Legibility — Output a Customer Can Act On
Google Business Profile Posts and Social Captions That Do Not Read Like a Robot
The same job produces three different posts for three different places. Learn the shape of each, and how to generate a month in one sitting.
Different surfaces want different things
The most common mistake is writing one post and pasting it everywhere. Each platform has a different reader in a different mood:
| Surface | Reader | What works | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Someone actively searching for your service, right now | Specific service + specific area + a clear next step | 150–300 characters |
| A neighbour scrolling, not shopping | Before/after photo, a human sentence, local reference | 1–3 short lines | |
| Visual first, caption second | The photo carries it; caption adds the detail | 1–2 lines + tags | |
| Nextdoor | A neighbour who trusts neighbours | Plain, non-promotional, genuinely helpful | 2–4 lines, no hard sell |
Google Business Profile is the one that converts. Those readers have already decided they need the service. Do not treat it as an afterthought.
One job, four posts
> [paste business brief]
>
> We finished a job today. Write four short posts from it — one each for Google Business Profile, Facebook, Instagram, and Nextdoor.
>
> Job: Two-story house wash plus gutter clean in Beaverton. Heavy green algae on the north-facing siding, fully removed. Homeowner had been quoted for painting by someone else; after the wash the siding didn't need paint.
>
> Rules:
> - Google Business Profile: under 300 characters, name the service and the city, end with a clear next step. No emoji.
> - Facebook: warm and human, mention the paint detail, 3 lines max.
> - Instagram: 2 lines, assume a before/after photo is attached, 5–8 relevant tags.
> - Nextdoor: helpful and plain, no sales language, no call to action stronger than "happy to take a look."
> - Never state a price.
> - Never promise the same result for another house.
That last rule matters more than it looks. "We saved this homeowner a paint job" is a great story. "We'll save you a paint job" is a claim you cannot support from the driveway, and it is the kind of sentence that produces an angry call.
The detail that makes a post work
Look at what made the example above worth posting: the homeowner didn't need paint after all. That is a specific, surprising, verifiable fact.
Generic posts fail because they contain nothing only you could have written. "We take pride in quality workmanship" could come from any company in any trade in any city. "The north wall was so green the homeowner had been quoted for a repaint" could only come from that job.
So when you finish a job, capture the one specific thing. A note on your phone is enough:
- *Gutters were completely packed — a small maple had started growing in the downspout.*
- *Customer's dog supervised the entire driveway wash from the window.*
- *Deck was grey enough the owner thought it needed replacing. It didn't.*
Those notes are the raw material. Without them you will generate a month of posts that say nothing.
Batching a month
Once a fortnight, take your job notes and produce the batch:
> [paste business brief]
>
> Here are 8 notes from jobs we completed in the last two weeks. Produce a posting plan for the next 4 weeks:
> - 8 Google Business Profile posts, one per note, each under 300 characters
> - 4 Facebook posts, choosing the 4 notes with the best story
> - Suggest which 3 would work best with a before/after photo pair
> - Spread seasonal relevance sensibly — we're heading into autumn, so gutters matter more from mid-September
>
> Do not invent details that aren't in my notes. If a note is too thin to post from, say so instead of padding it.
>
> [paste your notes]
"If a note is too thin, say so" is the instruction that prevents invention. Without it, thin notes become confident fiction — and fiction about a job you actually performed is the worst kind, because a customer may read it.
Before it goes out
Every generated post gets one pass from you, checking three things:
- Is every factual detail true of that job?
- Is there a price, a promise, or a guarantee in it? If yes, remove or verify.
- Would I say this out loud to a neighbour? If it reads like marketing, rewrite it plainer.
That third question is the fastest quality filter there is.