Construction is the easiest industry in Ontario to dominate on social media right now. Most contractors do not post. The ones who do post the same speed-ramped time-lapse reels of a framing job that everyone else posts. The ceiling is so low that any contractor with a half-decent strategy can become the most visible builder in their region inside a year.
I am going to make an unusual claim and then defend it: the best content format for construction companies is not before-and-afters, not drone footage, and not aerial walkthroughs. It is comedy.
Why Construction Social Media Is Broken
Two things are happening at once. The first is that most contractors hate doing social media and treat it as a chore. They post when they remember, on platforms they do not really use, with content they do not really care about. So the content is bad and the consistency is worse.
The second thing is that the contractors who do try usually copy what they see other contractors doing. Speed-ramped reel of a framing job. Speed-ramped reel of a kitchen reno. Speed-ramped reel of a tile install. The format is so saturated at this point that the audience has stopped paying attention.
Audiences are tired of speed ramps. The format peaked, the algorithm stopped favouring it, and the only people still relying on it are the people who have nothing else.
Why Comedy Wins for Trades
Comedy works for construction for a structural reason that has nothing to do with humour as a personal style. The audience for a contractor's social account splits roughly into two groups:
- Other people in the trades who follow for the work, the build process, and the on-site reality.
- Potential clients who follow because they are evaluating you as a builder.
Comedy works for both audiences in a way nothing else does. People in the trades recognise the in-jokes and tag their crew. Potential clients see a contractor who is enjoyable to follow and starts to feel like a real person rather than a faceless company. Both groups stay, both groups engage, both groups remember you.
Speed ramps land with neither group. Trades have seen them a thousand times. Clients do not understand what they are looking at.
What "Comedy" Actually Means for Construction
Comedy in this context is not stand-up. It is not telling jokes. It is taking the everyday absurdities of working on a job site and framing them honestly. The labourer who keeps losing his pencil. The client request that everyone in the trade has heard a hundred times. The moment a delivery truck shows up with the wrong materials. The architect who specs something impossible.
None of this is hard to film. It is happening anyway. The skill is recognising it as content and capturing it.
How Anchored Interiors Used Social to Get Bigger Clients
Anchored Interiors is a custom carpentry and home renovation shop in Guelph that we work with. Their goal was straightforward and ambitious: bigger clients. They wanted the kind of large residential and commercial work that does not come from referrals to a small carpentry company unless the company has visibility and credibility.
Social was the lever. Specifically, it was the way to make the company feel bigger and more present than its size on paper. A potential client comparing three contractors on Instagram is unconsciously weighing how much each one feels like a real, established business. Anchored's account became the answer to that question.
The content mix was deliberate. Comedy carried most of the reach. Project documentation carried the credibility. Founder-led content built the trust. The combination is what moved the needle, not any one piece in isolation.
Construction is the rare industry where being mildly entertaining on social media is a competitive moat. Almost nobody is doing it, and the ones who are getting bigger work for it.
The Content System for a Construction Company
If a contractor came to us tomorrow and said "I want to do this seriously," this is the system I would build with them.
1. One Comedy Reel Per Week
Job-site moments, in-trade humour, light digs at the parts of the job everyone in the industry recognises. This is the reach driver.
2. One Project Documentation Reel Every Two Weeks
Not a speed ramp. A real, slow, considered walkthrough of one decision on one project. Why we used this material here. What this detail solved. The thinking, not the time-lapse.
3. One Founder-Led Piece Per Month
The owner on camera, talking about how they think, what they look for in a project, how they bid, what they will not do. The piece that moves a viewer from "interesting account" to "I want to work with this person."
4. Stories Several Times a Week
Job-site behind-the-scenes, lower production, posted directly. The continuity that keeps the account warm between reels.
Why a Small Ad Budget Goes Far in Construction
Most construction companies are competing in social ads against almost no one in their region. The auction is cheap because nobody is bidding. A construction client can spend $300-500 a month in paid distribution and reach more potential clients than competitors with twenty times the headcount and zero social presence.
This will not last forever. The contractors who figure this out in 2026 will own the local feed for the next decade. The ones who wait will be paying ten times the cost per result by 2030.
What I Would Tell a Contractor Reading This
Stop trying to make your social media look like a real estate listing. Stop posting the same speed-ramped reel of yet another framing job. Start filming the parts of your work that are actually interesting, including the parts that are slightly funny. Hire someone who knows what they are doing, even part-time, because the quality lift between "the owner posts when he remembers" and "this is handled by an agency" is enormous and visible immediately.
And if you are an Ontario contractor reading this and you want a candid conversation about what social could do for your business, that is what we are here for.