Week 2 · Thursday
Disarm sticker shock on panel upgrades before the homeowner calls — anchor the $2,800 to $5,500 range to real conditions so the research-first buyer trusts the number when they see it
Posting window: Thursday 7:30-9:00 PM PT
Posting times shown in Pacific Time (PT) — adjust to your audience's timezone in your scheduler.
Hook options
Pick the one you'll use — the script opener updates to match
Panel upgrades run twenty-eight hundred to fifty-five hundred. Here's why.
Anyone quoting a panel upgrade over the phone is guessing.
Why does one panel upgrade cost twenty-eight hundred and the next one fifty-five?
I used to give panel quotes over the phone. I stopped.
Same panel, same amperage — one house twenty-eight hundred, the next fifty-five.
Script
Opener (0:00 – 0:10)
Panel upgrades run twenty-eight hundred to fifty-five hundred dollars. That is a huge spread, and I know it looks like we are just making the number up. We are not. Three things move it.
Body
One — amperage. Going from a hundred amp to two hundred amp service means a bigger meter base, a heavier feeder from the pole, and coordination with Duke. That is not the same job as a straight panel swap. Two — what is behind the panel when we open it. On a 1950s Dilworth bungalow, we regularly find cloth-jacket branch circuits, double-tapped neutrals, or a subpanel that was never bonded correctly. We are not going to close the wall back up over that. Fixing what we find is where the range moves. Three — the permit and inspection with Mecklenburg County. That is a real line item, it is not optional, and it protects you if you ever sell.
Close / CTA
So when you see a range instead of a flat number, that is not a contractor being cagey. That is honest. If you want a real quote, we come out, we open the panel, we tell you exactly what we see and exactly what it costs before anybody touches anything. Save this one for when your neighbor asks.
Production paths
- 1.Film at a real job where the panel is already open, or before you close one back up. Do NOT stage this in a truck or a garage — the credibility of this piece depends on the viewer seeing a real Charlotte house behind you.
- 2.Frame vertical 9:16. Phone chest height, panel visible over your shoulder or in the lower third of the frame. You are in the top two-thirds. If it is dim, clip a small light to the panel door or open the nearest window — do not use phone flash.
- 3.Shot 1 (opener, ~8 sec): stand angled toward the panel, gesture at it once when you say 'twenty-eight hundred to fifty-five hundred.' Deliver the whole opener in one take.
- 4.Shot 2 (body, one take or three): easiest is one continuous take of the three points. If you fumble, refilm each of the three points as its own clip — you'll cut them together.
- 5.Shot 3 (close): pivot slightly so the panel is more visible when you say 'we open the panel.' End looking at the camera on 'save this one for when your neighbor asks.'
- 6.B-roll (2 minutes): before you leave the job, get 3 close-up shots — one of the open panel interior, one of any cloth-jacket wiring or double-tap you can point at, one of the meter base from outside. 5-7 seconds each, steady hand.
- 7.In CapCut: drop the main audio takes on the timeline in order. Cut dead air and any stumble.
- 8.Overlay the B-roll shots during the body section — panel interior when you say 'what is behind the panel,' the cloth-jacket or double-tap shot when you say 'fixing what we find,' meter base is optional over 'coordination with Duke.' Keep your audio playing underneath.
- 9.Auto-captions on. Position captions in the upper-middle third so they don't get cut off by the Reels/TikTok UI. Review every caption for 'Duke,' 'Mecklenburg,' 'Dilworth,' 'double-tapped' — auto-captions mangle these.
- 10.Add a text overlay of the price range '$2,800–$5,500' on screen during the opener, sans-serif, white with black stroke, upper third.
- 11.No music, or very low ambient job-site sound. This is a credibility piece, not a montage.
- 12.Export 1080x1920, high quality. Confirm final runtime is 75-85 seconds.
Platform captions
Panel upgrades in Charlotte run $2,800 to $5,500. Three things move that number — amperage, what we find when we open the wall, and the Mecklenburg County permit. A quote over the phone before anyone sees your panel is a guess. If you own a pre-1980 house in Dilworth, Plaza Midwood, or NoDa, save this for when your neighbor asks what a panel upgrade should cost.
Hashtags
$2,800 to $5,500 on a panel upgrade — here's what actually moves the number. Amperage, what's behind the panel when we open it, and the Mecklenburg permit. Anybody quoting you flat over the phone is guessing.
Hashtags
Thumbnail prompt
Paste this into an AI image generator (Midjourney, Ideogram, or ChatGPT) to create your thumbnail.
9:16 vertical thumbnail. Real photograph style, not illustrated. A licensed electrician in a work shirt standing next to an open residential electrical panel in an older home interior — panel guts visible, breakers exposed. Natural light from a window, slightly muted. Bold sans-serif text overlay in the upper third reading '$2,800 – $5,500' in white with a heavy black stroke. Smaller text below it reading 'PANEL UPGRADE — WHY THE RANGE.' No stock photo look, no cartoon graphics, no lightning bolts. Composition leaves the electrician's face clear in the middle third. Aspect ratio 9:16.
Scheduling
Tool: Metricool
- 1.Log in to Metricool and open the Planning calendar.
- 2.Click the Thursday 7:30 PM PT slot on this week's calendar.
- 3.Select Instagram Reels and TikTok as the target channels (leave Facebook off for this piece — it's a video piece and the primary audience for this format is on Reels and TikTok).
- 4.Upload the exported 1080x1920 MP4.
- 5.Paste the Instagram Reels caption into the Instagram field. Paste the TikTok caption into the TikTok field. Do not use the 'same caption for all networks' toggle — the captions are written differently on purpose.
- 6.For Instagram: set the cover frame to a moment where the panel is clearly visible behind you. Turn ON 'Also share to Feed.'
- 7.For TikTok: set thumbnail to the same panel-visible frame. Leave 'Allow comments,' 'Allow duet,' and 'Allow stitch' ON.
- 8.Confirm the schedule time is 7:30 PM PT Thursday for both.
- 9.Save. Then on Thursday evening, check Metricool around 8:00 PM to confirm both posts published — TikTok occasionally fails silently through third-party schedulers.
Lead capture
Where this should drive
No direct capture on this piece. This is a soft-engage, save-and-share asset — the CTA is literally 'save this for when your neighbor asks.' Its job in the arc is to seed trust and get shared into Dilworth, Plaza Midwood, and NoDa neighborhood groups so that when someone in those groups later asks 'who should I call about my panel?', a neighbor tags Proper Wire from memory. Trying to force a link or a DM keyword here would kill the referral mechanic — the piece works because it looks like honest information, not a funnel. Measure this piece by saves, shares, and comments naming a specific neighborhood or panel brand, not by clicks.