Going Viral and Getting Social Engagement

Pete (00:01.634)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the RUFA report. I am your host, Pete McKendrick, and keeping it in house today here at RUFA. We've got our community manager, TJ McCormick, joining me today. Really excited to get into this a bit. Obviously a topic that's been around the last couple of years, but I think has really become very prevalent here in the last, I'd say a year or so, as far as starting to see.

Contractors really adopting it and really starting to embrace it. You know like anything else I think we're often slow in this industry to jump aboard on things and it took a little bit You know for contractors to really understand and see the value in it I think and you know once some guys went out there and kind of pioneered it and tried it out and saw some success You know now you have contractors taking a look and seeing what they can do out there. So For people that don't know you TJ. I'll let you introduce yourself Nick and then we'll go from there

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (00:55.683)
Yeah.

Appreciate it. Hopefully everybody knows me. No, I'm just kidding. You know, my name is TJ McCormick. I am Rufr's Community Manager. I'm lucky to have an amazing job here at Rufr, being able to connect with the roofing community as often as I do. I've been in the roofing industry since 2015, and I've been through all facets of the roofing industry from sales to commercial sales to recruiting to...

Pete (01:00.811)
That's dope, right?

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (01:26.924)
running insurance claims. And here I am now a social media influencer with the brand I developed in 2020 called World's Greatest Roofer. And it was something that I saw that I needed in order to help myself continue to grow because during COVID, we weren't able to make those sales that we needed. And for a couple of years, my personal marketer that worked with me to generate leads,

was like, TJ, you have to stop giving me pictures and you need to give me video. And I put it through my head over and over again for a year before I finally was like, okay, I'll do a video. So here we are now.

Pete (02:10.25)
Yeah, and I think that's been probably the biggest change in this whole social piece. I think originally it was like, hey, let's just put ads on social. You see Facebook ads from roofers and things like that and some of the software in our space throwing Facebook ads up there. Then it came content. I saw a lot of people flying drones, taking pictures of roofs and starting to show their work.

now you're starting to see the video, right? Like now you're starting to see these guys latch on it and realize like, hey, we need to shoot some video content. We need to get in front of the camera. And like you said, I think that's a tough thing for people to do. Not everybody's comfortable turning the camera on themselves. But I think it's an important piece, right? Cause I think it definitely helps make the video content more genuine and definitely kind of shed some light on who they really are as a roofer.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (03:03.364)
You know, I'll argue this all day long with anybody out there, but the hardest thing about creating content is turning on the camera. And that goes for me too. I get sometimes in my own head just before I'm about to turn on the camera, but really it's just pushing that button and just, it works both ways. You can turn the, it could be on the front or it could be on the back, whichever one you want.

Pete (03:29.23)
Yeah, you know, and I think an important thing to note here is that I think it was Jordan Harrison actually who said it on one of his, you know, one of his little pieces of content that he put on Facebook is you don't have to be good at it right out of the box, right? Like I think that's a big fear that a lot of people have is like, Hey, I'm going to create some video content. It's going to suck. Nobody's going to watch it. Right. And I think that's probably true early on, right? Like they're probably, you're probably being fine tuned.

It's probably not going to be a great piece of content, but guess what? Like anything else, the more you do it, the more you practice it, the better and cleaner it's going to get, the more comfortable you're going to get in front of the camera. I think that that's a big thing to note here because I think that's probably a blocker for a lot of people.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (04:11.456)
Yeah, it, you know, when I started in December of 2020, I didn't know what I was gonna do. I had some videos in my phone from over the years, right? I think I probably, back then, I probably had about 8,000 videos, maybe a little less. And so I started going through trying to create content and then I would put myself on video and it was absolutely horrible.

There were people out there from the roofing industry that probably will never follow me or talk to me again and that's cool. I'm okay with that. I lost a few friends along the way, but I was trying to figure out how to make these videos and how to make them engaging to where people actually wanted to watch me because you know, I was trying to build trust in an online community because nobody didn't, they didn't know me. They didn't know what they could expect from me and in world's greatest roofer was a very huge title.

And, you know, it was all about the branding. But once I got on to the video section, what really took off for me was the live feature of the social media platforms. For example, TikTok Live, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, the YouTube Live Now. Those are the most important keys to my success was the ability or going live for 30 minutes a couple of times a day.

Pete (05:31.554)
Yeah, so let's talk about that because there are different forms of video content, right? You have your short form content, you have your reels that you see a lot of people posting, you have your live opportunities there. So I guess like, if I'm a new roofer, maybe I haven't done video content and I'm just starting out, what do you suggest as being a great place to start? And I guess my biggest question would be, I think what's daunting to a lot of people is, how much do I have to be in front of the camera? Like how long do these videos need to be?

You know, how much content am I looking to create?

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (06:05.12)
Yeah, you know, so I've always been a TikTok guru, if you will. But once I came to Rufr, you know, Richie and now that Mark is in charge of marketing, we've had our conversations about where we need to focus our energy. And so we've gone from the TikTok to now YouTube and then also the Facebook reels. And if I were to start off now,

I probably would go all in on YouTube versus TikTok just because right now, TikTok has got a lot of problems with the government, right? And a lot of government around the world. And I don't want, I'm not saying don't get caught up in what's going on on TikTok, but I would say just watch it. But if you want your business to get out there right now, you have an excellent opportunity to go to YouTube or go to your Facebook reels and start posting less than one minute videos on those channels.

as well as your long form video, but we'll get into long form video content in just a few minutes. But for us, the short videos have been performing I don't even know how many thousands of percent higher because people's attention spans have just gone out the window and they want that quick fix of whatever you're trying to give them right now. And then they're gonna go about their day.

But they're interested in watching those short form videos and they're not swiping or turning away from them and And people are watching those shorts and the billions and billions and billions of views So just keep that in mind like there's there's all forms of content like you said, but to get started Go all in on YouTube or Facebook reels right now

Pete (07:49.698)
Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I think that one of the ones that I've seen really be successful, and I even like to watch him is Mike Stearns. And I think he's done a really good job with his podcast of cutting it up and making, you know, really good reels that are essentially like a highlight film, you know, of, you know, some specific things out of that podcast. And I think that it does a great job because it draws you in, you know, you get to kind of see the highlight, the best, you know, pieces of that podcast, but at the same time, you know, you see a few of them and then you're like, man,

I really need to go watch that podcast, right? So it draws you towards the long form content and potentially drives you to get in there and check out something that's a little bit deeper and spend a little bit more time. But like you said, if it was just like, hey, go watch my hour long podcast, odds are I'm probably not gonna grab as much, as many people going that route as I would if they saw three or four reels.

from that podcast and we're drawn in that way. Because I think that's how, in today's society, that's literally how we operate. Like you said, we're watching it on everything. I see it now, you have your reels on everything. Facebook, Instagram, obviously TikTok. But, and I think that it just leads you to the other pieces. It leads you to the long form content.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (09:07.076)
You know, I had an opportunity to spend this week with Perkins Builder Brothers. And, you know, Perkins Builder Brothers is a very famous long form construction content where they build houses online. And, you know, there's a stark difference between the long form content versus the short form content where if I have a 30 second video, it might only take me about 10 minutes to edit it and post it and get it out there to the world.

But Eric and his crew are spending anywhere from eight to 12 hours a week, just splicing up videos to put together to post one day a week. They're posting one video a week that gets many millions of views. But that's the difference in the short form and then the long form is it's gonna take you a while to get used to doing that long form and you have to have plenty of time in order to do it. Now I'm not deterring you from doing it, but be prepared that...

these editing and posting of videos, they're not quick sometimes.

Pete (10:09.922)
Yeah, I mean, I know how long it takes us to create and edit and produce a podcast, you know, and, and, uh, you know, and these are fairly simple in regards to content, right? Like there's not a whole lot to it. It's just us talking, but, you know, so I can only imagine something as, as big as a build and all of the footage they would have and, uh, you know, and how much time it would take. So that is something to keep in mind, you know, if you're a smaller roofer, uh, looking to go this route, you know,

maybe that's not where you want to start because there is a lot of time and resources needed where like you said if you produce some 30-second videos you know you may be able to film some stuff sit down at night knock it out in a couple minutes you know post it and and you're well on your way to being a content creator you know with some video so you know I think that's an important thing to note especially for you know your everyday roofer not you know that are not looking to produce some some massive content so

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (11:04.544)
Yeah, no, it's for me, you know, the short form for me works. My typical amount of posts per day is around 15 on all platforms. That's not 15 posts per day, but 15 total posts a day. And that's because the algorithms require me to post that amount in order to, to maintain the traction that I do. For example, like Facebook lets me know every day that how many days that they've given me an extra boost.

to be shown to the algorithm or to the feed, the Facebook feed. And I think I'm at about 120 days straight right now for that. But really if I stop or if I slow down, Facebook will remove that from me and I just have to keep posting. Same with YouTube, same with TikTok, same with Instagram. The consistency is key in your posting and you need to make sure.

that if you're gonna at least start the post, you need to do it at least once a day and then work yourself up to where you get to all the platforms or a couple of times a day.

Pete (12:10.422)
Yeah, I think that's super important to note because I think like even the success that we've seen with podcasts in the industry and things like that are all based around who's the most consistent, right? Who can I count on to constantly produce content? Who can I know is going to have a piece out every week or every couple of days or whatever it is? I think of the Behind the Tool Belt show, like how many weeks in a row have they produced that show?

you know, they've kicked that show out and, you know, and it's that consistency that's gotten them that traction, you know, because you can expect on Wednesday nights that they're going to have an episode of Behind the Tool Bell, right? So, you know, that it's going to be there, you know, you can go watch it at any time, you know, and it's a great way to get them rolling. It's taken them a while, obviously, to gain the traction that they have. But that was a huge piece of it, right? It was just being consistent. So I think that's a really important thing to note. So if I'm a new person.

coming out of the box, right? Like how much do I really need to produce, right? Like do I need to be on there all the time? Do I need to just shoot a quick video every day of our job site or like what's the best way to just get rolling, right?

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (13:21.656)
Yeah, that's a great analogy. Just get rolling with the camera, right? But yeah, so here's my suggestion. There are people out there that are really alpha that don't mind holding this camera up in front of their face and start to take a video, right? And they might have something very educational to say, something really salesy to say.

But the camera again goes both ways. When I was out on job sites, the videos that I was finding that were really working the best for me were not the videos of me, but the videos facing other way, which was on top of a roofing system, showing the guys building a roof or girls, excuse me. There's so many great of everybody building out there. But there's...

the fact that you can turn that camera on and just show some sort of action going on or provide some sort of educational value to somebody else. They always say that we're always teaching or educating homeowners. It's the same thing with your camera. You have to just imagine being in front of your camera and saying what other people want to hear or need to hear in order to make the right decision about whether or not they wanna buy or trust you or use your company.

Pete (14:38.838)
Yeah, you know, I think back to, you know, just to give my guy some props again there, Jordan Harrison, I just things that I've seen him do. But, you know, he did a big piece for I think a couple of short videos he did on solution based selling, right? And solution based content. And essentially becoming the expert by creating these videos of saying like, hey, here's, you know, whatever it is, you know, here's a leaky sink. This is how I would fix it as the expert.

Right? You could go do it yourself or you could call me. Right? It's just like, it's all solution based, you know, content that allows you to see like, hey, this guy knows what he's talking about. It adds to your credibility, right? It gives you an ability to get out there and show what you know. And I think that's, like you said, the videos of these guys putting on a roof, a lot of people, probably your normal everyday customer probably has no idea how a roof is installed. So just showing that is educational enough.

you know, like, I didn't even know that's how they do it. Right. You know, so I think that, you know, that's a great way to get started is just that solution based, you know, show, okay, hey, this is how we install a roof. You know, this is why we use this material. This is, you know, I can think back, there was like, these guys out of Louisiana and the name of their company escapes me. But for a while, they were doing a lot of video content. And they were showing you the products. And they were showing you the products that they install and why they install them walking you through, you know,

you know, what the product is and what it does and what its purpose is on the roof. And it was, it was informative, you know, it was very informative for someone who doesn't understand roofing. I think that they would really like to see that and, and get a better understanding of what's going on there. So let me ask you a question really quick. Go ahead. Go ahead.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (16:19.873)
But yeah, I was gonna say real quick to that. You know, there are a lot of experts in our field. And then there are a lot of people who judge us for being on camera, right? And they're like, oh, don't listen to that guy or don't listen to this guy possibly, right? You know, those guys out there. But they won't also put themselves on camera to show why they're the expert or they know more. So if you're an expert in your field or you're really a-

a great person at what you do, show people. You can go out there and you can gain an influence just by turning on your camera and educating or showing people what they wanna hear or see.

Pete (16:59.454)
Yeah. So as a roofer, who should be my audience? Right. Who am I shooting content for? Like, obviously, you know, if you and I were shooting content, you know, our our customer base or who we would be shooting the content for would potentially be the contractor himself, because that's who our customer base is. So as a roofer, am I looking to educate homeowners? Am I looking to, you know, just get my name out there for branding reasons? Like, what am I looking to do? Who's my biggest? Who's my audience? I guess.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (17:28.364)
Yeah, you know, that's a really great question. If you're out there and you're a roofer and you want to reach potential new clients, we'll go back to what I was saying in the very beginning. It was very hard for me in the beginning to reach potential new clients or anybody, right? There were maybe get a hundred, maybe 200 views of video. And I might get five, 10 likes a post or something like that, but.

When I found out that in the very beginning, roofing content was not my niche, right? It wasn't something that people wanted to watch from me. As a matter of fact, up until, you know, probably a year ago, I was making lifestyle videos and then, you know, just maybe mixing in some roofing content at the same time. But you have to find what content people will watch of you first before you can...

before you can just go all in. You can go do the roofing stuff, or you can do the exterior trades or the inspections or talking to clients or reviews and things like that. But sometimes people aren't gonna watch that of you. They expect an authentic you, and maybe you're funnier than, maybe you're funny and people wanna watch jokes or things that you do that's funny. Maybe they want to see you wash your car, but you can also talk about roofing.

where I was very successful is even though I was not doing a ton of roofing content, people knew that I was a roofer because my name was world's greatest roofer. And when I would do that roofing content or ask people if I could come and get on their roof, even though I typically wasn't doing roofing content, they had already built their trust in me so that they could make a determination of whether or not they wanted to use me as a roofer. And those people were

We're doing them in the hundreds of thousands. Hold on one second. Can you hear that? All right, so the military base is one mile off of my house and there's four jets taking off right now. They take off every day at nine o'clock. So, yeah. Yeah.

Pete (19:27.97)
Yeah.

Pete (19:36.182)
today. That's funny. You can hear him going. Yeah.

Pete (19:50.431)
There they go. Yeah, that sounds like a good way to put it.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (19:50.744)
Alright, hopefully they'll be gone. Let me see them in a second, because there's four of them usually.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (20:05.484)
Yeah, there's another one coming. Yeah, sorry about that. I should have remembered the nine o'clock. I've been on the East Coast for a couple of days.

Pete (20:09.974)
Oh good. Yeah. That's funny.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (20:17.628)
I think we're good now. Awesome. I think we might have to cut that. Thanks, Kate. Sorry about the jet.

Pete (20:21.381)
Yeah. Hahaha.

Pete (20:26.47)
Yeah. Yeah. So I was just going to say like how important is it, you know, obviously when we're producing content, right? Like how important is it that we let, like you said, you know, if you're funny, be funny, right? Like how important is it that we let our personality come out? Like I go back to these guys, you know, I think I wish I could remember the name of the contractor, but they were two guys. They owned a reefing company in Louisiana, they were producing content. And

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (20:27.94)
So, but yeah, no. Oh, good, good.

Pete (20:54.102)
I'll tell you what, one of the reasons that I loved to watch them was their personality. Their accent was phenomenal. They were Louisiana guys with a Louisiana accent, which made them really fun to watch. I really enjoyed their content. It was educational from a homeowner standpoint, but their personalities and the jobs they were doing and the materials they were using, the way they were talking about it was really entertaining. I really enjoyed watching them. I think that's an important piece. I think so many times.

people think like, oh, if I'm gonna turn the camera on myself, I gotta be a certain way. And, you know, and I think that that's a mistake a bit, right? Because I think ultimately people can tell if you're faking it, right?

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (21:34.892)
Yeah, I a couple of years ago, I would go out and I would make some videos. And I would make pretend that I was like, being an announcer or I was the the person interviewing the other person, right. And it really came off as inauthentic because that wasn't me. That's not how I talk. That's not how I do everyday things. When I walk up to somebody, it's not like handing a microphone and putting it in their face. And you have to

be authentic, you have to be yourself in front of that camera. And if you are a little bit funny or maybe you're a little bit sad, maybe you're a little bit weird, whatever you are, people are attracted to people, right? And that people watching is a real thing. We've talked about people watching even before the internet and people will, they'll like you for the weirdest things or maybe they don't like you at all, but they're gonna tell you about it one way or another.

Pete (22:28.259)
So let's talk about the individual platforms, right? Because like you said, there's a bunch of platforms now that we have the opportunity to post on. And, you know, like obviously we see a huge contingent of roofers on Facebook. You know, some of these Facebook groups have gotten huge. I think the roofing and sales community, roofing and solar community is over 25,000 roofers on there now. You know, so there's some real big groups on there and a lot of exposure there if you hit the right groups. And

So let's talk about the individual pieces because obviously there's, you know, I think there's some that are holding strong. Like I think Facebook continues to be very used. You have Instagram kind of in the middle, then TikTok is the new person on the block there. And then like you said, and then I think one of the most underutilized and underestimated, I think is YouTube, right? So let's go like, you know, kind of platform by platform here and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (23:21.164)
Okay, yeah, I wanna start at Instagram first, okay? So Instagram for me has been horrible throughout the years. That's me, right? But I have had some recent success on Instagram, but I still don't understand their platform. I don't understand that when or how they show their videos to other people. And I've heard this from several other people as well, but there are some people out there that have great success with Instagram and they understand that.

I think that I was in between an age group there, or maybe I just didn't jump on the train on time. But no, I've seen a couple of videos these past few weeks that have gotten four or 500,000 views. And again, it was just me consistently posting. It was, there was no rhyme or reason to me doing it or how I was doing it, but it was just posting the reels to those platforms. Now let's talk about Facebook. Facebook for me is really great because I'm trying to reach roofers.

Roofers follow me or I follow them, or we're friends together with a bunch of roofers. Now, currently on the Facebook platform, the feed is shown to your followers and the other people that are your friends, right? But there's an unknown gem that people are still trying to figure out. And that unknown gem is that if you're posting Facebook reels,

there's a great opportunity there that they're gonna show that video on the FYP style feed. And what the FYP style feed is, is like it's not just your friends, not just your followers, it's gonna be like-minded individuals or somebody that has an interest in something that you have an interest in, or maybe they searched for roofing or something that was included in that video. For me, finding out over the past month or two, I've been viral now,

three times on Facebook in the past month with over a million views. And that's what I mean by going viral is over a million people have watched that video. And it was because of the real feature. Now, when you post to Facebook Reels, you also have the opportunity to post to Instagram as well. And, but I find that those videos don't do well when they do that. One second.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (25:48.164)
All right, sorry. So back to what I was saying is, when you post from Facebook and then it goes to Instagram, I don't get a lot of traction. I very rarely get a video that gets more than one or two views after it's gone from Facebook to Instagram. So Facebook for me, and then if people are watching out there, these algorithms, the way that they're changing their for you style feed, you're gonna have to learn how to use those feeds to your advantage.

And that's what I've done in business. And then other people are doing that are really successful on video right now, as they figured out how to reach more than just the audience that are their followers or their friends. Um, now, if you're going to tick tock, tick tock was a completely different beast. And I think that because of tick tock is the re well, the reason I understand the social media now is because of tick tock. Um,

When social media, well, when TikTok first started, and it was Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, they didn't have the FYP style feed yet, which was always only just showing to the subscribers of the following base. But on TikTok, the goal was never to be on the following feed, it was always to be on the FYP feed. And when I figured out how to create those really engaging videos and doing the live broadcasts that coincided with

with me posting that short form video, TikTok took off to the moon for me. And the same thing is occurring on YouTube and then Facebook as well right now. As long as you're producing those engaging content, they're gonna show it to whoever wants to watch it, especially when it comes to construction. Construction is one of the most watched line of videos on YouTube. And let's go over to YouTube now. I never thought that...

Less than 28 days ago, when I started posting on YouTube for Rufr, that we would have seen the amount of traction that we've seen in this first month. And we post a lot of long form content and we have for years. And I think that that probably is one of the main reasons why the short form videos are doing so well. But going back there a little bit like...

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (28:01.624)
We posted, I think, roughly 30 or 40 videos on YouTube over the past month. And we have over five that have reached over 100,000 people and two that have reached over a million just on our YouTube. And so to have that amount of strength in a business, it provides psychologically when people see the number of subscribers.

the number of likes, the number of shares, the number of comments, they're psychologically gonna do the same thing because they say, oh, look how many subscribers he has, or oh, look how many likes this guy got on this post. And they psychologically see that and then they do it themselves. Now, a lot of times people are like, oh, you have to be consistent, it doesn't matter about views, it doesn't matter about likes. That's not true. You have to make engaging content with other people if you want them to continue to watch your stuff.

waiting four or five years for that, you know, one of those people to buy from you just isn't going to make your business grow. You can go out there and get business right now from social media today if you make a great enough video and if it reaches the right population density or wherever you're trying to show it. For example, like if I'm here in Aurora right now and I'm going to post a short form video.

I'm going to post it and then I'm going to tag Aurora, Colorado. And then I'm gonna put hashtag high point because I live in the neighborhood of high point. So people will get that video within what Joseph Hughes says the five mile famous. So now when I go to the grocery store here in Aurora, like people know me, right? That it's it's weird. It's kind of like sometimes I'm like, Oh, gosh, I got to put a hat on today. Like so somebody doesn't recognize me.

Pete (29:53.47)
Yeah.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (29:54.788)
but it's really a true statement about being five mile famous as long as you're geo-tagging the right locations of where you are. Because when I go to the grocery store, they're like, world's greatest root for it. I'm like, hey, how's it going? I don't know your name. But thanks for saying hello to me. Now, if that was me and I'm still selling Roos, I would take our instant estimator and I would put a QR code on a business card.

And then when I'm going in the grocery store and someone says, hey, this world's greatest roofer, I would hand them that business card. And I would say, hey, if you ever need a quote for your roof, here's our instant estimator. I'll give you a quote in 26 seconds. But that's what I'm talking about being locally famous and then also driving more business for your business. And that even works in a small town. Because as you grow your social influence, whether it's 1,000 followers or 10,000 followers or a million

people all over your town are going to recognize that you're the guy that's out there posting on social media and you're the person that they should call. Now, you could start a business today like Amanda from in New Jersey, you know Amanda Voight. She's one of our, well, she's somebody that Rufa really likes, right? She's just getting ready to start her own business and she's been out there posting social posts

really see the difference of a 30 year business versus a business that just opened if you're providing value right now.

Pete (31:28.85)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, the biggest point in this too, is that it's helping your branding, right? And I think that's the biggest point is like, how do we build a brand? How do we get our name out there? How do we become five mile famous? How do we become a household name? You know, and I think there's the traditional ways right, like, just being visible everywhere. Like I think of a podcast I did with Ben Tiger, you know, and Ben's, Ben's, you know, has mastered that whole branding piece with the

you know, the tiger theme and the trucks and everything very noticeable in his area, you know, and, and all of that. But this is just another way. Like, you know, I think like we've talked about in the past, on some other webinars and things is like, you know, it has to become like a foundation. Like you have to build on these things. You can't drop one thing. You can't, you know, I can't say like, Oh, I'm posting on social now, so I'm not going to put yard signs out anymore. Right? Like it's all, it all has to work together. Right. So,

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (32:22.649)
Oh, yes.

Pete (32:25.438)
You know, and I think that this is just another piece of the puzzle. You know, this is another way to help with your branding and make yourself a well-known name in your, in your area specifically. And then obviously you can, you know, expand that as you go. But, but yeah, I think that's a super important point is, you know, this is a really easy vehicle to use and it's as simple as, you know, hashtagging the right things and making yourself visible to the local people through social.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (32:52.993)
Yeah, you know, social is just one part of the pie. The door knocking, the call, you know, the lead generation to calls, the yard signs, the mailers, all of those things are organic, you know, growth for your company.

And if you don't have a lot of money right now to put into marketing, you should be doing everything you can that's out there free in order to get your brand and your name and your companies out there. You know, Ben Tiger, I love Ben, right? I got to hang out with Ben last weekend in Salt Lake City. It was so great. But yeah, the story of how he created Roof Tiger and Solar Panther

It's great. Like people love tigers and they love Panthers. And when they see that truck driving around town, of course, why wouldn't I want a tiger truck out in front of my house? So.

Pete (33:43.862)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He's done a brilliant job with it. Yeah. So let's talk just really quick because I find it really interesting. Like in my mind, I think you traditionally when I think of YouTube, I think of long form content, right? I think YouTube is being like, you know, for the guys that are producing a lot of content, long form, you know, posting big stuff every day. And that's changing, right? Like I think I think that was

how YouTube kind of operated, right? Like I could go to a YouTube channel and watch, you know, a 45 minute documentary, right? But I think that that's changing now. And there's a, you know, is there a new version of YouTube now? Like is YouTube kind of pivoting and changing its content to, you know, go more along the lines of like a TikTok? And is that why you think it's becoming a more successful platform?

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (34:35.503)
I think that it's becoming a hybrid of between TikTok and Facebook. Here recently when I've been on the home page and of course, I'm just still learning YouTube myself. So please know that when I say that I've just had been really successful over the past several weeks using it. But whenever I go onto the home page, now there's the shorts in the middle. There's people at the top that are currently live or maybe have a really interesting video that they just posted.

And then they have the following feed underneath all of that. So people that you currently follow. And then something that I really like is that people that currently watch the videos that you create, YouTube has created a feed showing like kind of videos. So where we might post roofing content all day, you could go down below and you can see what your followers or people that are watching your content are also watching.

And it is very, it's for me that that gives me a sense of, oh, that's a great idea. Or, oh, look, he's building a block home and people are watching this or they're doing a repair. That's really cool, right? Like there's so many, like this week alone, I have just over 150,000 views on videos of me showing the installation of EuroShield. Like you were saying earlier, on the live, I did a live video on Tuesday, excuse me, Wednesday.

And I did it on Facebook and just over 4,000 people watched that live and they wanted to see how your shield was installed for 30 minutes. They sat there and watched me build that your shield roof. And that's what people are after. But the YouTube homepage, like I said, it's like it's becoming sort of like a hybrid.

Pete (36:27.574)
Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. You know, it's a, I think it's an interesting platform, right? Because it's been around maybe the longest, right? It's been around a long time. Yeah, so for it to find kind of a new niche is very interesting. So, yeah.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (36:36.365)
It is, yeah.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (36:42.476)
Well, let's talk about that just for a second. So there's a number out there and TikTok is beating YouTube in kids under 15. So when the Gen Zs and the millennials and the people out there that are really tech savvy, not like us older guys, right? Well, we're tech savvy, we work for a tech company, right? But there's guys out there like us that could care less about social media. But-

Pete (37:06.452)
Yeah.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (37:11.748)
For the future, YouTube, I think, caught itself or said to itself, oh crap, if we wanna still be the number one platform, we need to do some things that the kids are liking right now, or else we're gonna be behind and then nobody's gonna watch our content. I always thought of YouTube as being that long form education piece for me. I'll be the first to tell you, I never really watched YouTube other than to find an educational piece of something I needed.

But there are guys and girls out there that have been watching YouTube for years and I just never got on that bandwagon.

Pete (37:48.778)
Yeah, no, I think it's interesting. Yeah, it's very interesting. It's interesting to watch these platforms evolve and change their methods to try to cater to, like you said, to kind of cater to the audience. And so I'm excited to see what roofers can do with their content moving forward. I think, like you said, I think a lot more roofers are getting on board with it. I think RoofCon last year was a really eye-opener for me to see how many people were shooting content there.

in comparison to trade shows in the past. And how many people were getting followed around by cameras and stuff. I think it was interesting, but it speaks to the time. That's how people are learning now. That's how people are educating other people. And it's really where society is going as a whole is, hey, what can I grab really quick and it's some short-form content. And if it's super interesting, then maybe I'm gonna look for the long-form version of it. So.

So yes, I mean, I don't want to keep us too long here today. I think some really, really great content, can go around content. You know, here's.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (38:53.092)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say one last thing, if you don't mind, like the the last thing or the thing that people fear the most one is themselves or to their family, right? And I had to get past that when I was trying to learn how to create content. Just remember, this is this is your world. These are your sales. These This is your brand. Go out there and show the world why you're so great.

Pete (38:59.92)
Yeah.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (39:22.653)
And if you are that great and you want to generate more new sales and new leads, people are going to come and find you and they're going to, they're going to buy from you. So put yourself on camera today and be consistent with it. And a couple of months from now, let's talk about how it's worked for you.

Pete (39:38.71)
Yeah, I love it. Yeah. And I think that's the biggest takeaway here is, you know, get started today, you turn the camera on, right? Like that, like you said, the hardest part is just turning the camera on, get started and be consistent. You know, like, like you said, all the six, all the people that I've seen that have been successful doing this are the people who are consistently posting. So great stuff, man. Well, I appreciate you jumping on and chatting about this. And I'm sure you know, six months from now.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (39:58.68)
down. Yeah. Yeah.

Pete (40:06.278)
This will be even, you know, this topic will have all kinds of different things to talk about. So it's constantly evolving and, you know, things are always changing in that social market and how we can utilize it to our advantage. And the beauty of it, I think that gets so overlooked is it's free, right? Like it's easy to use and it's free for us to use, right? So, you know, if you're a small guy or have a limited budget, it's a great way to get your name out there without having to spend a lot of money. So.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (40:34.32)
If you're coming to our RISE event, the Roofer Road Show, I look forward to hearing from you how the organic social is going. Pete and I will both be teaching at that event and really about the sales, the marketing, and the process of running your roofing company. So please let us know if you're out there, shake our hands. We wanna learn about your company and how everything is working for you.

Pete (41:00.13)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. If you guys haven't checked that out yet, it is what? roofer.com backslash rise. Am I right?

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (41:06.908)
Yeah, briefly, I'm bored slash rise. Yeah.

Pete (41:08.918)
Forward slash rise. There you go. Yeah forward slash rise. Check that out. We're gonna be in six cities total and

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (41:14.352)
Six cities. Yep, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Carlsbad, California, and Seattle, Washington. It's gonna be a whole lot of fun this year.

Pete (41:23.495)
Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to be in your area. Definitely come check us out and, you know, hopefully learn some stuff. Have a good day with us and spend a little time with the Rufor team. So thank you again, TJ, for jumping on. And, you know, we look forward to seeing you guys out there at Rise. And, you know, obviously the folks here at Rufor are always here to help any way we can. And until next time here on the Rufor podcast, we will see you guys. Thanks.

TJ McCormack - World's Greatest Roofr (41:35.277)
We should.

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