Yard Maintenance Geelong

The Objective

With the aspiration to transform ordinary yards into beautiful outdoor spaces for the local community, Ben Webster started a gardening business in the city of Geelong, located an hour southwest of Melbourne, Australia. Simply named ‘Yard Maintenance Geelong’, Ben started his journey three years ago and started a TikTok channel @yard_mowtivation to document his entrepreneurial journey and potentially increase the exposure of his services to a wider audience. 

The Solution

As he took on each new gardening job, Ben documented his yard transformations and edited them into short-form videos. To spice up his videos and capture the attention of users on the platform, he identified Trending Sounds on TikTok that may be suitable as background music. As a sound-on platform, Trending Sounds are often picked up TikTok’s content recommendation system and appears on the ‘For You’ feed of users who engage with other videos using the same sounds, hence amplifying the reach of new videos using them.

Alternatively, Ben also utilises the voiceover tool to personalise his content by recording original commentary that describes his lawn transformations. With spoken audio, his lawn transformation videos would engage users who are curious about the technical aspects of lawn mowing and gardening, and also allow him to share his learnings from experimenting with different equipment and methods of lawn cleanups. Along the way, Ben’s videos received comments from engaged users and noticed that such content are better received than others, and hence focused on making more videos with the same strategy. 

As Ben offers geographically localised services, he frequently uses the Location Pin in his video posts to provide context to viewers who may be eager to engage his services. Potential customers in the area who may be searching for local content would also be able to view his videos, increasing visibility of his content on TikTok.

The Result

By actively creating more videos sharing his experience building his business on TikTok, Yard Maintenance Geelong recorded more than 398K total video likes as well as gaining over 1.6M video views on his most popular video. As his community on TikTok grew over time into a vibrant account of over 51K followers, he also gained opportunities to collaborate with other brands in the industry, more notably local brands such as Munns fertiliser, Cougar Footwear and Printed Workwear. Over time, he has also received inquiries from local property owners who watched his videos and were keen to engage his service, expanding his business opportunities through marketing and word-of-mouth amongst the local community. Ben’s experience growing his business on TikTok has not only gave him the confidence to continue documenting his journey on TikTok, but also inspired a greater purpose to help other small businesses in the community leverage the platform to find success.