From unknown to in-demand across four states.
How Five Forty Build went from zero social presence to millions of views, a household name across Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and a team that tripled in size.
The Client
A great company nobody had heard of.
Five Forty Build is a construction company operating across Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They do serious work — but outside the job site, almost nobody knew their name.
Owner Justin Holmberg had a vision bigger than his immediate market. He wanted Five Forty Build to be the name other builders recognized, the company skilled tradespeople wanted to work for, and the crew general contractors called first.
The Goal
Brand awareness across four states.
Five Forty didn’t need vanity metrics. They needed real outcomes — inbound hiring inquiries from skilled workers across Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, industry relationships, and a reputation that preceded them when they entered a new market.
Social media was the vehicle. The strategy had to do the heavy lifting, consistently, without burning out their team.
The Challenge
Skilled people, strong work — no digital footprint.
Five Forty had everything it takes to grow, but nothing online to show for it. Zero presence on TikTok. An underleveraged Instagram with no consistent strategy. Hiring bottlenecks, because skilled tradespeople didn’t know they existed. And no way to build a name across four states without a massive ad budget.
The Approach
Organic creative built for the trades audience.
We built a content engine that worked around the job site, not against it — authentic, high-frequency content showing real work, real people, and a company worth working for.
Audience & market research
We identified what construction and trades audiences respond to across the mid-Atlantic. Project walkthroughs, crew culture, and time-lapse builds consistently outperformed promotional content — so that’s what we built around.
Platform-native creative
We built TikTok from zero with short-form documentation — project progress, equipment, and day-in-the-life content designed to attract both potential hires and industry contacts.
Consistent, high-volume output
We kept a posting cadence that put Five Forty in front of their audience week after week. Consistency drove the algorithm. The algorithm drove reach. Reach drove results.
The Results
Millions of views. A team that tripled. A name in the industry.
Millions of views
Generated entirely through organic content, with zero paid promotion.
8 to 30 employees
Inbound hiring driven by social visibility across the region.
TikTok: 0 to 2,000 followers
Built from scratch in six months.
Instagram: audience doubled
Consistent, compounding growth over the same period.
The Takeaway
Social media is your best recruiter and your best business card.
Five Forty Build didn’t need a billboard in every state. They needed content that found the right people — and kept showing up for them. Skilled tradespeople who saw their work shared it. General contractors who saw their crew respected the operation.
In six months, Five Forty went from a great company nobody had heard of to a recognizable name across four states — with a team of 30 to back it up.
Ready to see what this looks like for your business?
We keep a limited number of client spots open. If you’re a business owner ready to stop guessing and start growing, let’s talk.