What to post when you have no time to post

Most advice for small business social media is written by people whose job is social media. It assumes a content calendar, a strategy and a spare afternoon. You have none of those and you are not going to get them.

Here is the version that survives contact with a working week.

The only rule that matters

Take the photo while you are working. Not later, not on a special shoot day. The single reason small business accounts die is that photographing the work is treated as a separate task, and separate tasks do not happen.

Two seconds at the end of a job, every job, for a week. You will have twenty photographs and a problem you no longer have.

The five things worth posting

1. 1The work itself. Before and after is the entire genre and it never stops working. A finished cut, a valeted interior, a repaired tap, a groomed dog looking mildly betrayed.
2. 2The process. People are far more interested in how something is done than in the result. A short clip of the mid stage of a job outperforms the polished finish more often than not.
3. 3The person. Faces do better than anything else. Who is in today, who has just joined, who has just qualified in something.
4. 4The useful thing. One genuine tip from your trade. How to make a colour last, what that noise probably is, when to book a boiler service. This is the content that gets saved and shared.
5. 5The availability. A gap on Thursday afternoon, a cancellation, a quiet week. This is the post that directly makes money and it is the one people are most embarrassed to make.

What to write underneath

One sentence about what it is and one about who it is for. Then, on maybe one post in four, a plain instruction to book with a link.

Do not write a paragraph. Do not open with a question you do not want answered. Do not use twenty hashtags. A handful of specific, local ones does the job and the rest is decoration.

The ten minute batching habit

Sit down once a week, pick the best four photos from your camera roll, write four sentences and schedule them. That is the whole system.

It works because it separates the two activities that do not fit together. Capturing needs to happen constantly and takes seconds. Publishing needs ten minutes of quiet and happens once. Trying to do both in the moment is why people post twice and stop.

Consent, before you post anything

You need permission before putting a recognisable client, their child or their pet on a public account, and you need it in a form you can prove later. A verbal yes while somebody is in the chair is easy to give and awkward to refuse, which is exactly why it is worth capturing it properly at booking instead.

Record the permission against the client, keep it separate from the consent to be marketed to and honour a withdrawal quickly. Vehicles need a thought too, since a number plate identifies an owner.

What to stop doing

• Reposting quotes and generic graphics. Nobody has ever booked from an inspirational quote.
• Apologising for not posting. It draws attention to a gap nobody noticed.
• Chasing a trend that has nothing to do with your trade.
• Measuring likes. Look at saves, shares, profile visits and the only number that matters, which is bookings that came from the link.

Four real photos a week from an actual working business beats a beautifully planned account that stops in March. Consistency at a low level wins, because the alternative is not a better standard, it is nothing at all.