Most advice on this is written by people who have never done the work. It tells you to build a content calendar and post daily, which is a full-time job on top of a full-time job. The version that actually works for someone on tools is much smaller: film the thing you were already doing, and stop.
The rule that decides everything
Film the work, not yourself. The single biggest mistake is treating this as a channel where you have to be a personality. You do not. People watching a driveway get cleaned are not waiting for a piece to camera. Your hands doing something skilled is the content, and it is the part you are actually good at.
This is also why it beats writing a profile. Nobody has to be good at describing themselves. You point a phone at a thing you fixed.
Fifteen things worth filming
The obvious ones, which work because they work
- Before and after, same angle. Stand in the same spot, same height, twice. The closer the match, the harder it hits. This is the most reliable format in the trades and it is not close.
- The satisfying middle. The first pass of a pressure washer. Edging a lawn in a straight line. Grout coming clean. People watch these to the end.
- A time-lapse of a whole job. Phone on a tripod or leaned against something, left running.
The ones that get you hired, which are less obvious
- The bit that went wrong. Opening a wall and finding something unexpected, and what you did about it. This builds more trust than a clean job does, because anyone who has hired a contractor has had this happen.
- Explaining a price. Not your prices — the reasoning. Why the two-storey gutter costs more than the single. Homeowners find pricing opaque and slightly frightening, and explaining it plainly is rare enough to be memorable.
- What you would not do. "You do not need me for this, here is how to do it yourself in ten minutes." It feels like giving work away. It is the strongest trust signal you can send.
- Your actual tools and why. Trades people love this and so, unexpectedly, do homeowners.
- The clean-up. Almost nobody films it and it is one of the top things homeowners privately care about.
- The truck loaded in the morning. Thirty seconds, no commentary. It reads as competence and it reads as local.
The ones that make people call you specifically
- Name the street or the neighbourhood. Not the address. "Finished this one over on the east side this morning." Proximity is the whole product.
- Answer a question somebody actually asked you. If one customer asked it, several hundred people nearby have wondered it.
- Seasonal warnings, a few weeks early. Gutters before the leaves, hoses before the freeze. Useful, timely, and it puts you in mind at exactly the right moment.
- A job you turned down, and why. Handled without naming anyone.
- The five-second version of a common repair. Not a tutorial. Just: this is what that looks like when it is done properly.
- Your face, once in a while. Not every post. But people are deciding whether to let you into their house, and at some point they need to have seen you.
If you only take one thing: the same-angle before-and-after, and the honest explanation of a price. Those two do most of the work, and neither requires you to be entertaining.
How to shoot it without slowing the job down
- Film before you start, always. Ten seconds. You cannot go back and get it, and this is the single most common regret.
- Hold each shot longer than feels right. Five seconds minimum. Short clips are unusable; long ones can be cut.
- Shoot vertical. Everything is watched on a phone.
- Do not narrate while you work. Wind and tools ruin audio. Add words as text afterwards, or say one sentence at the end with the machine off.
- Ask first if you are filming inside somebody's home, and keep faces, post, photographs and house numbers out of shot. Most people say yes when you ask and are annoyed when you do not.
- One job, one clip. Do not save up a week and try to make a film.
The part almost every guide leaves out
Say what you want to happen. A clip that ends with nothing asks the viewer to work out what to do next, and most will not bother. It does not have to be a sales pitch — "if your gutters look like this one did, I am about ten minutes away" is enough.
And send them somewhere that can actually take a booking. The usual advice stops at posting, which leaves people who want to hire you in your DMs alongside everything else, at the exact moment they were ready. That is the gap this whole thing falls into — not reach, conversion.
Frequently asked questions
What should a contractor post on social media?
The work, not yourself. Same-angle before-and-afters, the satisfying middle of a job, the bit that went wrong and how you handled it, and plain explanations of why something costs what it costs. You do not need to be a personality — your hands doing skilled work is the content.
How often should a trades business post?
Less often than the advice usually says. One clip from an ordinary working day, filmed in under a minute, beats a content calendar you abandon in three weeks. Consistency over months matters more than frequency in any given week.
Do I need to show my face?
Occasionally, not every time. People are deciding whether to let you into their home, and at some point they need to have seen you. But the work carries most posts on its own, and treating every clip as a piece to camera is what makes people stop.
Can I film inside a customer’s house?
Ask first, every time. Most people say yes when asked and are genuinely annoyed when they were not. Keep faces, post, photographs and house numbers out of frame, and stick to the work itself.