The elementary school gym floor Emory Stansal was called to re-sand “hadn’t been touched since the 1960s,” says Stansal, who operates Lantzville Artisan Wood Floors in Lantzville, B.C. But by the time Stansal was done, not only was the floor finally given the professional attention it needed, it had more than 245,000 views on Facebook. Stansal’s viral video, just under a minute long, shows him pulling up old, grimy gym finish in big strips by hand. He tagged it as “#satisfying,” and it blew up. In just under a month, Stansal says his Facebook following surged from 300 to 10,000 as the video zeroed in on nearly 100,000 likes. “I really wish that I could figure out the algorithms and know why some things go viral and some don’t,” Stansal says. “I feel that the whole ‘satisfying’ video idea definitely plays into this, as I had hundreds of people say they wanted to see more finish-peeling clips, and that they would happily pay to come and help.” Stansal, who regularly posts jokes and hardwood flooring-themed memes on his social media, was in many ways prepared with content for the huge audience he suddenly generated. “My advice for anyone using social media for professional purposes is to not take any of it too seriously,” he says. “Have fun, be professional, be courteous, post what you like and think is entertaining … It’s a very fun way to enhance what we already love.”
