How to Utilize Social Media in 2025 for HVAC Owners & Professionals

Best practices on the platforms 

As the owner of a social media agency, I get asked often, “What platform is the most important one to focus on?” The TikTok Ban should have taught us that no one platform is more important than any other. We don’t own our audience, and if they disappear, our content and followers disappear too. So what should you focus on instead? Create content that can easily span every platform, and use scheduling tools to allow you to get the most reach possible. With this strategy, it’s still important to understand a little bit about the platforms so you know any changes you might need to make and what could actually work across all platforms. Each platform has different nuances and culture. Here are some key points about the major platforms in 2025 for your HVAC business.

• Facebook & Instagram
  • Both are owned by Meta so you can easily cross-post content in the apps and run ads to both at the same time.
  • They both have story features, Reels, and a newsfeed.

• Facebook

• You can share links (though it’s not recommended).
• A great platform to reach your local audience and your warm network.
• Has Groups- search your neighborhoods and cities to find people asking for HVAC referrals. Also use groups as a place to share value, if there are upcoming weather changes, let your neighbors know how to stay safe and keep their homes and families protected.
• You can post short videos, long videos, links, events, pictures, or text-only posts. Very versatile.
• Instagram
  • Uses keywords and hashtags for content discovery- use these in your bio and your content to help your ideal customer find you.
  • A great place to connect with influencers and local businesses to engage with.
  • Posts need to have either a picture or video, there are no text-only posts and no clickable links.

• LinkedIn
  • Great for making business connections and connecting with people in your industry.
  • Great for connecting with your local town leadership, realtors, and other people you could have as referral partners.
  • Great for attracting recruits, especially for leadership positions in your organization.
  • You can post videos, links, blog posts, text-only content, and static graphics and pictures.

• TikTok
  • The platform that started the short-form video trends AND starts many of the cultural trends you see on all the platforms.
  • You can post both videos and pictures but short videos are the most common.
  • After you have 1000 followers you can go live and include links in your bio.
  • A great platform to reach many people quickly, the algorithm is based on what you like, not who you know, so people interested in your video topics are more likely to find your videos.
  • Use hashtags and geotagging to help your content reach your local community.
  • A great place to show your personality to humanize your brand and help find better recruits.

• YouTube Shorts
  • I’m adding YouTube Shorts as a bonus here, especially with TikTok being unstable/gone/maybe-coming-back-soon/maybe-never-returning
  • YouTube Shorts is a video under 60 seconds in vertical format on YouTube.
  • It gets uploaded to your YouTube account so it can help bring new followers to any long-form content or commercials you may have uploaded there.
  • You can add keywords to your titles and descriptions to help with Google SEO
  • YouTube Shorts is also a platform where people watch short-form video, you can get visibility and grow a following there too.

In each breakdown above, you’ll see insight into who you can find on each platform. Consider that audience when you’re posting. Your captions and hashtags may need to be adjusted if you decide to post the same content across platforms. A good rule of thumb, especially if your goal is to grow your business, is to post across platforms. Take the omnipresence approach, if you’re already creating it, get it out there.

Personal Branding

You may have heard by now how powerful it can be for your business for you to grow your personal brand. But is this really important for someone in the trades? And if so, what does that even look like?

Let’s start with why personal branding is so important for anyone right now. No matter what position you hold in a business: owner, sales, or technician; when you start to build and establish your personal brand, you become that much more valuable.
 Think about the way we consume news, ideas, and social media; it’s usually through video or pictures with captions of a creator. But being a creator looks like a big commitment! Honestly, it can be, but it pays off in dividends. And you don’t have to “be a creator” in order to start building your personal brand.

The easiest way to get started is to start documenting and posting about your day-to-day life. Take pictures and videos on the job and start to share your expertise online. Work on building the habit before you worry about optimizing. As far as platforms go, choose the one you’re the most comfortable with first. Once you get into the habit of posting, you can start to add a little bit of strategy behind your posting. 

First, consider the platform your ideal customer is on, or even where many of your colleagues are, this is likely a great place to build your personal brand. Again, don’t get caught up in worrying about whether you’re doing it right or not, and don’t stress about the time you post or the hashtags you use, just get in the habit of posting. 

I’m sure if you’re reading this, the bigger question you have is: “What should I be posting about”. As I mentioned above- your day-to-day life is a great place to start, but when you’re ready to put some strategy behind it, start to use the 3S Framework. 

The 3S Framework is Show-Up, Stand-Out and Scale. Your personal brand is an opportunity for people to connect with you as a person. So your content should do just that. =

Show-Up content is your relatable content- this is your day-to-day, behind-the-scenes look at what you’re up to. Post your weekends, your hobbies, your morning routines, and fitness regimens. This should be 50% of what you post and will help people connect with you as they get to know you. 

Stand-out content is thought leadership content and will be anywhere from 30%-50% of your personal branding content. This is not only where you share value in your expertise, it’s also where you share all the times you’ve been given a platform- the podcasts you’re on, speaking opportunities you’re given, and industry events you’re attending. 

Scale content is call-to-action content and this can look different depending on where you’re at in your personal branding journey. You may not have any call-to-action content right away, but as you start getting up on stages and getting on podcasts, your call-to-action could be inviting people to join you or listen in. This is also where you can share your business content. Reshare offers and specials to your personal pages, but only about 20% of your content.

People want to connect with other people, people want to buy from who they know, your personal brand is invaluable, and no matter what business you own or job you have, you can take it with you. This year is the year to start focusing heavily on your personal brand.

Short-Form Video

Short-form video isn’t new, it’s been prevalent on social media platforms since 2020, but it’s as powerful as ever in your social media strategy. First, if you’re not already creating short-form video for your business or personal brand, it’s time to start. These are videos that are less than 60 seconds long and in the horizontal or 9:16 format. Usually, they are recorded with your phone and don’t require any fancy equipment or editing. 

Short-form video truly gives you the best opportunity to get in front of your audience online.
 Not only do the algorithms favor short-form video, but any time someone scrolls past it and “watches” it, it counts as engagement which then helps it show up more. There is also an authenticity in video that is still hard to fake with AI. Static content, like photos or graphics, can either be overly edited or AI-produced. This doesn’t fit into how we consume content these days. Plus, people are craving connection. Video gives you the chance to share your team, your culture, and your community in a real and authentic way.

So what should you start recording videos of? Over the last 6 months, short, educational tips have been very impactful in short-form videos. And for contractors, the best thing to consider is the questions and conversations you often have with your customers. Explain something in simple terms so that a homeowner understands what caused the problem and how they can avoid it in the future. If you’re not working with residential customers, the idea is still the same, create short videos that answer questions and concerns that you run into frequently. 

Once you’ve recorded your video, don’t overthink it and just post it. If you wait until you finally learn how to edit it, it will never get out there. You can learn editing or eventually hire someone as you go. 

Where are you going to post it? Everywhere. All the social media platforms love video. Wherever you’re currently posting social media content, start putting videos there. If you aren’t posting anywhere yet, TikTok and YouTube Shorts are a good choice, along with the Meta platforms and LinkedIn if you’re in Business-to-business. Use scheduling tools to help you easily post to multiple platforms to get the most out of the content you’re creating.

AI and Automation

In 2025, if you’re not utilizing AI and Automation in your social media strategy, you are working way too hard. There are so many tools that make content creation and posting much easier and should allow you to be more consistent with your content.
 First, I’m going to preface this and say, I don’t think we’re at the point yet that AI can create branded pictures and videos for your social media content. Yes, there are tools out there that can take a picture you upload and generate many different pictures with different backgrounds and poses. Yes, there are tools that you can upload a picture to and it can create a video that looks like that person is talking. This type of technology isn’t perfect yet, it’s also still pretty uncomfortable for most people. Will there be a day when this is more of the norm? Maybe. I think as humans, we feel a little bit duped by this idea. It’s the opposite of connection and authenticity. And since you’re creating content for a business, the last thing you want to do is lose your potential customer’s trust.

So what should you be using AI and Automation for? The possibilities are endless. First, for scheduling and repurposing your content. Most scheduling tools out there right now will allow you to schedule posts to all the platforms (including your Google Business Profile), can easily generate top posting times, and even help generate captions and hashtags. Social media scheduling platforms are abundant, including Metricool (my favorite), Sprout Social, Later and Sendible. There are also tools like Repurpose.io that you can use to easily repost video content from one platform to another. The time saved from using scheduling apps is worth it in itself, but scheduling your content also helps with consistency and human error of forgetting.

AI can be great for content brainstorming. You can use a tool like ChatGPT to help you brainstorm a content calendar, or write copy for your paid and organic content. If you’ve ever used ChatGPT, then you know how important your prompts and inputs are to what you get out of it. But Chat GPT is one of my favorite brainstorming tools!

AI can also help with photo and video editing. Canva and Adobe Photoshop have background remover features or even features to add and subtract things with the click of a button from photos. Video editing tools like Descript and Opus will pull transcripts and even cut out short videos from longer form content. 

Everything listed above will help your social media content get done faster and more efficiently. AI and Automation is all about working smarter and not harder. Like any other revolution in the workforce, we can use tools to help us be more productive. With all of the scheduling, repurposing, and editing tools, it can help cut down your content creation time which means you have more time for other things in your business.

Your Social Media Plan

The most important thing in your social media plan for 2025 should be humanizing it and keeping it authentic. Short-form video, storytelling, and using pictures of people will help keep your content engaging and ensure the effort you’re putting into your social media will bring results. 

Social media can be used for building brand awareness, keeping your community engaged, and generating leads. Each platform has different people you can get in front of, use AI and automation to help you create an omnipresence and get the most out of everything you’re posting. Be sure to start including video in your social media strategy or start to optimize your video editing and content if you already include it. And if your goal is to stand out in your community and be the go-to answer, your personal brand cannot be ignored. Even if you start to post slowly and inconsistently, many experts agree that personal branding is only going to get more and more valuable with the rise of AI.