Social media for plumbers, electricians and HVAC: a practical guide

Most people look for a plumber, electrician or heating engineer when something has already gone wrong. They search, compare two or three names and call. Your job on social media is to look local, qualified and quick to respond in the places they check.

Google Business Profile comes first. If you work at customers' homes rather than a shop, Google's guidelines say a service-area business should hide its address, and its example is a plumber working from a home address. You can then set up to 20 service areas by city, postcode or another type of area; a radius around your base is not an option.

Facebook suits local community groups and homeowners who ask neighbours for a recommendation. Instagram shows the standard of your work. Where Nextdoor is available, neighbours can recommend local businesses on your free business page, and Nextdoor says every member goes through a registration process to confirm where they live.

Sources: Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google, checked 15 October 2026; Google Business Profile Help: Manage your service areas, checked 15 October 2026; Nextdoor for Business: Small business guide to getting Nextdoor recommendations, checked 15 October 2026

Two or three posts a week is enough for a busy trade business. Take photos on every job, then pick the best two at the end of the week. Giving each day a job means you are never staring at a blank screen in the van.

• Monday: a finished job from last week, with the problem, the fix and the area (never the full address).
• Tuesday: a tip a homeowner can do safely, such as finding the stopcock or resetting a tripped breaker.
• Wednesday: a short clip of work in progress, like a tidy consumer unit, a boiler service or pipework before it is boxed in.
• Thursday: a team post. Who is on the van, what they specialise in and how long they have been in the trade.
• Friday: availability and seasonal reminders, such as booking a boiler or air conditioning service before the busy months.
• Weekend: a review shared with the customer's permission, or a story from the week.

Before-and-after photos do more than any slogan, because they show the standard of your work. They also need care, because you are working in someone's home.

Show safe working in every shot: isolation, the right protective equipment, tidy tools. Never post a how-to that encourages a homeowner to do work that needs a qualified person, and say plainly when a job needs a professional.

Check what your licensing body says about adverts. In California, for example, the Contractors State License Board says licensed contractors must include their licence number in all forms of advertising, and it counts any website or post that solicits business on the internet. Put your licence or registration number in your bio wherever your rules require it.

1. Ask before you take photos, and say they are for your website and social pages.
2. Take the before photo from the spot you will use for the after shot, so the two line up.
3. Keep house numbers, car registrations, post, family photos and anything personal out of frame.
4. Clean up, then shoot the after with the lights on and the area tidy. A neat finish is the point of the post.
5. Explain the job in plain words: what was wrong, what you did and how long it took.
6. Name the area, not the street, for example 'boiler swap in Headingley'.
7. Film clips vertically for Reels and stories, and keep a landscape version for YouTube or Facebook.

Source: California CSLB: Advertising guidelines for contractors (PDF), checked 15 October 2026

Reviews are often what decides between two trades with similar prices. Ask every customer the same way when the job is finished, for example a text with your Google review link or a card left with the invoice. Google's help pages say you can share a review link or QR code, and that the reviewer is notified when you reply.

Do not offer a discount, a free check or a prize draw entry for a review, and do not only ask the customers you know were happy. Google's policy bans incentives, selectively asking for positive reviews and discouraging negative ones. In the US, the FTC's rule bans incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, and threats used to remove negative reviews. In the UK, the CMA lists fake reviews and reviews that hide they were incentivised among banned practices.

If a customer sends you a photo of the finished job or posts one, ask before you share it, credit them the way they prefer, and keep their reply as your record of permission.

Sources: Google Business Profile Help: Read and reply to reviews, checked 15 October 2026; Google Maps user-generated content policy: fake engagement, checked 15 October 2026; FTC final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials (August 2024), checked 15 October 2026; GOV.UK (CMA): Unfair commercial practices guidance (CMA207), checked 15 October 2026

Every trade gets complaints: a late arrival, a leak that came back, a bill that felt high. Other customers judge you on how you reply in public, not on the complaint itself.

Hide or delete only spam and abuse. On Facebook, a hidden comment is still visible to the person who wrote it and their friends. Instagram hides common offensive comments by default and lets you add your own words and phrases to Hidden Words, and the person is not told their comment was hidden. Hiding a genuine complaint usually makes it louder.

1. Reply the same day, even if it is only to say you will call.
2. Thank them, acknowledge the problem and apologise for the experience without arguing the details in public.
3. Move it to a call or a direct message. Never post the customer's address, invoice or phone number.
4. Once it is fixed, add a short public note saying so, if the customer is happy for you to.

Sources: Facebook Help Center: Hide a comment from a post on your Facebook Page, checked 15 October 2026; Instagram Help Center: Hide comments or message requests you don't want to see, checked 15 October 2026

Trade work is seasonal. Heating and boiler jobs pick up as the weather turns cold, air conditioning and outdoor electrics in the warm months, and burst pipes in a freeze. Post about each peak a few weeks before it arrives, because you will be too busy to post during it.

Disclosure: Zolyp, which publishes this guide, makes an AI social media manager. It plans a balanced week across your content pillars, writes the captions and designs the visuals in your brand voice, and schedules them to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business, X, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Threads. You can add your own photos to any post, and you start by approving every post. Zolyp does not post to Nextdoor, so share anything for Nextdoor by hand. Everything in this guide works just as well done by hand.

• Week 1: check Google hours, service areas, holiday cover and emergency call-out details.
• Week 2: pick four finished jobs with good before-and-after photos.
• Week 3: write one seasonal tip and one 'when to call a professional' post.
• Week 4: ask last month's customers for reviews, reply to every review, and note which posts brought calls.