Guide · General contractors
Social media for general contractors: 30 post ideas from estimate to punch list
One residential remodel, followed in the order a homeowner comparing bids wants to see it. Every idea names the photo to take and how the caption opens.
The job is the content calendar
Tape out, laser on, and the homeowner in the kitchen doorway asking what happens next: every estimate visit ends on that question, and it is the whole feed. A general contractor's page should follow the phases of one job in order, because a homeowner reading three bids is picturing that sequence and trusts the contractor who has shown it.
So the ideas below are not sorted by platform or by day of the week. They run along one remodel: estimate, permits, demo, framing and rough-in, insulation and drywall, finishes, punch list. Each phase gives you four or five posts, and the job hands them to you in that order whether you photograph them or not.
Every card has two lines. The photo to take, framed so it can be shot in the ten seconds the saw is off. And the caption opener, the first sentence, written so the rest of the caption is just the facts of your job. Thirty of them, one job, start to finish.
Jump to a phase: the estimate visit · permits and pre-construction · demo · framing, rough-in and the inspection · insulation and drywall · finishes · punch list and handover
Phase 1: the estimate visit (4 ideas)
Posts that exist before there is a contract. Nothing here identifies the client, and nothing here quotes a number; the point is to show what a careful bid looks like from the inside.
The tape across the opening
- Photo to take
- The tape measure stretched wall to wall across the room you are bidding, laser dot on the far wall, shot low from the doorway so the family's things stay out of frame. If the counter is covered in mail, shoot the ceiling line instead.
- Caption opener
- “Every kitchen we bid starts the same way: a tape, a laser, and forty minutes of measuring before anyone talks about money.”
The clipboard sketch
- Photo to take
- Your hand-drawn plan on the clipboard, resting on the tailgate of the truck. Pencil dimensions, the arrow where the wall might come out, a coffee ring if there is one. Crop before the street shows.
- Caption opener
- “This is what a remodel looks like at bid stage. A sketch, three open questions, and a wall we have not decided about yet.”
What the estimate includes, and what it leaves out
- Photo to take
- A blank estimate template on the counter with the section headings readable: permit, demo, rough plumbing, rough electrical, drywall, finishes, allowances. No client name, no total, no address at the top.
- Caption opener
- “Two bids for the same bathroom can land a thousand dollars apart because one of them forgot the permit line. Here is what ours always includes.”
The questions to ask every bidder
- Photo to take
- A plain text card, your brand colours, listing five questions: who pulls the permit, who is on site every day, how change orders get priced, when the subs get paid, and who the homeowner calls at seven in the morning. Or shoot the crew lead at the door with the folder and put the list in the caption.
- Caption opener
- “Ask every contractor who bids your job these five questions. Ask us too; we would rather answer them now than in month three.”
Phase 2: permits and pre-construction (4 ideas)
The weeks nobody sees. A homeowner who has never remodelled thinks the job starts when the sledgehammer does; these four posts show the admin that keeps the job from stalling in week five.
The permit in the window
- Photo to take
- The permit card taped inside the front window, photographed from inside the house looking out, so the glass shows the card and the yard shows nothing but grass. Check the card itself for the parcel address and cover it with your thumb if it is printed there.
- Caption opener
- “Nothing gets opened up until this is in the window. It took three weeks and one resubmittal, and that is normal.”
The material order
- Photo to take
- The lumber and drywall delivery stacked in the garage, banded and dry, or the cabinet order confirmation on the counter with the delivery week circled and the client details cropped out.
- Caption opener
- “Cabinets are ordered before demo starts because they take longer to arrive than the whole rough-in takes to build.”
Floor and stair protection going down
- Photo to take
- The protection board rolling out over the hardwood, the stair treads wrapped, the zip wall going up across the hallway. Shoot from the protected side toward the work so the family's furniture is behind you.
- Caption opener
- “The first thing we build in your house is the part we tear out on the last day: the floor covering, the stair wrap, and the dust wall.”
The schedule on the fridge
- Photo to take
- The printed week-by-week schedule taped to the refrigerator, phases in a column, the current week highlighted. Push the family's photos and magnets to the side of the frame or shoot tight enough that only the paper shows.
- Caption opener
- “The family gets the same schedule the crew gets, taped where they will see it every morning with their coffee.”
Phase 3: demo (4 ideas)
The loudest week and the easiest one to post badly. One photo rule for the whole phase: shoot after the area is safe and the tools are down, never mid-swing.
The demo-day sweep
- Photo to take
- After the dust has settled and the debris is out, one slow phone pan from your marked doorway across the stripped room. Studs, subfloor, the stub-outs. This is the frame you will shoot again at every phase, so mark the spot on the floor with tape.
- Caption opener
- “Demo day is done. Here is the room an hour after the last cabinet came off the wall, from the doorway we will shoot every week until it is finished.”
What came out of the wall
- Photo to take
- The pile on the tarp before it goes in the dumpster: the galvanized pipe, the cloth-covered wire, the two layers of vinyl under the tile. Lay it out so each thing is visible and put a tape beside it for scale.
- Caption opener
- “Three floors, one on top of the other, and a length of pipe from the year the house was built. This is what we found under the tile.”
The dumpster count
- Photo to take
- The dumpster in the driveway with the lid open and the load level with the rim, shot from the house side so the neighbours' homes and your client's house number are behind the camera.
- Caption opener
- “Second load out of one kitchen, and the wall between it and the dining room has not come down yet.”
The surprise behind the drywall
- Photo to take
- The thing every remodel has one of: the rotted sill plate, the joist an old plumber notched through, the vent that went nowhere. Frame it tight, put the replacement lumber or the new fitting beside it, and shoot it again after the repair.
- Caption opener
- “Every remodel has one of these. Here is ours, here is what it changes on the schedule, and here is what it does not.”
Phase 4: framing, rough-in and the inspection (5 ideas)
The phase that answers the homeowner's real fear, which is what gets closed up inside the wall. Nothing in this list is pretty and all of it is the reason a referral says you were careful.
The doorway shot at framing
- Photo to take
- The same marked doorway as demo week, now with new studs up and daylight through the new opening. Same height, same time of day if you can manage it, so the two frames line up when you pair them later.
- Caption opener
- “Same doorway as demo week. The room has a shape again, and the new opening is where the dining room wall used to be.”
The level on the studs
- Photo to take
- A four-foot level held flat against a framed wall, close enough to read the bubble. Shoot it on the wall that will carry the tile, because that is the wall where plumb matters most.
- Caption opener
- “Drywall hides everything about this wall except whether it was true. So we check it now, while there is still time to fix it.”
The runs before they close up
- Photo to take
- One wide frame of the open wall with the new supply lines, the drain, and the electrical boxes and wire stapled in place. Include the labels the plumber and electrician wrote on the studs.
- Caption opener
- “In a week none of this will be visible. That is why we photograph it now, and why you will have the photo in your closeout folder.”
The green tag
- Photo to take
- The inspector's passed sticker on the rough-in, or the signed card on the panel, shot close enough to read the word passed and cropped so the permit number and the address are out of frame.
- Caption opener
- “Passed. The rough-in inspection is the one nobody sees and the one every homeowner should ask their contractor about.”
The sub, credited by name
- Photo to take
- Your plumber at the manifold or your electrician at the panel, company name on the shirt, with their yes before you shoot. If they would rather not be in frame, shoot their work and their van's door and name the company in the caption.
- Caption opener
- “The rough plumbing on this job is [the sub's company], and it is the reason we trust what goes behind this wall.”
Cottonwood Ridge Builders
Demo brand
Cottonwood Ridge Builders Most people think framing day is the exciting part. But the real work starts the day after, when you walk the studs, check for square, spot the mistakes before drywall covers them.
ContractorGenerated
A generated post for this phase. The account on the card is a demo brand we built ourselves, not a customer, and the caption on it is the one the generator wrote. It is here so you can see what a phase photo turns into, and nothing about it is a mockup.
Phase 5: insulation and drywall (4 ideas)
The least photogenic phase and the best one for explaining what the money buys. The room stops looking like a job site this week, and the homeowner starts asking if you are almost done.
Batts tight around the boxes
- Photo to take
- Insulation cut neatly around an outlet box with no gap at the edges, facing stapled flat, shot close with the flash off so the fibres do not glare. A bad example from another job, if you have one, makes the pair.
- Caption opener
- “The gaps around a box are where the cold gets in. This is what tight looks like, and it is the difference between insulated and insulated on paper.”
The first sheet up
- Photo to take
- One sheet of drywall on the wall with the screw pattern visible and the rest of the studs still open beside it. Shoot from the marked doorway so the series keeps its frame.
- Caption opener
- “First sheet is up. From here on the homeowner sees a room instead of a project, which is exactly when the schedule feels slowest.”
The mud coat
- Photo to take
- The taped seams with the first coat of compound on, lit from the side by a work lamp so the joint shows. Shoot the same seam after each coat; three photos of one seam is a better post than one photo of a whole wall.
- Caption opener
- “Three coats, each one thinner and wider than the last. This is coat one, and it is the ugliest the wall will ever look.”
The room going quiet
- Photo to take
- The closed-up room after sanding: drywall finished and unpainted, plastic still on the floor, a broom against the wall, the dust wall still up. No people in it.
- Caption opener
- “This is the week the neighbours ask if we are finished. We are not. It is just the first quiet week since demo.”
Phase 6: finishes (5 ideas)
Every post in this phase is somebody else's craft. Each card says which sub does the work, and the crediting habit is simple: their company name, spelled the way they spell it, in the first two lines.
Tile going up
- Photo to take
- The setter's layout lines on the wall and the first two rows set with spacers in, shot straight on. The tile setter's company goes in the caption; ask first if you want them in the frame.
- Caption opener
- “The first two rows decide the whole wall. [Tile setter] spent the first hour on the layout lines and about ten minutes on the tile.”
Cabinets set
- Photo to take
- The upper cabinets hung and shimmed, the level resting on the run, doors still off in their boxes. Credit the installer, or your own carpenter, in the caption.
- Caption opener
- “Uppers first, then bases. The doors stay off for a week so nobody bumps them while the counters go in.”
Paint cut lines
- Photo to take
- The painter's brush cutting the line where the wall colour meets the ceiling, shot close and slightly from below so the edge reads. Name the painting company; a clean cut line is their signature and they will repost it.
- Caption opener
- “No tape. That edge is [the painter's company] and a steady hand, and it is the detail a homeowner notices every day for years.”
Countertop template day
- Photo to take
- The fabricator's template strips glued up on the base cabinets, the sink cutout marked, the overhang pencilled. Credit the fabricator and, if the homeowner agrees, show the slab tag from the yard.
- Caption opener
- “Template day. The counters get measured off the installed cabinets, never off the drawing, which is why they go in last.”
The first fixture on
- Photo to take
- The faucet mounted and running, or the pendant lit for the first time over the island. Shoot with the room lights off so the fixture carries the frame. Credit the plumber or the electrician who came back for the trim-out.
- Caption opener
- “First water through the new lines. [The plumber's company] came back for the trim-out, and the whole kitchen is suddenly a kitchen.”
Phase 7: punch list and handover (4 ideas)
The close of the story, and the post a referral gets sent. Shoot the walk, shoot the list, then assemble the doorway series you have been building since demo into one cross-post.
The clipboard walk
- Photo to take
- The punch list on the clipboard with the items readable, the finished room soft behind it. Scan the sheet for the client's name and the address before you post; if either is printed on the form, cover it with your hand.
- Caption opener
- “Twenty-two items. We walk every room with the homeowner and write down all of them, including the ones they had not noticed.”
The last item crossed off
- Photo to take
- The same list with every line struck through and the pen resting on it, shot on the new counter. Same angle as the clipboard walk so the pair reads as one story.
- Caption opener
- “Done means the list is empty, not that the big things are finished. This one cleared on a Thursday.”
The doorway series, assembled
- Photo to take
- The frames you shot from the marked doorway, in order: demo, framing, drywall, paint, finished. Four to six images in one carousel or one short clip, same crop on each, no text over the photos.
- Caption opener
- “One doorway, one job, five months. Swipe through from the day the cabinets came down to the day the keys went back.”
The keys back
- Photo to take
- The keys and the closeout folder on the new counter: warranties, manuals, paint codes, the photos of the runs inside the walls. Leave the lockbox and any key tag with the address out of the frame entirely.
- Caption opener
- “Keys back, closeout folder on the counter, lockbox off the door. Thank you for letting us into your house for a season.”
Cottonwood Ridge Builders
Demo brand
Cottonwood Ridge Builders Clipboard out. This is the phase most people skip over, we don't.
ContractorGenerated
A generated post for this phase. The account on the card is a demo brand we built ourselves, not a customer, and the caption on it is the one the generator wrote. It is here so you can see what a phase photo turns into, and nothing about it is a mockup.
What not to post
Before any progress photo goes up, scan the frame for these seven things. Each one is a homeowner's privacy, a sub's reputation, or a crew member's safety, and none of them is worth a post.
- House numbers and street signs, including the one on the neighbour's porch across the road.
- The lockbox on the door, on the railing, or anywhere in the background of a keys-back shot.
- Mail, packages, and paperwork with the family's name on it, which includes the permit card's parcel line and the header of your own estimate.
- The family's belongings and the photographs on their walls; shoot the work, not the room they are living in around it.
- A sub's mistake before it is fixed. Post the repair with the sub's name on it, never the error with their name on it.
- Another bidder's estimate, price, or paperwork, even with the name cropped out. It is theirs, and it tells the homeowner what you would do with theirs.
- Anything shot mid-lift, mid-cut, or mid-swing. The frame that shows a saw running with a hand near the blade is the frame a client's brother-in-law forwards.
Turning the phase photos into a weekly queue
The timeline only works as a feed if the photos get off the phone. One shared folder per job, named for the job, and every crew lead drops the day's frames in before they leave the site. The folder is the content calendar. If a phase happened this week, its photo is in the folder, and if it is not in the folder it did not happen as far as the page is concerned.
One marked doorway per job, chosen on demo day and taped on the floor. The doorway series is the single best post a contractor can make and it costs nothing but the habit of standing in the same place for ten seconds a week. Post the phase the week it happens; a framing photo published during drywall week reads as a company that is behind.
If writing the captions is the part that never gets done, that is the part to hand off. SpeedRun Social writes the caption from your brand kit and the photo you drop in, drafts one version per network, and holds every post in a queue until someone at your company has read it. That order is the point: the family whose kitchen is in the photo trusted you, not the software. Approve the post, then it publishes. Never the other way round.
The free plan is 300 credits a month refilled forever and one free campaign a week (3 posts, 1 video, 1 cross-post), no card, with watermarked media on free.
Questions general contractors ask about social media
What should a general contractor post on social media?
The phase of the job that is happening this week, from the doorway you marked on demo day. The estimate visit, the permit in the window, the protection going down, demo, the rough-in and its inspection, drywall, each finish trade credited by name, and the punch list clearing. One job in order gives you thirty posts without inventing a single one, and the sequence is what a homeowner comparing bids is actually looking for.
Can I post pictures of a client's house while we are still working on it?
Only with their written yes, collected with the contract, plus their list of what stays out of frame. Then check every photo for the house number, the street, the lockbox, their mail and their belongings before it goes up. Ask a second time before the finished reveal, because a family that agreed to framing photos may feel differently about their finished bedroom. What that permission should say is between you and your client and is not legal advice we can give.
How often should a contractor post during a long job?
Once a week is enough, as long as it is the phase that actually happened that week. A job that runs a season hands you a post every week in order, and the gap that hurts is not a quiet Tuesday, it is a page that shows demo day and then nothing until the reveal. If the crew is dropping photos in the shared folder, one weekly post per active job is a habit a two-truck company can hold.
Which is better for general contractors, Facebook or Instagram?
For most residential contractors the decision to call gets made on Google Business Profile and Facebook, because that is where a homeowner lands after a search or a neighbourhood recommendation, and the doorway series works on both. Instagram is where designers, subs and other builders find you, which matters for referrals and hiring. Post the same phase to all three; the photo is the same, only the caption length changes.
What do I post when we are between jobs?
The phases you never posted from the last job. Every finished remodel left you a folder of rough-in photos, inspection tags and finish shots that were skipped during the busy weeks, and a phase post is dated to the phase, not to the day you post it. The doorway series assembled into one cross-post is the other between-jobs post, and it is the one a referral gets sent.
Should I put the price or the estimate in a post?
No. A price on a post is a price you will be held to by a homeowner with a different house, and it invites a comparison with a bid that left the permit out. Post what an estimate includes and the questions a homeowner should ask every bidder instead, and keep the number for the conversation where you have seen the room.
Do I have to credit my subcontractors when I post their work?
You are not obliged to, and you should anyway. The tile, the electrical, the paint and the countertops in your finished photos are somebody else's craft, and naming their company costs you nothing, gets reposted to their page, and is remembered at the next bid when you need them to hold a date for you. The habit is their company name, spelled the way they spell it, in the first two lines of the caption.
Is it okay to post the permit or the inspection tag?
Yes, and it is one of the most reassuring posts a contractor can make, because the permit and the green tag are proof the invisible work was checked by someone who does not work for you. Crop the parcel address and the permit number out of the frame, since both point at the family's house. The free plan is 300 credits a month refilled forever and one free campaign a week (3 posts, 1 video, 1 cross-post), no card, with watermarked media on free.
Run the next job as thirty posts
Drop the crew's photos in, read the captions it drafts for each phase, and approve the week before anything publishes. The free plan takes no card.