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Assuming you implement some sort of safety measures on your job site daily, why don’t you post some videos on your website, twitter, facebook fan page, and blog?  I uploaded my first video to youtube last week directly from my point and shoot handheld.  It takes less than 10 minutes to do, and it will allow prospects, clients, and most importantly, Insurance Underwriters to see just how serious your construction company is about safety.  If you want to save $$ on your next renewal, instead of changing your auto deductible from $500 to $1000, post some videos that showcase your firm’s commitment to being safe.  The positive results you’ll get will make you scratch your head and wonder why you waited so long. If you don’t have a website, I will be more than happy to dedicate a page of this site to user submitted safety videos and toolbox talks.  Here are some ideas of what to do. If you decide to start posting videos, don’t get bogged down with the head trash that another contractor has made a video with a similar topic.  As long as someone in your marketplace hasn’t already made the same one, there is still plenty of room on the internet for you to add your own touch and philosophy on safety.

Couple things to keep in mind.  If you are a construction firm, don’t make “funny” safety videos like the one below.  OSHA can, and will fine you for videos and pictures of YOUR workers and job sites.  But don’t let that dissuade you.  If you are following the correct protocols and working safely, they will commend you on showing other not so smart contractors, the correct way to approach a safety issue.

If you don’t know what the title means, head to this LINK and follow the directions on how to create a fanpage, then come back here for some ideas on what to put on it once it’s up.

These are some idea I got from other contractors on Contractor Talk

BrainHay:

No, I don’t think anyone goes there with intention to look for a Contractor. When I started my page I was thinking much the same way as HomeSealed touched on.

A lot of the people on my friends list are into Earthmoving, Excavating and Construction as well. So are their friends and friends of friends. As Facebook grows in popularity more and more of our customers will be in there as well (many probably already are). Makes it real easy for them to tell their friends about us. They can also comment on the page and write reviews about our business.

So my hope with it is that some of them will like the Spyder Hoe pics or want to follow the progress of our business and become a fan of the page. When they become a fan of the page then a link shows to it in their profile and exposes me to all their friends.

Also people searching for others with common interests and groups to join will find the page adding even more exposure.

Homesealed:

I think the purpose is more for networking then advertisement. Many times a friend of a friend will notice your line of work and become a customer… At least that is my experience.

Smadax:

We’ve had a Facebook Page for a while, it’s a good way to network amungst your friends and family; but it’s also a great opportunity for paid advertising.

Advantages…
1) Direct marketing; States/Provinces, City, Age, Gender, Educ levels, etc…
2) Pay per click
3) Daily spend limit
4) FREE WEBPAGE
5) Easy to use and update
6) Directly bills to your credit card
7) Can have scheduled start and end dates.
8) Ads can be paused and/or deleted at any time.

Smadax:

Advertisement directly marketed to my city, approx 70,000 population.

Examples of market information, based on one day…
4,508 times my ad was displayed on facebook.
26 hits on my business page
4 unique visitors
2 linked through paid thumbnail advertisement cost me 60 cents
1 time picture file was viewed

General Statistics…
58% Female viewers 42% Male viewers
5% of viewers are 18-24 yrs old
47% of viewers are 25-34 yrs old
42% of viewers are 35-44 yrs old
5% 45+ yrs old

Pay per click is great because a person has seen your basic thumbnail advertisement (free exposure) and expressed interest by linking to your facebook page I spent 60 cents on this one day and I have my budget set at $2.00/day… with the market being slow, in January I was billed $14.67 and I did get one new client… this advertisment definitely paid for itself!

You can set your pay-per-click rate to whatever you’d like, minimum 19 cents. The reason you have a choice is because the higher you are willing to pay, the more facebook will expose your advertisement on facebook.

I even use my business page to keep in contract with my crew, when I add a new event, they are sent invitations and if I change anything on that event the crew is sent updates via facebook (email notification)

Devon Z:

Having a Facebook page adds one more place for potential customers to find you or your website. You can post photos of work you have completed, press releases, and articles. Also have current customers become fans and write testimonials about how great your work is on your wall. If you have a link from your website to your Facebook page, then people who are checking out your website have one more place to find out more about you. Plus it is free – just takes the time to set up the page and update with information. Having a Facebook page just strengthens your web presence and gives you another way to communicate.

Techie:

While I think having a Facebook page doesn’t hurt, I don’t see it paying off too much right NOW to be putting in a lot of everyday effort into it. Rather I would set up your facebook page to pull in any blog posts you make or twitter posts. I’d rather spend time on a blog if you have something to say and twitter if you’d like to network with others. I think a personal Facebook profile account as the owner of your business would be more effective if you insist on using facebook. Take an active role in being the spokesperson for your business, even if you’re a 1 man show. There’s definitely a lot of people on facebook but using your personal (make sure you keep it professional) profile would be a better tool on there than a page. Join in on relevant groups and join in on discussions. Search keywords that are relevant to your business and network with those people, and converse with them. I think that’s the way to go about it at the moment.

KCRemodeler:

Seems to be lots of different opinions about Facebook, so I will throw in my two cents for thought.

I would never used the paid advertising part of Facebook for the services we offer!

However, if you don’t have a “page” for your business on Facebook, you are missing out big time.

First of all, it give Google one more page about your company to index. I have some clients that if you search for their business name, their FB page shows up in the results.

Here is how to maximize your use of Facebook….

1. Ask every client to become a fan of your page on Facebook.
2. Post before and after pictures of every project.
3. If the client is a fan of your page, be sure and “tag” them in the picture. When you do this, the pictures show up on their “wall” which then gives you access to all of their network. Their friends will see your page when they look at the pictures. Nothing bettern than an inferred referral!

No more time than it takes to maintain a FB page, I think you are crazy if you don’t have one.

I have a friend that is a photography – kids, families, etc. He generates so much business from FB it is crazy! No reason the same can’t happen in our business.

These are cut/pasted testimonials from other contractors that are having success testing out new marketing ideas and leveraging free web based resources to get more eyes/potential customers on their construction firm.  Setting up one of these pages takes about 10 minutes for someone that knows their way around facebook.  Feel free to post the links to your pages in the comments to show other contractors some tips and ideas that they could use to better their fanpages, as well as to grow your own fanbases.

Over the weekend, I was catching up on some reading of a few ski magazines that have been collecting dust on my coffee table.  In this month’s issue of Powder, one of their contributing author’s wrote a piece on how to build a rescue sled, if you or one of your backcountry partners is injured in a way that leaves them unable to move on their own.  Not planning on going into detail about how to do this, but the author, Mike Hattrup added an interesting point about why he teaches things like this, and why he brings safety equipment with him into the backcountry everytime.

I’ve never needed to build a rescue sled.  But I’ve never needed my avalanche tranceiver, either, nor have I needed airbags in my car.  The ability to build a rescue sled our of your skis is similar-it’s insurance.  Like all insurance, you hope you never have to use it.  But if you need it and don’t have it, you’re in a world of hurt. -Mike Hattrup

Take this philosophy to heart next time your insurance agent or broker suggests raising your General Liability Aggregate or increasing your umbrella. We all hope that we are never in a situation that requires a 5 or 10 million dollar umbrella to max out, but imagine what life would look like for you and your construction firm if you had to write that size of a check out of pocket.  Would your doors open again?

Time Lapse Photography.

What if you started taking a lot of photos at every one of your job sites and then mashed them together to make a time lapse video like this?  Have any of your competitors ever done this?  Do you think when people go to your website they’d be more apt to tell their friends about a video like this or about how many trucks you have?  The task seems daunting, but it’s really not. Time Lapse Photo Wiki If you have anyone on your staff that is handy with a camera, this could be a very cool project for them that wouldn’t take a whole lot of time out of their day, and it has serious potential to spread virally throughout your network.  How cool would it be to be able to watch an entire construction project(or the part of a huge, well-known project that your construction firm completed) in about 5 minutes?  This idea won’t work for every type of contractor, but for anyone involved in rigging, cranes, earth moving/digging, roofing, carpentry, heavy road/civil, as well as GCs and project owners, it has potential to work as a very cutting edge marketing tool.  If you put one together, I will be happy to help you get it seen by a few thousand people via social media, just to show you how this type of marketing can work to show off the good work done by your employees and your company.  If you know you will be at a jobsite for an extended amount of time, here’s how to get started

• Buy a Digital SLR camera and a tripod, or if you have an employee that already owns one, ask if they would lend it’s use to this project. Digital SLR Cameras
• Every hour of the work day, set it to take pictures, or have someone manually shoot 10-20 shots every hour
• Set the tripod up in the same place everyday.  Preferably somewhere higher than the jobsite itself, so you can get the whole scope of the job as well as capture the weather, sun, clouds, shadows, etc.
• Have a tech-savvy employee(or son/daughter of an employee that wants to earn $200) combine all the pictures and upload them to Vimeo.com or Youtube.
• Email the link to your mailing list, post on facebook, twitter, and the front page of your website.

Here’s some more videos if you want to see what other contractors are doing to utilize this awesome technology

Youtube Time-Lapse Construction Videos

At one point or another, no matter what line of work you are in, you will be examined/monitored/tested by some sort of ruling body, government entity, or oversight committee.  Prior to joining the insurance and risk management industry, I held a variety of jobs that all had various types of checks and balances in place to make sure the job was done safely and/or hygienically.  When I was the foreman for a team of chairlift operators for two winters in Colorado, someone from the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board would come to the mountain once or twice a season and inspect each lift for its structural and mechanical integrity as well as quiz the lift operator on duty about various emergency and operational procedures.  It was a given that the least capable member of the team that was on duty that day would conveniently go on lunch break about 10 minutes prior to when the Inspector was scheduled to arrive at the lift.  The inspectors travel the mountain on skis, so other lift ops are able to inform their coworkers of what type of questions are going to be asked as well as having real time knowledge of when the inspector will show up at a given lift station.  The lousy employee that was sent on break has the same amount of responsiblity on a day to day basis as his or her coworkers, but because of their ineptitude they were swept under the run when the inspector arrived.  The goal was to get a spotless inspection, so the senior members of the staff that had a better knowledge of procedures and the machinery would handle the face to face interactions with the inspectors.  Needless to say, the on/off ramps would be at a perfect angle with no icy areas, the lift shacks would be swept and the garbage emptied, and everyone would be dressed correctly in their uniforms.  Does this sound familiar?  Is this what happens before your job site or factory is inspected?  At least in the realm of ski mountain operations, we work safely most of the time.  However, there were times when we would climb on top of a spinning lift to clear snow instead of having it drip on to the guests, we would allow cold guests into our shacks to warm up if they were really cold, and we would smoke cigarettes behind the shack when no one was around.  All of these things were against the rules in the rulebook, but it was done when no one was looking.  What happens on your job site when no one is looking?  Are your guys working unsafely because it’s faster and they can go home earlier?  Do they show up hungover or still drunk because they know supervision will be light or non-existent that day?  The job of a construction company owner as well as the owner of a ski hill need to make safety part of the culture.  The mountain I worked at didn’t have that culture because clearing snow and getting people in their early 20s to show up for work at 5am on Saturday mornings to stand out in the cold for 8 hours were the priorities, and there wasn’t much time left for safety.  Some of my coworkers were extremely competent and just working for the free ski pass, others were incompetent, lazy, and had extreme substance abuse problems and were working there because they couldn’t find a job elsewhere.  Make safety part of your culture, don’t have a few people being the face of your company just for when OSHA comes by.

Below is the only safety video I saw for the two years I was the foreman on a ski lift crew. (I was in my early 20′s and didn’t know about the importance of safety.  Does this sound like any of your laborers?)  This is what happens if a safety brake fails, and the lift operator doesn’t engage the E-Brake in time.  This test was done at Winter Park Resort in Colorado when they decided to run some tests prior to retiring the lift.  If you’re ever on a chair lift that starts to spin backwards, jump off.  Seriously.

NEW YORK CONSTRUCTION DEATHS TUMBLE IN 2009

Please contribute what you can to alleviate the suffering in Haiti.  Skip going out to eat one night this week, or buy Keystone Light instead of a microbrew this weekend.  A small sacrifice on your end can go a long way to help people who are going to have a much worse weekend than you.

American Red Cross

T-Shirt to Help Haiti

Hours after the deadly Haitian earthquake, dozens of relief organizations around the world started soliciting for donations. As news of significant life loss and devastation in Haiti started spreading around the globe, thousands of people reached into their wallets to help the relief effort. Among organizations asking for donations was the Yéle Haiti Foundation run by Wyclef Jean. Yele asked to text “Haiti” to number 501501, which automatically donated $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund. American Red Cross accepted text message donations as well when users texted “Haiti” to 90999, which resulted in an automatic donation of $10.

When you text 90999, the donation gets automatically added to your cell phone bill. IMO the fastest, and easiest way to do your part.

Thanks for reading.

How Contractors can use twitter to find jobs

http://dphelan.com/2010/01/07/10-ways-construction-firms-can-use-twitter/

What Contractors can do to stretch their marketing budget and get free publicity

http://dphelan.com/2010/01/06/10-ways-contractors-can-get-free-publicity-on-the-internet/

Why Construction Firms need to use the Internet now more than ever

http://dphelan.com/2010/01/05/internet-for-contractors/

How Contractors can leverage the power of Facebook to leapfrog their competitors

http://dphelan.com/2010/01/04/facebook-for-contractors/

Quitting smoking and getting more healthy is inconvenient as well as an uncomfortable pain in the ass.  As long as you aren’t having any major health issues, there is little to be concerned about.  Much like quitting smoking and getting in shape, to become a safer contractor you need to step out of your comfort zone and make safety your #1 priority.  If you had been a lifelong smoker or an afficionado of Burger King, it isn’t comfortable to switch to being a non-smoker or someone who eats five helpings of fruits and vegetables daily.  And it sure as hell isn’t a process that you can successfully undertake without time and assistance.  Maybe the moment you decided to quit smoking was when your child was born. Or maybe you went to the doctor for a checkup and they told you that you needed to stop eating fried crap at every meal if you wanted to live past 60.  These events are life altering and depending on which course of action you choose, can lead to a very positive(quitting your habit) or an extremely negative outcome(dying because of it).  Your safety program, while not being perceived as important or foundation shaking, as child birth or a premature death can be just that.  Especially if you and your family rely on YOUR construction company to put food on the table and a roof over your heads.  A safety culture helps to make sure these things are a given as well as a constant.  Right now, you do a pretty good job at safety.  Either because of your leadership, or because of the competence of your work force.  Due to economic constraints, you’ve probably had to lay off some of that workforce because of a lack of available projects for them to help with.  When the economy rebounds, and it will, you will likely have to bring back a lot of foremen, laborers, and office staff.  What is your safety policy going to look like for them?  Is it going to fall by the wayside in lieu of getting “shovels in the ground”?  Are you going to be in such a hurry to get jobs done, that you will sacrifice the safety of these workers for more speed and a bigger pay day?  It might work for a while, but eventually, if you are running this type of offense, you WILL have a big claim.  Much like if you keep smoking, it will eventually lead to a health problem. And when that claim happens, what is going to happen to your mod?  Is it going to go over 1.0?  Are you going to be able to bid work for the class-leading project owners and GCs with a mod over 1.o?  Are the talented but currently out of work laborers going to want to work for a company with a perceived lack of a safety program?  How much revenue will you lose because of a mod over 1.0?  Not putting the resources into safety, can be just as harmful in the long run as burning money.  Next time you are debating whether to put funds into other resources, take a long look at kind of funds it will take to  keep your doors open when you aren’t able to bid work anymore.