time-stamped pictures and videos online as well as several other powerful tools to help hyper-target your advertising after a big storm anywhere in your service area. Learn more by visiting Hail-Track.com.