“LBM Talks” hosts top professionals from different sectors of the lumber and building material industry to share their expertise, with a heavy emphasis on practical, tactical strategies to help you serve your markets and grow your business.
Social Media Coordinator Sally Lacey is joined by John Perna, President/CEO, and Jon Jacob, VP of Business Development, from Hamilton Building Supply.
Odds are you’ve seen Hamilton Building Supply on social media through their humorous vertical videos, which is why we needed to chat with them.
In this episode, John and Jon share when and why Hamilton started utilizing social media, the decisions they made that led them to where they’re currently at, networking and hiring opportunities that social media has unlocked, and what’s involved in their content creation process.
You can find Hamilton on Instagram @hamiltonbuilingsupply.
For any podcast related inquires, contact sally@lbmjournal.com.
Prefer to read about it instead? Take a peek at the transcript below for Episode 15:
(Editor’s note: Transcript is AI-generated and may include some errors.)
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Welcome to LBM talk Social Media. I’m Sally Lacey, the Social Media Manager for LBM journal, and every other week, I have conversations with lumber dealers from around the country about how they’re using social media to grow their business. I hope you stick around, because it’s time to get social. Hello everybody, and welcome to LBM Talks Social media. John Perna and Peter Forsberger,
John Perna
Thank you. Peter Forsberger, aka John Jacob.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So do you want to introduce yourselves and Hamilton Building Supply? A little bit Sure?
John Perna
Yeah. So, so I’m John Perna, President and CEO of Hamilton Building Supply. We’re an independent lumber building material dealer located in central New Jersey. We’ve been in business for 101 years this year, so family owned, third generation, and yeah, we supply custom home builders, remodelers, renovators throughout central New Jersey, South Jersey and into eastern Pennsylvania. And I’m joined by the illustrious…
Jon Jacob
Me, Jon Jacob here, aka Peter Forsberger, aka Joe Nasday. I’m the VP of Business Development for Hamilton building supply. So we’re very excited to be here and join you on this podcast today.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
You want to show the mustache. You mean this guy, there we go. Okay, there’s Peter Forsberger, got it. Thank you, John. Why do Will you guys go ahead and just kind of describe and explain your social media presence, like, what are you on and kind of, what kind of content do you do for maybe some of the people that aren’t familiar with you guys online?
John Perna
Sure. Yeah. You want to talk about Instagram?
Jon Jacob
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re on Instagram, also on Facebook. We were on TikTok for a little bit, but that didn’t quite pan out.
John Perna
Yeah, the Tiktok, you know, we do a lot of fun stuff on Instagram, and the audience on TikTok didn’t think it was so funny. It was funny. They thought it was kind of stupid, yeah.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So you had an audience, and they were just rude.
John Perna
Lot of rude trolls on TikTok. So okay, that’s funny to the wise, you know? I mean, some people have success on TikTok. Us, not so much.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
We just, I don’t know that I’ve seen anybody in the LBM industry really on TikTok in terms of dealers, like, maybe there’s builders and stuff on there, but I haven’t really seen anything for dealers.
John Perna
So I don’t know, find a dealer that gets tomatoes thrown at them. Yes, go find Hamilton Building Supply on TikTok.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
That’s what I’m going to do after this.
John Perna
Okay, but yeah, to John’s point, we started, we started out on Instagram, and Instagram is connected to our Facebook page. And, yeah, our posting just kind of evolved from there. You know, we were like other dealers. We would post pictures of of projects that we participated on, whether we sold windows or doors or what have you. And that was cool back in like 2013 so we, we kind of, we kind of evolved with the trend of vertical videos that you see a lot on Instagram. So now people scroll, scroll through vertical videos and that’s where we started to kind of dip our toe into the water a little bit in like 2021 and just start shooting some vertical some verticals and having some fun.
Jon Jacob
Yeah, we were doing, you know, we’d start doing the, you know, before and after photos, and then the job site photos and whatnot, and then the slow progression of doing the videos, and then, you know, we started to kind of have a little fun with it, and that started to get a little traction, and then slowly progressing with the more and more fun with it. So, yeah, it’s been it’s been a ride. It’s been a lot of fun.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So you guys saw a difference in your audience’s engagement with you when you switched over to more of a different style of content.
Jon Jacob
Yeah, it’s pretty the industry in itself, is somewhat of an older industry, so it’s kind of lacking a lot of that newer sort of ideas, and kind of staying with the new trends that are going on. So doing the same old thing over and over again, it’s going to get the same results. And as soon as John really started to say, You know what, let’s, let’s build this up. Let’s do something fun, let’s and let’s poke a little fun to ourselves. You know? Kind of make it, have Make it serious, but also have fun with it. And nobody at the time in the industry was really doing much of that, yeah, so it’s, it’s definitely gotten a lot more traction, yeah.
John Perna
What’s cool is, like, you know, we post videos, and we’ve done a lot of homemade videos, and then we always started working with a videographer. We can get into that, but when we post our videos, you get a lot of likes, then you also get a lot of commentary, which is really important. So I mean, like, when Instagram has an algorithm and they look at like, how much engagement is your post getting? Are you? Is there a lot of comments? Are there people that are sharing the post with their within their circle of followers, and that’s really what kind of drives the overall viewer traction. So that’s really cool to see is that you our post will get like comments and likes and whatnot, but then it also gets shared amongst other people in the community. And then when we go to events, it’s always like, Oh, hey, there’s the Hamilton guys. I’ve seen them on Instagram, so that’s, that’s always like, that’s like, really nice to see, is like, Oh, hey, people are actually noticing our posts. Because you don’t always get that, you don’t always see that through, you know, our Instagram page. You know, who notices it, but they, but they do.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So has it. It’s kind of helped with, like, networking a little bit within the LBM industry. You know, when people come up to you and they want to talk to you about social and just Hamilton in general,
John Perna
John’s gotten so many numbers.
Jon Jacob
I mean, I can’t, I just, I’m throwing away at this point. Yeah, no, it’s absolutely has, and it’s a really good talking point, but it really just kind of helps break the ice, right? So when we’re out at these events and we’re doing these, these, these different things that we do, it’s great to be able to have that conversation and learn a little bit about different lumber yards and how they’re doing things, and how they’re what they’re doing, what they’re not doing, and that just kind of helps break the ice a little bit and allows the conversation to start where there probably wouldn’t have been a conversation prior, right? The networking aspect is huge.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Yeah, that’s really interesting. I haven’t even thought about thought about it like that at all. So do you guys do any of the product focus posts still to this day? Or did you have you kind of left that in the past.
Jon Jacob
I mean, we’ve been doing the we still do the product focus posts. The last ones, ones we did with Peter forsberger would definitely focus on products. Yeah, we just added a little spin on it.
John Perna
Yeah, yeah. Like, that was important for us is, like, what are we going to post about? Well, we want to make sure that the community, the audience, knows about what it is that we sell, the services that we provide, the value that we provide. But we want to put a different spin on it than just saying, Oh, here’s a window and here’s all the attributes of the window. We want to try and get our vendor reps involved, and we maybe interview them a little bit, ask them some key some questions about the product, something different than just saying, like, okay, here are the attributes A, B and C of this particular product. Because anybody can find that on the internet, it’s like, you’re going on when you’re going on Instagram or whatever social media platform, you’re kind of like going on there to be entertained a little bit. So I guess that’s kind of our philosophy is, like, how can we make this educational, but also, like, just entertaining in general, and also, uh, attention grabbing, to the point where we know that the audience is only going to give us 15 to 30 seconds of their attention span, and then they’re moving on. So we have 15 to 30 seconds to say something that’s somewhat informational and insightful and also slightly off the cuff and ridiculous.
Jon Jacob
Yeah, when we when we were doing the last, the last shoots, you know, the idea was, we’re going to have an interview some of the vendors. And John was like, that’s not good enough. You’re going to dress up like Peter forsberger and you’re going to interview all of them. And he’s like, like, all right, well, we should tell him, right? And John’s like, No, we’re not going to tell anybody. You’re going to stand behind there. They’re going to get the whole scene set up, and then you’re going to come out with a microphone and just start interviewing him. And I was like, well, what’s the script? He’s like, I don’t know. Just come up with script. Yeah.
John Perna
Script at it, just like we want to kind of capture, like if we were going to interview our vendors. And again, Peter Forsberger is Jon’s Alter Ego, right? You know, as a he’s like a celebrity interviewer, NEWS REPORTER, so to speak. And it’s like, this is just like something a little bit different and unique and silly, but it also gets, it gets our vendor reps or whoever we’re interviewing at a very, you know, like, attentive state, like they’re, they’re kind of like, Oh, wow. Uh, like, they don’t know what to think, but they’re also going to give us their very real selves, because now it’s like, now we’re just joking around. It’s very light hearted. And let’s have some fun, and let’s also get some good information out of this.
Jon Jacob
It was a very uncomfortable moment. Most, in most cases, the initial, the initial me coming out behind the door. They’re really wanting that. Yeah, it was, it was pretty ridiculous.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So are they following you guys, and have they seen Peter forsberger before, or was it just some, like, they didn’t know about that alter ego at all.
John Perna
Some didn’t know. Some didn’t know. Some did, yeah, and they’re like, oh, geez, here. Okay, yeah, yeah, but they got into it, and some of them really got into it, which we haven’t posted those videos yet, but okay.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Well, look, I look forward to seeing them. And, yeah, I think that you guys, you guys, do that so well, and you’ve you really understand, I think social media where, exactly like you said, John, if you don’t grab your audience’s attention, they’re going to scroll past you. It’s all organic, right, right?
John Perna
And I feel like anymore, you have like, two to three seconds, that first two to three seconds to get their attention. Otherwise, next, next people have, like, very, I mean, like their attention spans. The audience. Attention span on social media is just so narrow these days that you really have to come out that like lightning rod, attention grabbing clip, and then it’ll kind of carry through, if you want to get that full 30 seconds or a minute long dialog. You know, when we first started out doing this, we figure like, oh, yeah, let’s do it a two minute a two minute video, or a minute a 32nd video. And we’ll say all these things, and it’s like, no, that wasn’t the answer. You’re never going to get something in 30 seconds unless it’s truly attention grabbing from the very get go. So we kind of learned the hard way, you know?
Jon Jacob
Yeah, the immediate engagement, right? Yeah, I got to get them engaged right. From there, they have to be captivated to know, like, well, what’s, what’s next, what’s the next thing that’s going to happen? Right? Otherwise, they’re gone, like John said, it’s, you got 30 seconds at tops. If not, it’s all real. So they’re just hitting a button and it’s next real, next real, next real, and they’ll just go until they’re captivated, right?
John Perna
Like, you know, I mean, could it be just as effective to have John dressed in this Hamilton vest, interviewing our Marvin rep, yeah, I guess in terms of, like, educating the audience, but it’s much more attention grabbing when he’s wearing seersucker and a big furry mustache, yeah.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
And I think that’s just the nature of the platform, is that It’s a short form platform, like short attention span, whereas something like YouTube or something else or they’re longer for longer form content platform. So it’s just the nature of it. You kind of got to keep it quick. Got to keep it short and move on. So props to you guys, and I think you also do a great job with saying you still focus on your products and stuff, but you are doing it in a way that’s compatible with the platform, like moving to video instead of just a photo. Again, good for the algorithm, also better for engagement, and then you’re also presenting that information in a way that’s funny or in a way that’s entertaining, in some way that gives value, because that’s what you have to do, right? You have to offer your viewers something. Let’s talk about your content creation process.
John Perna
Sure, sure.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So you guys post a lot. Like, do you post every day?
Jon Jacob
No, no. I mean, we tried a couple few times a week. Yeah, probably, yeah. That’s probably accurate, yeah, okay, tell you a little bit about the journey.
John Perna
Journey. I mean, we started out when we, when we started this initiative where we’re like, let’s start shooting vertical videos and getting our team involved, and we also have to make it funny, and we have to put like a parody, like a spin on things, and make it like, kind of like, related to pop culture, but also tie it back to products and services and something that contractors and homeowners and architects would be interested in. We were at a point where we were doing videos and we would post every day, and that was good at first, but it’s very time consuming. And you know, John’s got a full time job, believe it or not, yeah.
John Perna
So that was really fun, but it was also, like, incredibly time consuming, because not only are you coming up with the overall content and for each video, but then you got to shoot it, then you got to edit it, then you got to write the copy. You know, for the commentary, then you got to pick, you know, tag all your people in it, and then you got to post it. It’s, it’s a very, it’s a long process, you know, just to do it on the side. So that kind of evolved into working with a videographer. The video plug for Lindsay Dowric Lindsay is the owner of the video artists, local videographer in our area, and that’s all she does is shoot vertical videos for social media content. Yeah. So we started working with her. We said, Hey, Lindsay, here’s what we like to do. Our problem is we can’t we can’t do it. We can’t batch our content and produce it as effectively as you can. So we started working with her, and we kind of, like would come up to with like, different ideas for like, what our content should look like, and all the things we want to talk about, and then we batch it all together, we shoot it all and then she does all the editing. She does, like all the hard work for us, to edit it, to add to add the script, the captions, in the in the reels, and then basically, she basically creates all the videos that we need for us, and then we can go and post them from there.
Jon Jacob
Yeah, she’s doing all the back end stuff, the stuff that really is in the in the in the industry, the more difficult stuff, yeah, and she’s a she’s an artist. Yeah, she video artist. It’s not just a clever name.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So she edits, so she takes, she has, all the raw video footage, and she edits it. And do you guys post exactly what she sends back edited. So do you have to tell her, Okay, this is what this video is about. This is how long we want it, yeah.
John Perna
So what we do is we, we brainstorm for, you know, over a number of sessions, and then we come up with, like, all the things we want to talk about, all the content ideas, you know, if we have, you know, the Peter forsberger Lumberyard conversation segment. We come up with all those segments. We come up with certain products that we want to focus on, certain service, aspects of Hamilton, building supply that we want to focus on. And then it has to have a general like, Alright, who’s the audience for this? Who cares if we start talking about like our delivery service or our trucks or our showrooms, and you know, who’s the core audience and who’s the sub audience. So we think about all those things. And then from there, our videographer got, you know, shoots, all the videos, spend some time with us over the over a few days, and then, then she goes back, and she gets to work on cutting everything up, pulling every piecing everything together, and then adding layering and the captions, the music, the music and whatnot. And then from there, then we get all the videos. And then I might even edit those further in Instagram. So like, I might give me a 62nd video, but I can make that a two part reel in some instances. And I’ll take that 62nd clip, and then I’ll put it in Instagram, and I’ll snip it down to 30 seconds, maybe add different music or whatnot. Then I’ll then I’ll create the copy under the in the comments section. And then you go from there.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
I was going to say
John Perna
We’re working on our employee lounge, so you might hear some noises in the background. We don’t have a dentist office here.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Yeah, that’s what it sounded like. Um, I I’ve kind of noticed with you talking about frequency of posting, that’s something I’m kind of focusing on a little bit for LBM journalists, I’ve realized sometimes I was just posting to post right? And you just realize that content does have different there’s different quality levels. And so really, what I’m just trying to focus on is, like the whole less is more mindset and to just post good quality content. And if it’s not, if it’s not to the quality that I want to just, you know, say it’s okay. And sometimes I think our audiences, I’ve heard that they just can be bombarded with content. So again, just the whole less is more.
John Perna
Yeah, it’s true. And I do follow some influencers on Instagram, like Brad Johnson, and you know he, he’ll always advocate like, if you’re putting a video together, don’t, don’t put, don’t post like, two videos every day, back to back to back. You want to make sure that, like, if you have a good video you want to put out there, it’s out there, and you let your audience see it. It’ll eventually hit their feed. They can view it. They can engage with it, and then you post something else. So, yeah, let. Is more, but it’s got to be really good quality when it’s when it’s less.
Jon Jacob
Yeah, no, I agree. I think it did. The idea used to be, I forget what the numbers were, but it used to be like, you know, post one thing on Facebook a day, post two things on Instagram, three things on Tik Tok, something else on Snapchat. It was just the way that they thought that the algorithms work, but the more that we tried to keep up with that, the more we found that it was not really working. You know, you’re doing a great job, by the way. Sally, we really enjoy the work that you’re doing over there.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Oh, well, thank you. I really enjoy your guys’ content too. I was going, I think I went all the way back to 2023 and was watching some of your guys’ content, and it was like, contractor confessions. Oh yeah, that was a little series you guys did.
John Perna
We should recycle some of that, because there’s some really should down in the treasure trove. Yeah, maybe that’s what we’ll do tomorrow. On Friday. We’ll just recycle something old. Yeah,
Jon Jacob
I like the Sopranos. Ones we did were pretty good, too. I always forget about those. I don’t know, did you see those?
Sally Traxler-Lacey
How did those start? Or what were those?
Jon Jacob
Like, a mockup of this sopranos different situations like it was like the one where, you know, if you remember the sopranos, when they’re all sitting around in front of the old store with the, you know, the table with the white tablecloth there, and they’re just sitting around, you know, Bs in and we would kind of integrate, yes, those into sort of situations that would happen, into the in our day to day lives, and how it, how it could work with, you know, with the lumber industry?
Sally Traxler-Lacey
I know exactly which videos you’re talking about. So you guys, um, make a lot of creative content. What have you guys noticed themes in just which ones kind of perform the best? Like, is it, you know, is it your more creative ones, or is it more your product focused ones, or what are kind of, what are you learning from the things that you are sharing about your business and just like, does that kind of affect your strategy going forward?
Jon Jacob
You know, I think it’s, it’s tough to say. I’m, I think John right now is scrolling, Steve, what’s gotten the most likes and what’s gotten the most views? Yeah, we’ve had some, some real decent, like, ones that have gotten a lot of views.
John Perna
You know, what resonates really well is like something that a a homeowner would find really interesting, especially if you’re talking about like a hot a hot button item, like we had a, we had like, a a decking post about, like, what should I do? Or what’s a, what’s a quick way to upgrade my decking? And it was like, resurfacing your deck, or something like that. And that got a lot of years. Oh, shiplap versus nickel gap. That was a good one. Yeah. And everybody loves the shiplap versus nickel gap, right?
Jon Jacob
Because it’s how the different people called it. Called the same thing, different things, or different things. They call it the same thing. And that got a lot of views and a lot of a lot of traction, because it’s something that is pretty relevant, and we’re dealing with that every day, right?
John Perna
Yeah, that got a lot of views. But you know what? The funny thing, though, is, like therapy posts that we feel like didn’t get a lot of views, but we got the right views, like the right people saw it and they came to us and said, That was, like, such a good post. Like that was so funny. I think to this day, the Hamilton News Network, where John was that that was the top one. That was, that’s a top five post for us. I’ll post it tomorrow. I’ll recycle tomorrow. It was pretty funny. It was really good. It was basically John, you know, spoil it well. This will, this will air well after this post. But John was working a clinic in the showroom and really doing well with a customer, explaining windows and doors and selling the features and benefits of windows and doors. So I interviewed John afterwards, and he was just, he was sweating. He had the towel around his neck. He had just drinking the water, and he was just like, so, yeah, we really, really did a good job there.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Yeah. So, yeah, I don’t know that one so, but I will see it tomorrow if you guys do share that’s funny.
John Perna
When you watch it, not when I explain it.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Okay, you know, the International flashing awareness.
Jon Jacob
Those ones, I think, got a lot of collaboration that we all kind of came up with. It kind of started at one level, and then we just kind of evolved, and just got, like, worse and worse and worse and worse. Yeah, it ended up with me in the middle of trench coat.
Joh Perna
But that one was huge. It was huge. That was big. Yeah, huge.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So, so, um, you mentioned kind of the homeowner audience. What would you say? Have you guys noticed is your audience? Is it contractors? Is it DIY? Years. And do you think that? Yeah, yeah. What about that?
John Perna
Honestly, like, you know, we, we, our intent was to educate contractors. But would you believe it or not, there’s not a lot of engaged contractors on Instagram. You know, they’re just, I mean, there’s, there’s some that are and again, maybe, like the younger generation of contractors is more on Instagram, more involved, but then we just kind of started, like the homeowner community will catch on to it. But even more importantly is like our colleagues in the LBM community, other dealers, manufacturers, distributor, reps, they all see it and like to that end, like you think that, you know, we’re designing content for one specific segment of the audience, but if it can reach the entire audience and everybody within LBM, then I think we’re very happy about that, because we’re just trying to affect, like, some sort of, you know, just good education and change and just good thoughtfulness of lumber and building materials. So whoever we can reach and whoever we can connect with, we’re very happy with.
Jon Jacob
It’s also pretty beneficial, too, for some of the younger people, right? Our industry is kind of aging out, so we’re doing the best that we can to try to engage some of the younger, the younger generation, and try to get them involved. So social media is definitely a platform that’ll help that. And at least they could be like, oh, you know, we’re looking for somebody to work for us, to go on. Indeed, they see that we posted a job, they go, oh, and who’s this? They go, and they could look us up right away. We’ve got a couple guys that and girls that have started working for us after they saw our Instagram post, they’re like, I’m working there. That’s where I’m working.
John Perna
Yeah, I think it just kind of shows that our company culture, like our just our company in general, has a little bit of a personality. And when we’re hiring and attracting new employees, like, they see that and they say, like, hey, that’s really cool. I want to be a part of it.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Yeah, well, there you go. So you have your networking kind of effect from your presence on social media. You’ve got recruiting and hiring, and you guys have real world examples of that. And I mean, I can also say, as someone part of the Gen Z generation, like, that’s something I would do if I was, if I was looking for a new job. And I I would look that company up and see if they had any social medias, and then if they do, you know, that affects how you perceive them, whether you’d want to go through with it. So 100% and so to kind of just wrap up that thought, are there any other effects that you think social media has had on your business?
Jon Jacob
Well, it’s, it’s difficult to really to tell exactly what I’d say. There’s, there’s a lot of people that will come in and kind of smile like, I know a lot of the younger crowd that are builders come in and kind of be like, Hey, I remember, hey, I know you, you know. So they enjoy, I think they enjoy coming to us. So they, they probably have to pass by two or three box stores to get to us, but they’d rather come to us because they, they know us, right? We’re a little bit more of a familiar face, yeah, um, especially for the the younger crew that are, like, the runners, the guys that are sent out to go get the extra two by fours, this, that and whatnot. And then even some, some, you know, traction with the homeowners. We have a couple. I interviewed the one woman sunshine raviolis, who’s awesome, who comes to us, yeah, she comes with stuff from us all the time.
John Perna
Yeah, we actually got to interview her in a video. We it was kind of like, off the cuff her while she was she’s a homeowner customer of ours, but she comes in a lot because she’s always doing projects around her house. She has an old historic house, so she came in, and we’re actually shooting videos with Lindsay at the time, and she was in the store, like, Oh, John, this is like, we got to talk to her. You know, cool video. And I actually got a lot of views too, yeah. So you never know, you know what, what you might come across. But yeah, people, people notice, and I see that we’re having fun with it. And again, just makes a little bit more lighthearted. It makes us feel a little more unique than just kind of like an old stodgy lumberyard.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
You know, it does make you unique. Yeah, yeah, I know exactly which video you’re talking about. Great way to share a testimonial. Those are, I’m sure that that’s just really effective, because you see a very you see a satisfied customer. She obviously likes you guys. You can just tell, because it’s on video right? And you get a large reach post, posting it on social media. You guys do things that are more creative, a little bit more risky. You’re kind of following your Instagram algorithm with video. And yeah, you guys, you’re and you’re listening to your audience. You’re responding back to them, you’re engaging with them, and I think that that has a big effect on your presence on social media, just with everybody. So yeah, you look like you have something to say, John.
John Perna
You know, our industry is very conservative, and we’re usually kind of, like, at the, you know, tail end of, like, joining on new ideas and new initiatives. And, you know, for social media, a lot of, again, a lot of what you would see from dealers is just like, hey, I’m going to post this static photo, or maybe it’s just a video of a delivery. But again, it’s just focusing on me and what I do or what I’ve done, whereas, like, people want to see, like, how does, how does this affect me as the audience? And that’s kind of where, like, if I’m on social media and I’m an audience member, I want to be entertained. Obviously, that’s why I’m going there. I’m looking to kill a few minutes and just, you know, entertain myself with, like, the random Scroll of videos. So the videos that we post should be entertaining and informative, and sometimes they’re just going to be totally entertaining and you’ll learn a little bit about something, or sometimes they’re a little bit more informative. But you know, the most important thing for us is that we just put it out there and we have fun with it, and yes, it’s going to be funny, it’s always going to be light hearted. Sometimes we have to stop ourselves just short of being canceled, but we will always keep it light hearted and funny and always PG.
Jon Jacob
Most times we have, we have the ones that go a little bit past there. We don’t normally publish, but we might show you the there’s an archive there. There may be I’m not. I cannot disclose this information. I’ll never run for public office. Yes, that’s not going to happen.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
The last question that I’m going to ask you is just, what advice would you give to anybody listening that doesn’t really know how to start, or maybe they’re a little afraid.
Jon Jacob
What would you say you got to start somewhere so, you know, and there’s a there’s it’s always going to be a trial and error situation in the beginning, but just go out and have fun, and at the end of the day, like, what are we doing? You can’t be, can’t take yourself too serious, because once you do it kind of, kind of takes, takes everything out of, out of, takes the wind out of your sails, if you like.
John Perna
That’s a good point. Is, if you’re going to get involved in social media and you want to start shooting videos of beat you being just your authentic self. Don’t be too serious about it, because your audience will pick up on that and they’ll get disinterested. Be keep it light hearted, if that’s if that’s the brand that you’re going for. You know, for us, like we were keeping it light hearted, we want to add some humorous elements to something that is always, you know, always been very serious in nature. And like information giving is, you know about products and services and whatnot, can be very serious. So we wanted to add some humorous elements. We didn’t start in 2021 thinking that we wanted to add alter egos into the mix. But it kind of just naturally evolved into that. And we started pulling our employees into it a little bit begrudgingly at first, and then they do it, and then they have fun with it. And then you start asking, like, Hey, when are we going to do that again? But you can’t. You can’t make perfect out of the art, you know, out of the creative you just go with it, you’ll never have a perfect video or a perfect post, because when you think you do, that’s when you get like, no likes.
Jon Jacob
And no that’s so true, right? Yeah? Like, the ones that you think you nail out of the park are the ones that you like, Huh? Really, nobody, nobody cared. Like, all three of us liked it. That was it. That’s cool. That’s cool. Yes, yeah, right.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So that’s so true. You just, you just go with it. Just do it. Can you share your Instagram handle or username so people can look you up?
John Perna
So Instagram handles at Hamilton building supply. So if you search Instagram Hamilton building supply, at Hamilton building supply, you’ll find us.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Give them a follow. Yes, find some inspiration. Yeah. Okay. Well, John Perna and Jon Jacob, thank you guys for being on LBM Talk Social Media.
