Should My Business Be on Instagram, TikTok or Neither?

Visual trades do well on Instagram and TikTok. If your work is something people like to see before and after, such as bathroom fitting, kitchen fitting, landscaping, decorating, or salon and beauty work, short videos and photos of finished jobs can attract real enquiries. Less visual trades, such as boiler repair, electrical fault-finding, or drainage, get much less from social media because the work is not something people browse for inspiration. Match the platform to what you actually do.

Social media helps when your customers spend time there and your work photographs well. For home improvement trades in particular, a feed of before-and-after photos builds a portfolio that customers browse before calling. It also gives existing customers something to share with friends, which is free word of mouth. If you enjoy making the content, that is a further sign it will work: the best social media accounts are run by people who like doing it.

Social media wastes time when you post out of obligation rather than interest, when your work is not visual, or when your customers find you through search rather than scroll. If you are spending hours each week making reels for a trade where customers simply search "plumber near me" and call the first one who answers, that time would be better spent on your website, your Google profile, and answering the phone. Posting into the void is not a strategy.

If you decide social media is worth it, keep it simple. Post before-and-after photos of your work with a one-line caption. Post short videos showing a problem and how you solved it. Post the occasional tip, such as how to reset a boiler or check a smoke alarm. Do not overthink production quality; a clear phone photo with a genuine caption beats a polished post with no substance. Aim for one or two posts a week, consistently, rather than a burst of activity followed by silence.

For most local trades, a fast website and a complete Google Business Profile generate more calls than social media ever will. When someone needs a tradesperson, they search Google, check the reviews, and call. They rarely scroll Instagram looking for a plumber. A website from £350 one-off, a free Google profile, and a steady flow of reviews are the foundations that actually drive local enquiries. Social media is a bonus on top of these, not a replacement for them.

A common mistake is trying to be on every platform at once: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and whatever is new this month. Each one needs its own content and its own time. For a sole trader, this is unsustainable and the quality drops on all of them. If you use social media, pick one platform where your customers actually are, do it consistently, and ignore the rest. One good account beats five neglected ones.

If you are not sure, here is a simple rule. First, get a website and a complete Google Business Profile, start collecting reviews, and set up missed-call text-back so you never lose an enquiry. These are the things that reliably bring in local work. Only then, if you have time left and your work is visual, add one social media account and post once or twice a week. If social media starts bringing in enquiries, great. If it does not, you have not lost anything because your foundations are already in place.

If you want a social media presence but do not have the time, we can manage it for you as part of our social media management service. We plan the content, write the captions, and post on a schedule that suits your trade, so your feed stays active without eating your evenings. We discuss what this includes on a free discovery call. But even with help, the website, the Google profile and the reviews should come first, because they are what turn a curious follower into a paying customer.