Two Years On: Posting About How Your Old Work Holds Up

You're driving back from a quote on a wet Tuesday and you take the long way round, partly to dodge the roadworks and partly because you know what's on that street. Number 14. The extension you built two summers ago. Or the garden you landscaped, the kitchen you fitted, the shopfront you painted, the website you launched. Whatever it is you do, there's a number 14 somewhere.

You slow down. It still looks good. The pointing is clean, the fascia hasn't yellowed, the gate you hung still sits square. And you feel that small, private satisfaction that nobody else gets to see.

That's the problem. Nobody else gets to see it.

The proof you're sitting on

Before-and-after photos are everywhere. Every tradesperson, decorator and landscaper has a phone full of them, and they work. But they all prove the same thing: that you can make something look good on the day you finish. Customers know that. They also know the day you finish is the day everything looks its best.

What customers actually worry about is what happens after you've been paid. Will the render crack? Will the decking go green? Will the "lifetime guarantee" outlive the company offering it? Every one of those worries is about time, and a before-and-after photo says nothing about time.

A photo of your work two years on answers the question nobody asks out loud. It says: I'm still here, I'm still proud of it, and it's still standing.

Why this beats a review

A five-star review from the week of the job is lovely. It's also the least surprising thing a customer will ever write. Of course they were pleased; the paint was still wet.

A photo you took yourself, two years later, is different. It shows you went back. It shows the work held up. And it quietly says something about how you run your business: that you think in years, not invoices.

It does a second job too. Most small businesses look online as if they started last month. The feed is all recent work, recent reviews, recent everything. A steady trickle of "here's one from 2024" posts gives you a history, and a history is very hard to fake. Customers can tell.

What to actually post

You don't need much. A phone photo from the pavement will do. If it's someone's home, drop them a message first, even if you're only shooting from the street. Most people are chuffed to be asked, and the ones who'd rather not are worth knowing about before you post.

The caption practically writes itself. Say when you did the job, what it was, and how it's holding up. If something has needed attention, say so. "The gate needed a tweak last winter, five-minute job, everything else as it was" is far more convincing than a claim that nothing has ever gone wrong. Nobody believes nothing has ever gone wrong.

A few angles that work:

• The revisit. You were back for a different job and had a look at the old one while you were there.
• The weather test. After a hard winter, a heatwave or a proper storm: how did it fare?
• The side-by-side. The photo from the day you finished next to the one from today. The interesting bit is how little has changed.
• The customer's word. If they're still happy, ask for one sentence. "Still love it" is plenty.
• The one you'd do differently. The most honest post of the lot. You'd pick a different fixing now, or a different finish, and here's why. That's expertise talking, and it makes every other post on your page more believable.

Not just for the trades

If you don't build things, you might think this doesn't apply. It does; you've just got to find your version of number 14.

A hairdresser's version is the colour that's grown out gracefully. An accountant's is the client who arrived with a shoebox of receipts three years ago and now sends a tidy spreadsheet every quarter. A dog trainer's is the puppy that couldn't walk past another dog and now sits calmly outside the café. A web designer's is the site that's still live, still quick and still bringing in enquiries without a rebuild.

In every case the message is the same. The work lasted. What they paid for kept paying.

Making it a habit

The trick is to stop treating this as a special occasion. Put a note in your diary for one old job a month. When you're passing, take the photo. When a past customer gets in touch about something else, ask how the work's doing and whether they'd mind you mentioning it.

Most of your competitors won't bother, because old jobs don't feel like news. They aren't news. That's exactly why they land. It's the least salesy post you'll ever write, and it sells harder than anything else on your page.

If you use Aunty Social, this is precisely the kind of post it will draft for you from a photo and a sentence, in your own voice. But the photo has to be yours. Nobody else is going to drive past number 14.

So next time you take the long way round, pull over. Two minutes, one picture, and you've got the most persuasive post you'll put out this month.