What to Post on Social Media as a Contractor (a Weekly Plan)

A homeowner looking at your page wants to know three things: do you do the job they need, does your work look good in a home like theirs, and do you finish. A trending audio clip answers none of those. Twenty seconds of your crew setting a beam answers all three.

Google sets a similar bar for your Business Profile. Its photo tips ask businesses to add at least three photos at work that represent the services you offer, and say a photo should be in focus, well lit and have "no significant alterations or excessive use of filters or AI." That is a good rule for every platform. Post the real job, the real crew and the real result.

It is also how we shoot: "We shoot your people, your place, and your work." No stock footage.

Each post has a job. Monday proves you are busy and real. Wednesday proves the result. Friday proves you know the trade before a homeowner ever calls. The Google update puts that proof where people look when they are ready to hire.

Got something extra, like a team moment? Post it on the weekend. If not, skip it. Three posts a week you keep up beat seven you abandon by week three.

The fix for running out of content is to stop filming one post at a time. Our Sacramento video production page puts it plainly: "A planned shoot day can become a month of posts. Process clips, before and afters, team moments, quick tips." Our guide to video marketing for service businesses covers the formats that work and where to put each video.

On a half day we shoot one location. On a full day we shoot two. For a contractor, the shot list usually covers:

1. Before shots of every area you will touch, from spots you can stand in again later.
2. The crew working: close shots of hands and tools, and a wide shot of the team.
3. Four to six quick tips, one question per take, with the owner or lead on camera.
4. A walkthrough of a finished job.
5. The client at the reveal, if they are happy to be filmed.

That matches what we do on contractor marketing in Sacramento: we shoot "the build in progress and the finished job. Walkthroughs, timelapses, the client at the reveal."

Here is how one day of footage turns into four weeks of posts:

Between shoot days, your phone fills the gaps. Stand in the same spot, at the same height, and take the before and after at a similar time of day so the light matches.

Timing matters in Sacramento too. Our contractor page notes that exterior work stops for the rain, so many homeowners plan over winter and collect bids before spring. Winter is a time to keep posting, not go quiet. Roofers face the same clock, and our 30-day plan for roofing marketing before the rain walks through it.

Our video page lists the rules we cut every short ad to: "Hook in the first 1.5 seconds, captions burned in, one clear ask at the end." The same rules work for organic posts.

• Open on the work. The first second should show the job, not your logo.
• Put captions on screen, so the clip still makes sense with the sound off.
• Shoot vertical. We cut 9:16 for Reels and TikTok and 4:5 for feed posts.
• Name the job and the area in the caption, like a bathroom remodel in Land Park. Use the neighborhood, never the street address.
• Give one ask, like request a bid, with one link.
• Get permission before filming inside a client's home, and keep house numbers and license plates out of frame.

If you hold a California contractor license, your social posts can count as advertising. The Contractors State License Board's advertising guidelines list "any website or post that solicits business on the Internet" as a form of advertising, and say licensed contractors must include their license number in "all forms of advertising." The civil penalty for a first offense is between $100 and $1,000.

Three habits keep you covered:

1. Put your license number in your bio and in the caption or on screen of any post that asks for work.
2. Drop the word bonded. CSLB says the law prevents you from noting in your advertising that you are bonded, because it could make bonding sound like more protection than it is.
3. Stay inside your classification. CSLB's own example: a C-29 Masonry contractor cannot advertise electrical work without a C-10 Electrical license.

The same rules apply to your website. Our contractor website checklist covers them page by page.

Plumbers have one more rule: C-36 trucks need the business name, address and license number on each side. Our note on emergency vs scheduled plumbing marketing covers it.

CSLB also warns against false or misleading claims, so only post jobs you actually did. This is not legal advice; check the CSLB guidelines in our sources if you are unsure.

Your Google Business Profile has its own posts. Google's help page says an update post can include a description, a photo or video and a button that sends people to your site to book or learn more. You can schedule posts ahead and set them to repeat weekly.

Two details from that page are worth knowing. Posts older than 6 months are archived unless you set a date range, so post steadily instead of all at once. And posts with a phone number in the text might get rejected, so use the button instead. Our Google Business Profile checklist covers the rest of the setup.

We will only show real numbers. We have not published a contractor case study yet, so here is what we have from two other Sacramento businesses, clearly labeled.

• AIMS Sports Recovery: one vertical ad, shot on site, drove 20 bookings in 30 days at $35 per booking. That was a paid ad, not an organic post. See the AIMS case study.
• Elysian Tattoo Gallery: paid and organic content brought in 900 new followers, and 149 people clicked the booking link in an automatic welcome DM. The full system brought in 109 new client inquiries in 30 days.

Neither is a contractor. The lesson still carries over: the content that worked was shot on site and pointed to one clear next step.

We are a two-person Sacramento marketing agency: Antonie and Teo, all in-house. We direct, shoot, edit and color everything ourselves, and first cuts for short form land inside a week. For ongoing posting there is a monthly content retainer with two shoot days and 10 to 15 finished pieces. We hold a 5.0 rating from 18 Google reviews. See our services for how video fits with ads, websites and booking automation.

The easiest way to start working together is a free audit. We look at your site, Google profile, social presence and booking path, then tell you what to fix first.

• Vessel Archive, Sacramento video production page
• Vessel Archive, Sacramento contractor marketing page
• Vessel Archive, AIMS Sports Recovery case study
• Vessel Archive, Elysian Tattoo Gallery case study
• Vessel Archive, Services page
• Contractors State License Board, "Advertising Guidelines For Contractors"
• Google Business Profile Help, "Tips for business-specific photos on your Business Profile"
• Google Business Profile Help, "Create & manage posts on your Business Profile"