Updated Oct. 14, 2022
Social media has become an essential tool for interior designers. Not only is it a place to virtually show their work and expand their network, it is increasingly becoming an e-commerce conduit, making it all the more important for interior designers to have a polished presence on the relevant social channels.
This updated guide to the basics and benefits of each major social media platform will help interior designers craft a savvy social media strategy for 2022 and beyond. We’ll break it all down so that you understand:
- The purpose of each platform
- The types of content best suited for each platform
- How interior designers can best use each platform to reach their target audiences.
It will also show how designers can raise their stature in social media communities by engaging with their followers, fellow colleagues, and any brands with which they want to associate. And we'll also provide a thorough framework on how to build your social media strategy using the best social media platforms for interior designers in 2022 and 2023.
Read: The hottest social media trends for interior designers right now
The Top Social Media Platforms for Interior Designers
While other growing platforms are threatening to displace its dominance, Instagram is still the platform interior designers should focus on the most. The best ways to use it have changed since 2021, however, and it will continue to change quickly, so work to understand the culture of Instagram so you can change with it.
- What is still the same in 2022: the need to post content that is coordinated, timely, and brand representative.
- What has changed: how content should be dispersed across your main page, stories, and Reels and the greater importance of videos.
- Static image vs. video: In the business of interior design, polished, edited photography of your work will always be important. These should be woven into your instagram, particularly your main page, frequently (make sure to maintain a cohesive overall aesthetic and rhythm to your main page in terms of grid composition). These still images can also be used as stories. But in addition to static photos, you will need to add a variety of other content formats. Get used to adding a lot more video content. Some professional videography is acceptable, but the majority should be self shot or shot with your team and other colleagues you are collaborating with, such as vendors, architects, etc.
- What to show in photos: Photos should mainly be professionally shot and curated images of your work, travels or inspiration - mixed in with the occasional photograph or yourself, team, colleagues, and possibly even personal family and friends. Think about the overall composition of your mainpage, your all-important grid.
- What to show in video: You can post a wide range of video content for Instagram as either mainpage posts, Stories or Reels. The specific type of post you choose will correspond to the content of the video, but broadly speaking, videos can show your work, your experiences as you move throughout the day, your team in action, you giving tutorials, and many other tableaus or moments that express your authentic brand.
- How to effectively post videos on Instagram: Main page posts operate the same way whether or not they are an image or video. Stories and Reels are more complicated but are the most relevant type of content on Instagram. Demand Sage has a thorough breakdown of Instagram Stories vs. Reels. Read the details, but for a top-line summary, Stories are shorter, fleeting unless added to a highlight reel, and are more about the aesthetic, the same way your photo selections are. Reels have significantly greater editing tools and are the perfect way to record video with audio, whereas the Stories can only have music as an audio component.
- Going Live: Going live is one of the best free ways to broaden engagement, and here’s how. Instagram is probably the best return for your effort because of its size and popularity with the design-conscious community, although Tik Tok will become increasingly influential.
- Social Audio: Use Instagram Reels to create audio-only posts.
- Opening an E-Shop: if you sell products, opening an Instagram shop is a must. Meta, the parent company that owns Facebook and Instagram, is focused on improving the e-commerce extension of their platform as social shopping explodes in popularity. Instagram shop offers sellers and buyers many conveniences, like the ability to tag shoppable products in posts and in-app checkout.
TikTok
Tik Tok is growing at unprecedented rates and expanding beyond Gen Z even faster than predicted. Just like we had to get used to Instagram after feeling at home on Facebook, we now have to face the new frontier of TikTok (if you haven't already). Some experts predict TikTok will eventually extinguish Instagram while Instagram is now working to maintain differentiation from TikTok, a reverse from its initial move to become more like it. Either way, the power of TikTok is undeniable and it is worth investing time in, even if it is currently dominated by a demographic (Gen Z) outside of your target audience.
- What’s different about TikTok: TikTok is all about video content. You can post static images, but it is not meant to do and is not going to help build engagement. With its wide variety of editing tools, you can easily create the same type of content you might use Instagram Reels for, but with even better produced results. In fact, you should repurposing your TikTok videos for your Instagram Reels - filling two needs with one deed.
- How it's changing the culture: TikTok trends constantly seep out into pop culture, showing how influential the app is. Gen Z uses TikTok as a search engine more than it uses Google. As a result, advertisers are beginning to invest in it heavily. A study by Exploding Topics found that in 2021, only 3% of marketers said it was the most effective platform for reaching their business goals. In 2022, 24% said the platform was the most effective - a 700% increase in one year.
- Where do interior designers fit in: Investing time in creating a TikTok account and generating followers with quality engagement is the forward looking thing to do. It may not seem important today, but TikTok will continue to take prominence over other popular platforms. For now, using TikTok to produce quality video content you can also use for Instagram is a good way to be efficient with your time. Pay attention to the culture of TikTok so you can be relevant and get new eyes on your content.
- Another place to go live: Like Instagram, TikTok offers the ability to go live. At this point, if your following is larger on Instagram, that is where you want to host your live events. Keep TikTok’s live channel in your back pocket for future use.
- Social Audio: TikTok is also a platform that you can use for social audio.
- E-Commerce on TikTok: Again, like Instagram, TikTok offers a sophisticated sellers’ dashboard with intuitive tools and a seamless in-app shopping experience for buyers. A 2022 study by Student Beans showed that 54% of Gen Z respondents said they had purchased something they saw on TikTok and 25% said they go to TikTok specially to shop. If you sell products, it won’t be long before you will want to open a TikTok shop.
Pinterest is a visual search engine, which gives creative companies an opportunity to have great success marketing their businesses with Pinterest. Pinterest reports having 433 million monthly active users on their site. Pinterest is now the third-largest social network in the United States. Data shows that Pinterest users spend 50% more than competitor sites, such as behemoth platforms Instagram and Facebook. Big Cat Creative published a detailed how-to for using Pinterest for business in 2022; here are the basics you need to know:
- Widen your exposure quickly: Proliferate your images on Pinterest: using the pin button on your website. This means that as people browse your website they will be able to hover over your images and add any pictures they like to their own Pinterest boards.
Once they do this it appears in their own Pinterest feed and this then encourages others to either add your image to their boards or even to click through and end up on your website. You can quickly see how your images will start to spread over Pinterest and how more and more people will organically start to see your work as a result of this. Interior design business guru, Clare Le Roy, says on her blog, The Little Design Corner, that this method drives thousands of people to her website each month. - Plan your posting strategy in advance: For content you post that is not passively driven by your website or sharing amongst users, plan your content and publishing schedule in advance with help from Pinterest Predicts. Publishing timely content can increase your company’s brand recognition 100% and increase online sales by 22%
- Collaborate with your team and clients: make private boards where you and selected contacts can share images.
- Pinterest for E-Commerce: Pinterest has invested heavily in its social shopping capabilities. Use Product Pins and the Lens feature, which lets users discover ideas inspired by images they point their Pinterest camera at, for your shoppable products.
Facebook is still the largest social media platform with 2.89 users in 2022; you probably already have a Facebook profile for your business. Your strategy for using Facebook can benefit from these features that are either new or newly relevant in 2022:
- Form a group page: You can use the Group page as a blog that becomes a community of your followers. This is the perfect channel for deep, authentic engagement with your audience. In 2022, Facebook rolled out new features like the ability to invite people to join your group via email and using a QR code to direct people to your Group’s About page.
- Use the call-to-action (CTA) buttons: Your facebook home page should serve as a second website, where people can come and see your business information in one consolidated place and have the option to easily contact you, follow you, or shop your products. Facebook makes this easy by allowing businesses to use CTA buttons.
- Leverage video and image content created for other platforms: You are already creating content for your other social media platforms. You can automatically share the content you post on Instagram as a main page post or Story or Reel to Facebook simultaneously, making it easy to have consistent content across the platform. Creating original content for each platform is always a good thing, but if time is short this is a good strategy.
- Use your location for targeting: If you don’t have your businesses address in your Facebook profile, you are missing out on leveraging the local targeting tools. You can also pay for enhanced location targeting, which helps push your content to people in your area.
- Facebook live and audio-only Rooms: Facebook is no longer using its podcast feature which allowed non-live audio-content. You can still go live on Facebook as both video or audio-only, of which recording will be available after the event itself.
- E-Commerce for Facebook: Sell your product on Facebook marketplace, which like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, offer a seamless in-app shopping experience for users with the opportunity to use paid ads to promote your products.
YouTube
YouTube might not be your first priority as an interior designer, but being that it is the second largest search platform with 1.86 billion users, it could be a platform to consider using if you are already recording the right type of video content for other platforms. Here is a detailed guide on how to use YouTube for your business in 2022, but here are things to focus on as an interior designer:
- Tutorials to establish yourself as an expert: How-to guides and mini-lecture videos that provide useful and interesting information will establish yourself as an expert while showing off your personality and professionalism.
- Show off your work: if you are already investing in professional videography of your spaces, upload them to your Youtube channel.
- Go Live: Youtube is another place to go live, which will help build your community of followers. If you have ever watched a video from a professional Youtube content creator, you’ll be familiar with the phrase, Like, subscribe and hit that notification bell!
LinkedIn and Twitter
LinkedIn and Twitter are not worthy of a meaningful concentration of your efforts, but establishing a landing page for your business on these sites — especially LinkedIn — can be a good way to appear professional and make your contact information more widely available. LinkedIn is generally used to post jobs, company information, and professional content. Twitter is mainly used to post short-form prose, news, and to a lesser extent, pictures and gifs. Neither are designed to highlight visual representation, but can still offer value as a portal to share basic company information and connect with other designers in the industry. A simple profile page with a link to your website can be enough to satisfy people that are using these channels to find interior designers, or you, specifically.
Remember, social media is a powerful force, and being intentional in what you post is essential to using it in a positive way to promote your business. When used correctly, the possibilities are endless. Investing your time in creating a social media strategy and executing it as planned is well worth it.
