What to post when you are a tradesperson: the posts that get calls

Post the work. For a tradesperson, a plain before-and-after from your own phone, a real review, a straight price and your own face do more than any clever caption. Below are nine posts that suit a Facebook Page and an Instagram account, ordered by effort against return. The top of the list takes five minutes and earns the most, and each one after it asks a bit more of you. Every entry is one post you can make tonight, from the van or the sofa, with nothing but the phone in your pocket. Do the first three this week and your page already looks like a firm that is open for work.

1. The before-and-after

Two photos from the same spot, one line of caption. The old fuse box and the new consumer unit. The rotten skirting and the fitted one. A homeowner understands it without reading a word, and it shows the thing they are actually paying for: the difference you make.

Take the before shot before you touch anything, and stand in the same place for the after. Meta’s own advice for photo ads is to keep the picture uncluttered, give people one thing to look at and use a sharp, high-resolution image, and it says you do not need to be a professional photographer. We would apply the same rules to an ordinary post. Caption it with the job and the town: “New consumer unit, three-bed semi in Wigan.” Ask the customer first, and keep house numbers and car registrations out of shot.

2. A screenshot of a real review

A good review on Google or Facebook is the cheapest post you will ever make. Screenshot it, crop it, post it, and thank the customer by first name. A stranger weighing you up will take another customer’s word over yours every time.

Keep it real, because the law cares about this. The Competition and Markets Authority’s short guide for businesses that publish reviews says you must not publish fake reviews, or reviews that hide the fact they were paid for with money or a freebie. It also counts star ratings built on fake reviews as misleading. So no glowing write-ups from your brother-in-law, and if a customer got money off for leaving one, say so. Post the good ones as they come in rather than ten in one go.

3. The job of the week

Once a week, pick one job and tell it in four short lines: what the customer rang about, what you found, what you did, how long it took. Say a plumber in Stockport posts: “Leak under the kitchen sink. Compression joint had gone. New fitting, dried out, sorted in an hour.”

This post answers the question every new customer is quietly asking, which is whether you do the kind of job they need. Name the town every time. Someone in Bury scrolling a local group notices the word Bury. One photo is plenty. Pick the same slot each week, say Friday afternoon once the tools are away, and it turns into a habit rather than one more job on the list.

4. A straight price

Most trade pages never mention money, which is exactly why a price stands out. Pick one job you do often and post what it usually costs, as an honest range, with what is included and what would push it up. In our view it does two things at once: it puts off people who were never going to pay it, and it brings in people already happy with the number.

The Advertising Standards Authority’s guidance on prices is worth following here. It says quoted prices must include taxes and charges that apply to all or most buyers, VAT among them, and that “from” prices must not exaggerate how available the low figure is. So if a homeowner will pay VAT on top, put it in the figure, and only write “from £” if a fair share of your customers actually pay that. If you are unsure how VAT applies to you, your accountant can confirm it.

5. The van

Your van is already an advert people see on their street. A photo of it, clean, signwritten and parked up outside a job, ties your page to the thing they have seen in their road. Caption it with where you have been working this week and when you next have space.

Only post availability if it is true. “Couple of slots left next week” is fine when there are a couple of slots, and a fib the moment there are not. We would also post where you have been rather than where the van sits overnight, and keep the tools inside out of shot. It is a low-effort post you can repeat every few weeks with a different town in the caption.

6. The team, or just you

People are letting you into their home, so they want to see who turns up. Post a photo of you, or you and the apprentice, with first names and what each of you does. Meta’s photo advice leans the same way: show people, not only the product.

This is the post most tradespeople skip because it feels awkward, and it is the one that makes a page look like a real firm rather than a logo. Ask anyone on the team before you post their face. If you want more on looking like a proper local business online, we covered it in how to show you are a proper local firm online. Once a year is enough for a fresh team photo, or whenever someone new starts.

7. A thirty-second walk round

Video takes more nerve than effort. Finish a job, hold the phone steady, walk slowly round it and say in one sentence what you did. A joiner in Bury might film a fitted wardrobe: doors open, doors shut, done. No music, no editing app, no script.

Keep it under thirty seconds and the same clip works on Google too. Google’s help page for Business Profile photos and videos says videos can be up to 30 seconds long, up to 75 MB, and need to be 720p or higher. It also asks for photos that are sharp, well lit and free of heavy filters, which is good advice for every post on this list. Most phones film at that quality by default, so the one thing to check is the length.

8. The question you get asked most

Every trade has one. Why does my boiler pressure keep dropping? Do I need a certificate for this? How long will the plaster take to dry? Answer it in a short post, in plain words, and end with when it is time to ring someone.

Keep anything to do with safety firmly on the side of caution. For gas and electrics the honest answer is often “leave it alone and call someone registered”, and saying so is the whole point of the post. This one takes longer because you have to write it, but it stays useful for months after a job photo has scrolled away, and it shows a customer you know your stuff before they have even rung.

9. The same post, on Google

The most effort on the list, and only because it means opening a second app. Take your best post of the week and add it to your Google Business Profile as an Update: go to your profile, choose Posts, then Add post.

Google’s help page says posts show in the Updates or Overview tab on Search and Maps on a phone, and under “From the owner” on a computer. It also says posts with a phone number in the description might be rejected, so leave the number off; it is already on your profile. You can schedule a post or set it to repeat weekly, and posts older than six months are archived unless you set dates. The rest of what belongs on the profile is in our Google Business Profile checklist.

What to do next

Tonight, scroll back through your camera roll, find one before-and-after from a job you were proud of, and post it with the job and the town. That is the whole first step. If you would like a second pair of eyes on your pages, send us your business name through the free check-up and we will email you what we would sort, with no sales call.