Technology moves fast. If you blink, you’ll miss 50 trends that have come and passed. While there isn’t a tried and true method for guaranteed “viral” content, there are always best practices to increase your chances of going viral. Think of social media like the casino, and you can only win if you play. How can you use TikTok to promote your local landscape business?
What Is TikTok?
TikTok is a short-form video sharing social media platform. Users upload videos that can be discovered by anybody globally on their endless stream of videos put on their timeline. TikTok has a worldwide audience of 2 billion downloads, with 130 million downloads coming from the United States alone.
The type of content shown is generally centered around interests of the user. TikTok uses an algorithm that determines a set of interests, niche or not, through content interactions (likes, comments, shares), and videos and/or accounts viewed: what did you watch and how many times did you watch it. Hashtags and audio clips are also a prominent way users and creators can curate sub-communities.
Where do landscape businesses fit on TikTok?
Businesses in general stumbled into figuring out how to promote themselves on TikTok when employees were recording their satisfying day-to-day tasks, provided educational content, or recording catastrophic #landscapefail videos. There’s a prominent landscaping audience on TikTok with 1.5 billion views through the #landscape hashtag, and 19.6 million views for people who search #landscapers.
Knowing that the audience is there is one thing, but knowing what they want to see is another. Do some research into what the successful landscaping videos did correctly, and use that as inspiration for content your landscape business should create. Most who work lawn maintenance know how satisfying it is to use an edger, and admire the work when it’s done. The general public doesn’t get to see the process, and only end up seeing the end results. People generally have a deep appreciation for watching something satisfying like lawn edge work without having to put in the sweat for it. TikTok is the platform to bridge that gap, and will serve as both a video portfolio and a way to build a social following.
TikTok best practices
Anybody can record video content. Not everybody can record quality video content. TikTok rewards and prioritizes higher quality video content on a user’s feed, so it’s best to stick towards a list of best practices.
- Non-shake high quality camera footage
- Pick trending audio to accompany footage
- Use appropriate or trending hashtags
- The shorter the caption the better. No longer than one sentence
- Engage with comments by liking, pinning comments to the top, and creating video responses to comments
- Be authentic and don’t create traditional commercials- let the work speak for itself
- Post content frequently to stay relevant
The biggest anxiety of content creation is “will people like this?”. The answer to that should be “who cares?”. Make content that you enjoy, and chances are that others will share that interest. If you get stuck, don’t be afraid to ask the public what kind of content they would like to see.
Benefits of promoting your landscape business on TikTok
TikTok tries to promote local content, but it’s often difficult to hone in on which region your content is reaching considering it’s a global app. Creating a TikTok account might not significantly boost the amount of contracts rolling in, but there are many potential benefits to your landscape business if you do this right.
The exposure alone leads to avenues and opportunities that will come to you. People may reach out for jobs, other content creators may want to collaborate with you and your business, or sponsorship opportunities may open up with certain brands. Platforms are valuable, so while it may not affect your revenue directly, there may be great opportunities you wouldn’t have had if you didn’t create any video content for TikTok.
Repurpose your content. You can take your TikTok video and reupload it to other platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Those might be opportunities to take targeted approaches to generating more contracts through geotargeted paid ad spends on social media. This is a great way to cross-promote on platforms and build a bigger community for your landscaping business on social media.
Social media is a long game
Another essential aspect to remember when it comes to TikTok or any social platform is that it takes time. It’s not a one and done, or a flash in the pan, or a sprint. You have to concentrate on the long game. See what sticks, pay attention to your engagement, and calibrate from there. Some content can completely disrupt and go viral, and some can slowly captivate an audience. Just like anything, remind yourself that good things take time and effort.
If you want to learn how to better leverage social media marketing into your landscape business, make sure to download this FREE ebook: 4 Must-Have Marketing Tips. We check out topics like how to lean on branding for your landscaping business and how to build your social media empire.
