A roofing company in the Twin Cities started posting 30-second TikToks showing their crews at work. Nothing fancy — a phone mounted somewhere, real work being done, the occasional voiceover explaining what they were doing and why it mattered. Within a few months they had more leads coming in from social media than from any other channel. That's not a unique story anymore. It's becoming a pattern. Short-form video — TikTok and Instagram Reels specifically — has quietly become

I talk to small business owners across the Twin Cities every week. And when it comes to social media, I hear some version of the same thing over and over: "We know we need to do more with it, but we're not sure if what we're doing is actually working." Most of the time, it isn't. Not because the business isn't great — it usually is. But there's a difference between being on social media and actually using social media to grow your business. After 15 years in marketing and wor