Marketing | insidehomedesign

The social media landscape is evolving more and more each year – presenting interior designers and home decorating pros with exciting new opportunities to connect with their customers. Today’s post will discuss a few key future mobile social media trends for interior designers to stay on top of.

Keep an Eye on Mobile

From iPads to Kindle Fires, iPhones to Androids, consumers LOVE their mobile devices. In fact, 91% of all people world-wide own a mobile phone – with over half of those phones being Smart Phones. For interior designers, this presents some great opportunity. Not only can work easily now be shared on a tablet (rather than bringing full scale drawings to client meetings), but consumers can now be communicated with while they’re in the middle of their purchase process (while browsing a big box retail store, for example). Interior designers should be able to reach these mobile consumers through continued use of traditional social media tools, like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Designers should also keep an eye out for mobile social media developments such as WhatsApp, which allows users to send photos, messages, and videos to each other across Smart Phone platforms and without using SMS services.

Keep the Visual Content Coming

People seem most drawn to social media with visual content, like videos and photos. Sites like Instagram, SnapChat, and Pinterest are extremely popular with a large variety of age groups and all evidence points to the popularity of visual content to continue to grow. This is great news for interior designers – as home design is such a visual industry. Videos and photos give designers a chance to shine – to display their style and creativity. And it’s great, because at the same time, you’re giving customers the kind of content they want to view. So – Showing off awesome projects you’ve completed on Instagram and Pinterest, or posting a quick tour of a space you’re really proud of or inspired by on YouTube are going to continue to be fabulous ways to connect with prospective clients and to build your brand as a design expert. Making sure to add a visual element to your blog, Twitter, and Facebook posts will be key in social media marketing through 2014 and beyond.

Keep up the Engagement

Modern consumers expect authentic engagement from the brands they interact with via social media. This is especially true for interior designers who may be looking to connect with new clients through social media efforts. Always make sure to stay engaged with your audience. If a client tweets a shout out to you about a job well done, remember to re-tweet them and let them know how much fun it was working with them. If people are commenting and/or asking questions on your YouTube page, jump into the discussion. Like I mentioned, people want engagement – especially when it’s from someone they may work with on something as personal as designing their home. Keep your engagement strategy strong and your social media efforts will likely pay off for years to come.

What social media predictions to you have for the future? Leave a comment and share!

YouTube is an excellent platform for interior designers to connect with potential clients. This huge video based social media network gives designers a chance to show what you can do and also give prospective customers a look into your fun, creative personality. This post will review a few interior designers on YouTube and even a couple DIYers that are really getting it right (and WHY) on YouTube.

Interior Design Reality Shows~ One really cool way interior designers are using YouTube is by posting reality show type of clips of themselves during various jobs. Rebecca Robeson, of Robeson Design in California has a great interior design YouTube channel that models a reality show you might find on HGTV. Her interior design You Tube Channel has over 100,000 subscribers, made up of an engaged audience evidenced by hundreds of comments on each post. Many of the comments are from people who would like to hire Robeson for a job – and she’s able to trigger engagement personal engagement with these prospective customers off YouTube. While filming a popular interior design YouTube reality series is likely something that takes a ton of time, it’s probably also something that brings in a ton of good leads. Say what you will about reality TV – people are still drawn to that form of entertainment! Interior Design reality shows on YouTube give viewers the chance to get an inside look at a creative industry, it gives viewers tips and ideas they can use in their own spaces, it sets up the designer as an authority on interior home design and most importantly – it brings in warm LEADS! If you’re an interior designer or a DIYer like myself – consider starting a reality type of YouTube channel. It’s certainly something I’m toying with!

How To Videos~ Another awesome way interior designers are using YouTube is by marking how-to videos. There are TONS of really excellent interior design how-to videos on YouTube. The best ones by interior designers give genuinely helpful information, along with mentions of who the designer is and how to get in touch with them for interior design projects. There are also a lot of great How To videos by DIYers who have been able to create quite a following for themselves on YouTube. As with interior designers, the best DIY decorator videos have useful information, are engaging, and include some kind of trigger for engagement off YouTube (such as a website).

Before/After Clips~ Audiences love make overs! It’s clear from the popularity of TV shows like The Swan, Biggest Loser, and Extreme Makeover Home Editions, that people are fascinated with tales of others reinventing themselves. The YouTube audience is no different, and smart interior designers are taking notice. Another neat way interior designers are using YouTube is posting before and after videos of their best projects. Before and After clips can be tricky, as the content really has to be engaging in order to gain (and keep) viewers. The best interior design before and after videos on YouTube, have far more than just rotating before/after pics of past jobs. They’re engaging. They have music, voice over, or even better, clips of the designer discussing their work. The before and after pictures are clear and high quality. And of course, the way to contact the designer appears at some point in the video. YouTube Before and After videos are another great way for designers to showcase their work in a way that’s engaging to consumers. It’s a great way to show exactly what you can do for your clients, without having to make a ton of cold calls. And, before and after videos are relatively easy to do!

YouTube is such an awesome resource for interior designers and really anyone who is into interior design. If done correctly, YouTube can be a solid source of leads for interior designers. What are your favorite interior design channels on YouTube? Leave a comment and discuss!