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In the mountains of western North Carolina, two builder brothers have become phenomenally successful social media influencers. From just four subscribers at their start in 2019, Perkins Builder Brothers now boast over 730,000 YouTube subscribers, adding another 30,000 each month. They also have 730,000 Facebook and about 50,000 Instagram followers.
Those are impressive numbers, especially for an industry not exactly known for its social media savvy. But the siblings’ success has been hard-won, according to Erik Perkins. Erik and his brother, Jaime, owners of Perkins Enterprises, have been building custom homes for about 20 years.
“We started making one-off goofy videos that didn’t really have style or a niche,” Erik says of the brothers’ early forays into content creation. They also made how-to instructional videos.
Perkins Brothers Feeding the Social Media Beast
For two years, the Perkins filmed and edited videos while still building homes full-time—and made zero income from their social media content. “Literally, my wife was going to divorce me because I was working 80 hours a week and not getting paid for years,” Erik says.
In 2021, the brothers finally found their niche when a friend suggested they make YouTube videos of what they already do: building homes from start to finish. “People find value in watching other people work and do a good job,” Erik says. “We have a lot of people who watch even if they’re not interested in building.”
In addition to filming what they know, the Perkins brothers show who they are. “We bust each other’s balls about everything, and we film all the normal banter and funny things that happen, along with how to build a house,” Erik says of himself and his brother, as well as four friends who work for them. “It was just like, here it is, this is us. I think people enjoy the realness of it.”
Along with viewers, Perkins Builder Brothers have gained partners and sponsors, such as LP Building Solutions, which manufactures siding and structural products. Erik points out that the Perkins’ videos feature products they already use and like. With a two-member marketing team, Perkins Builder Brothers also sell and film ad slots in their videos. And they’ve started their own tool company, which now sells toolbelts and will release other products.
The Pros and Cons of Builder Content Creation
Perkins Builder Brothers make money mainly through Google AdSense, which places brief ads in YouTube videos and gives Perkins Builders about 40% of the ad revenue, Erik says. “It’s usually not even 1 cent per ad, but last month we had about 12 million views just on YouTube and 3 million hours of watch time, so if you have four or five ads per view, you start getting into big numbers of income.”
Just how big? Erik says today he earns 10 times more than he did before becoming a content creator. “It’s been totally worth it. It’s life-changing,” he says. “But it wasn’t a guaranteed thing. And it’s way more work than anyone can imagine.”
Filming every step of the homebuilding process and then editing it all to feel cohesive requires “an exorbitant amount of work,” he says. The Perkins brothers do all the filming themselves with five cameras, including a drone and a GoPro. Each week, Erik spends about 30 hours on construction and 40 hours on editing.
Perkins Builder Brothers constantly have to feed the content beast, and the beast is never sated. The brothers produce about two 20-minute videos—every week. That’s in addition to short-form videos, such as one on the five most annoying job-site sounds, which Erik says they need to produce to stay in the YouTube algorithms’ favor.
“You cannot quit posting videos. You cannot stop to take a break. If you stop for a month, you may as well be dead,” Erik says.
He advises all builders to use social media to grow their brick-and-mortar business. “Just point the camera at yourself and show a little bit of your work.” But if builders want to cross over into the business of social media, be forewarned: “That’s far more difficult to do.”
