At one point it was a hub for selfies and snapshots of food, but Instagram has evolved into a full-on business tool. If utilized well, social media can open your business to a new user base and potential clients.
Some within the remodeling industry have been able to harness the potential of social media and carve a niche for themselves as influencers alongside their day jobs. Lydia Crowder of Drywall Shorty and Katie Kath of Jkath Design Build + Reinvent have managed to do just that and are now growing their respective businesses using the exposure and marketing their Instagram accounts provide them.
Lydia Crowder, aka Drywall Shorty
Handle(s): @drywallshorty
Platforms: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook
Reach: 370,000 followers (Instagram)
Audience: DIYers
Posting since: 2018
Primary focus: Drywall finishing tips/instructions
Lydia Crowder has been working full-time in drywall finishing for 22 years. She runs the social media brand Drywall Shorty, which she initially started on a whim in 2018 but has since amassed a sizable audience of dedicated viewers. While she is active on many social platforms, Instagram is her most prominent platform, with 370,000 followers.
Crowder primarily uses her social media to educate her audience, posting various how-to’s and instructional videos teaching her followers the ins and outs of drywall finishing. She highlights Instagram as a go-to platform due to the positive audience engagement she can foster there and the various questions she receives in her Instagram comments.
On top of building a community, Crowder’s Instagram has opened many opportunities for her and has been an instrumental tool in building the Drywall Shorty brand. Instagram has also become a lucrative financial opportunity for Crowder as well. The revenue comes from contracts she has with different companies that she has connected with through her Instagram, and from sponsored posts, where she will film a product advertisement onsite at a job and teach her followers how to use it. The contracts, brand deals, and sponsored posts make up roughly 50% of her revenue.
Crowder is super hands-on with her social media accounts, doing much of the filming, editing, and posting herself, which she says takes around 3-4 hours a day altogether. She hopes that her online fame will open more educational opportunities. Teaching hands-on classes about drywall repair and educating people is the ultimate goal for her. To those who want to use social media to build their brand, she encourages taking pride in your work, staying true to yourself, and not letting naysayers affect how you see yourself.
Katie Kath, Jkath Design Build + Reinvent
Handle(s): @jkath_designbuild, @jkathdesignbuild
Platforms: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn
Reach: 50,000 followers (Instagram)
Audience: Potential clients
Posting since: 2015
Primary focus: Business promotion for Jkath Design Build + Reinvent
Katie Kath is a co-owner and the creative director of Jkath Design Build + Reinvent, a design-build firm based in the Twin Cities, Minn. She runs Jkath’s social media platforms exclusively herself, most notably their Instagram, where they have amassed nearly 50,000 followers. Kath started building their social media presence in 2015 and quickly found an audience by posting various “behind the scenes” photos of different remodels.
Kath’s Instagram posts now primarily showcase finished remodel jobs (around 80% of their posts, according to Kath). While they provide educational tips and tricks for remodelers in the captions of some posts, they primarily use the account as a portfolio of their work.
Kath points to the reach of their social media presence as a major benefit to their Instagram account. The platform has placed Jkath’s work in front of thousands of users all around the world and has drastically increased its market reach. She notes that 9 out of 10 customers come to them after discovering Jkath through their Instagram account. Their account is an essential resource for them when obtaining clients.
Kath recommends partnerships and brand deals when trying to build an audience. She notes that Jkath did many of these when they first became active on social media and that the companies they partnered with would often share their posts and expose them to a wider audience. These partnerships eventually resulted in contracts with the companies, which now pay them for advertising their products through Instagram posts. Kath also encourages building a friendly rapport with other remodelers through social media and notes that using your platform as a marketing tool is great for building friendships and partnerships in the community.
In creating a successful Instagram account, Kath recommends consistently posting and having a good understanding of your phone and what you can do with it content-wise, noting that it’s completely fine to start small with the resources you have when first starting out.
About the Author
Tyler Rhyan
Tyler Rhyan is the associate editor for Pro Remodeler. He can be reached at [email protected].