Focus on LinkedIn, or do Facebook also?

Have you done any snooping on LinkedIn and Facebook to see if home improvement contractors are active on those social networks?

You choice of which network or networks to focus on is based on where your market is active and engaging with each other.

My first inclination would be to go with LinkedIn, purely because it's business-oriented and you're more likely to actually get some clients from being active on that network.

However, you might as well pick a length of time (like a month or so) and try out both networks. After that month, analyze which one is better for you and go with that one for the time being.

And have you thought about Twitter? It's often the easiest social network to gain traction with early on.

For professional needs I would focus on LinkedIn, I watched the social analytics for over 2 years at a company I worked for doing social media and LinkedIn sent more visitors to the site every month with numbers much higher than facebook.

Linkedin and Facebook are different.
The facebook is more interesting, people on facebook learning, sharing, finding interesting, more tend to be personal.
The Linkedin is more commercial and easy to find customer.
I think you can do both,Let the customer know you from different aspects.

Delta223,

LinkedIn, but of course do your own tests (don't just take someone's word in a forum). Why LinkedIn?

I have similar target customers (owners / founders and executive decision makers of companies) in other industries; and

In my 9 years of prospecting experience, especially more recently -- My target customers are more responsive to B2B service offers via LinkedIn InMail proposals and direct email / fax proposals. I then follow up with them via Skype, Twitter and phone calls. This is to schedule phone / Skype appointments with them so we can discuss my proposals in detail; and

Even after I sign them up for trial agreements that I normally (almost every time) renew to better, bigger and longer term contracts -- Most of them don't try to add me in Facebook, and I usually don't, too; and

My main reason (and most likely theirs as well) is -- I try to have separate platforms for my family / friends / relatives and for my clients / colleagues / associates...

I haven't really had any success using Linkedin yet. I've even tried their PPC service in a few different niches with no luck. I have friends that are doing well with it, but it depends what you are promoting. Facebook is great if you have a good targeted offer and are running facebook ads daily.

You could concentrate on LinkedIn since it is a platform dedicated to professionals, but you shouldn't abandon Facebook either. It is such a popular social media site that for sure you will find some related groups where you can post your offers and services. Good luck!

As per My knowledge, Facebook is good.Generally People are more active on FB, so if contents are good it will reach to maximum people hence facebook is good. And one more thing, facebook contain more features then Linkedin.Facebook has a option to make groups with your friends. Finding friends is easier on facebook than Linkedin.So prior to above benefits, I would said, Facebook is the best social networking site ever.

As your services are mostly business-to-business start from linked-in as I think that's best for building connections, but I don't think it would be wise to ignore Facebook. Perhaps you can divide the time somehow and manage both of them. There are so many social media management tools around now that you should be able to do it easily.

Also if you know the names of few of your competitors than see where they are having a presence. You can use websites like Social Mention, Ice Rocket, and Brand Watch to listen on their mentions. This will tell you in which areas they are actively operating in. You can use this information for building your own pages.