This article is part of our blog series, Social Media for Landscapers, featuring tips on how you can take advantage of social media for your business.

There’s only so much time in a day. There are only so many hours you can spend working and so little time you have to spend with friends and family.

As a business owner, time is always something you need more of. When you’re considering how to spend your time and where to allocate resources for the coming year, consider educating your employees on the value of social media for business—because it’s worth the time.

The Long Game

You might be asking, what is the value of social media, and why should you spend any of your precious minutes learning how to apply it to your business? The value of social media rests in the long game. It’s all about the connections you build and work to maintain with customers.

The reputation your business can create online doesn’t happen overnight. You have to work diligently and purposefully to build followers and create relationships online. There’s strategy involved. While social media might seem like fun and games at first, there’s also real potential to build customer loyalty, generate business and increase brand recognition, all while getting to show off your best work.

Build Loyalty

Being active on social media can help your business create relationships with customers beyond the typical exchange of services, which in turn will build stronger loyalty from your customers and keep them coming back.

Just like you, your customers are busy people, so meeting them where they are—online—will give you an edge over your competitors. Social media allows you to be in front of your customers at any time of the day. Posts about services and beautiful photos of completed jobs will show up on their News Feeds and Timelines while they’re at home or on a break at work. This will cause them to think about your company and work they may need done.

If customers see your company consistently doing good work, they’ll develop trust in your ability to provide top-notch service.

Increase Brand Recognition

Think of social media as free advertising—the modern day word of mouth. Being active online allows more people to see you, giving you greater brand recognition and visibility.

A company’s brand is an important factor to success, so taking the time to grow your social media presence and being proactive online can help your company step out in front of the competition.

You can increase your brand recognition through social media platforms by posting frequently, responding to customer comments and getting involved in online discussions. The more often a potential customer sees your company online, the more likely they are to inquire about your services.

Generate Business

Once you build loyalty and increase your visibility, you’re likely to generate more business through the development of your social media profiles.

If customers know what services you provide, can easily contact you and are able to see successful results done by your company all on their social media pages, you can bet they’ll reach out to you.

Show Off

While social media is a powerful tool that can help grow your business, it’s also a fun way to show off the great work you do.

The green industry is highly visual and so is social media! Use social media as a way to promote your business by highlighting your work with photos.

Photos aren’t the only way to show off and look great online. Communicating openly with customers on social media gives you a unique opportunity to illustrate your dedication to customer service to customers and potential customers. Being responsive and helpful on your social media page gives people a glimpse into how they’ll be treated if they work with you.

If you’re able to solve issues and hold friendly conversations with customers, other followers will see it as well—making you look professional and knowledgeable.

Don’t forget to show off your stellar social media pages to customers who aren’t following you yet. Let them know you’re online and ask them to like or follow you to continue building your social media presence! Follow your customers back and engage with their posts to build an even stronger relationship.

Being social and engaged with customers on social media is a great way to show the value of your company and create opportunities to connect with customers, because there’s no greater value in business than being “friends” with your customers.

Keep an eye out for future tips on social media to promote your business. Have a question? Post it in the comments.