Author: Chad Diller
Everyone and your mother keeps talking about social media. You hoped it was just a fad but the craze keeps building each year. Maybe you dabbled, got on the bandwagon, and tried your best to post, tweet, pin, update, snap, and whatever else people are doing these days.
Maybe you got so busy with your lawn care or landscaping business that you got someone else to do it for you. Or maybe it fell to the wayside and you’re now realizing it’s time to spring back into action.
Deep down inside, you’re concerned. You love the concept of building a loyal online community and getting new clients from social media, yet you want to make smart business decisions without wasting time or money.
I get it. I’ve been there myself. In early 2012, I remember standing in front of a room of about 100 coworkers trying to explain how platforms like Facebook and Twitter were going to help our lawn and landscape business grow. In the midst of blank stares and raised eyebrows, I tried to convince my co-workers (and secretly, myself) that it was worthwhile.
Fast-forward five years, and these social networks have proven their ability to reach prospective clients. Clearly social media for lawn care businesses or landscapers isn’t a waste of time, if you go about it in the right manner.
Using Time Wisely on Social Media
Over the years after that speech, I spend a lot of time on social media. I realized one important truth.
You only have so much time. And, it’s the one resource you can’t get more of no matter how many lawn care customers you add or how many landscaping jobs you sell.
So to help you keep from wasting your precious time, here are some time-saving social media tips:
1) Spend More Time Initially on Strategy
Now while that may sound contrary to your overall goal to spend less time, it’s absolutely necessary to invest more of it on the front-end. Don’t expect a good ROI without doing the groundwork first.
Explore your intent for social media and create a detailed plan that will support that purpose on a frequent and consistent basis. Your social media success is dependent upon that and this will direct how you spend your time on a day-to-day basis going forward.
Create a calendar to plan seasonally relevant content. Regardless of if it’s an article, image, or video, your content will fill in predictable slots in this calendar. If you’re just starting out, maybe it’s one or two posts a week. Down the road, it will be easier to post more often.
Be consistent and stick to the calendar. Your followers will appreciate it and it will reduce stress for you when it gets busy.
2) Start With One Social Platform and Max Out at Two
If you’re attempting to be active on too many networks, you will water down your efforts and waste time. Figure out where your target audience is and narrow your focus. You don’t need to be on every social media platform.
Facebook is ideal for B2C companies and LinkedIn is great for B2B. Become regularly active and engaged on one of those platforms before you move onto others.
(RELATED PODCAST: The Difference in Marketing to Companies vs. Homeowners)
3) Create and Curate Your Own Content
Since you’ll have already created a detailed content calendar, you’ll need to find postworthy content. Searching online for something accurate and original can eat up a lot of time. Instead, create your own resources over time.
Regularly produced blog posts, videos, or images of your work or team, is perfect to re-publish later. Organize these items by category and seasonal relevance and it will make creating your content calendar easier each year.
4) Use Social Media Scheduling Tools
Work ahead when it’s slow. Many social tools like HubSpot, HootSuite, and Buffer allow you to bulk upload messages, links, and images and schedule them out for later.
A little work in the off-season could save you a ton of time when you could get too busy and forget. Many social tools also allow for automatic publishing when you publish a new blog article.
5) Set Up Social Monitoring & Filters
Some social media tools allow you to set up notifications based on certain criteria. Instead of trying to scroll through a giant news feed each day, you can use these tools to notify you when someone mentions your brand or uses specific hashtags near a geographic location.
You can also create targeted filters to view only the updates you want to see from specific groups of people or organizations.
6) Delegate Duties and Schedule Activity Times
Multi-tasking will cause you to be less effective at whatever you’re doing. Weigh your options for being instantly connected carefully. Try to minimize the constant barrage of non-urgent likes and shares as much as possible.
Set scheduled times for you or team members to be active on social media. If the tasks can be divided up among your team members, assign certain duties to be done at the right times.
(RELATED PODCAST: Social Media for Landscapers & Lawn Care Companies)
It’s Time to Get Social
Social media for lawn care and landscapers makes sense if it’s done right. Putting it off or ignoring it isn’t making it go away. And a causal approach won’t work either.
You can be a landscaping or lawn care marketing success if you follow these time-saving tips. You’ll increase your company’s influence, build up a loyal following, and even attract new clients. Then everyone and their mother will be talking about you instead. You’ll be the latest craze.
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