How to Strategically Share Your Interior Design Projects Online
There is a strategy for sharing interior design projects online.
Sharing your interior design projects online often has designers feeling uncertain. How much to share online? What to share? How much is too much? What do people want to see? Where to share? How best to share? What’s the strategy or overall plan to share design projects?
Know Your Ideal Prospects
First, I think it’s important to know who your clients are - because not everyone enjoys the same thing and not everyone consumes media the same. Your ideal clients may prefer something that other people wouldn’t. For example, your ideal prospects may want to hear very detailed explanations of how you solve problems and this may be part of your special sauce, but there are prospects that are not your clients that don’t want to hear this. Or maybe your ideal prospects are on Facebook more than Instagram. Know your ideal clients and who you want to work with and craft your strategy for them.
Experiment and Test
Second, don’t overthink it. Because we’re all very individual people with individual businesses, what works for one may not work for another. This is a time to experiment and see what works best for you and for your ideal clients. So someone else’s sharing strategy is not yours.
What will work for everyone - trying different things out. I promise you that this is not something you can intellectualize - meaning you can’t plan and research and plan and research and create a great strategy that works before putting anything into actual practice. You’ll need to experiment and test and experiment and test to determine the best strategy for you - so get out there and start experimenting!
What should you share?
What you should share depends on your business and your clients. What are you comfortable sharing? What do your ideal clients & prospects want to see from you? Maybe a bit of mystery or exclusivity is part of your special sauce and your brand - so you’d want to share selectively.
If you have very private clients, they may not want to see a lot of behind-the-scenes because they don’t want their project to have that much exposure. On the other hand, they may love the behind-the-scenes because they are private and may like a lot of information about how you handle certain situations before they hire you. So knowing your ideal clients and then experimenting is critical.
What you shouldn’t share is identifying details (like their name and street address) of your clients without their permission.
Most of the time I see designers err on the side of undersharing when they really should be sharing a bit more. So watch out for resting in your comfort zone and not putting yourself and your business out there.
Sharing Inspiration
Behind-the-scenes
Fabric schemes
Shopping trips
Design decision explanations
Before-and-afters
Selection explanations
Progress photos
What about publications?
If you’re hoping to have an interior design project published you want to be thoughtful about how you share. Every publication is different on exclusivity - usually the larger and more prominent the publication the more exclusivity they require. But sometimes, editors may see your work on social media or a blog and reach out. There are no universal rules here.
Read more: How to Get Published in a Shelter Magazine
Where to Share Design Projects Online
Sharing your design projects online is part of marketing your interior design business - it helps your ideal prospects get an idea of you and your business before hiring you. So share and share liberally. Share everywhere.
Your own website is probably one of the best places to share as it’s great for SEO and building your brand. You could share in an email newsletter. You’ll also want to share on social media - not just to attract ideal clients, but also for editors to possibly see you work.
You may feel like you’re sharing the same thing too much in too many places, but I promise you - you’re the only one that will know all the places you are sharing - most of your prospects aren’t going to see it in every place you share - that is why I encourage you to share liberally and everywhere - maybe a few times.
About The Author
Hi! I’m Capella and I’m an interior designer who helps fellow designers build their businesses. Forget secrecy and competition, I believe designers should support and uplift each other. By helping and boosting one another, we can elevate the business of interior design together! Hang around a bit and I’ll share all the business “secrets” no one else wants to talk about.
