Looking for ways to boost your interior designer salary in 2021? QC Student Ambassador, Lindsay McMurray, reveals why social media can be the answer you’re looking for! Lindsay is a graduate of QC’s Interior Decorating Course, as well as a student of the Feng Shui Design Course.
The Importance of Social Media
In this day and age, social media is one of the largest forms of communication. As business owners, it’s also one of our biggest tools for marketing ourselves and our services. This is especially the case in a visually-oriented industry such as home design.
Providing examples of your work – or even ideas you have for a client’s project – are best done in a visual way. As such, it’s important that interior designers focus on image-centric social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.
These platforms focus on first visually attracting your follower to your business. Then they reel them in to read the rest of the information.
Using Visual Attractors
In most cases, as an interior designer, your goal on social media is to showcase a certain idea or design element. For example, say you wanted to illustrate Herringbone tile patterns in your portfolio work. It would be quite the mouthful to try and explain the geometry of this design to a client who has never seen or heard of it before.
But a picture of this design element explains it quickly and perfectly. By using a visual element, your chances are better of attracting potential followers/clients and then showcasing your knowledge.
Just remember: a first impression is typically made in 7 seconds. But in reality, when people are scrolling, your window of opportunity to grab their attention will be much shorter. So, put thought into every image you post on your social platforms. It needs to be eye-catching right from the get-go and able to create instant intrigue.
How to Use Social Media to Boost Your Interior Designer Salary
If you’re looking for ways to increase your salary as an interior designer in 2021, you’re in luck! Social media offers a number of different ways to achieve this. It’s all a matter of utilizing it properly, having strategies in place, and setting goals.
Let’s look at 3 effective ways you can maximize social media to earn more money for your business…
1 – Maximize Networking Opportunities
Practically everyone uses social media these days – which means that the people you want to work with are using it, too. When it comes to networking opportunities, social media offers these in spades.
For many of us, physically showcasing our body of work in-person still isn’t an option just yet. But by sharing your interior designer portfolio on your social media platforms, others can still see all of the projects you’ve completed, as well as the high quality of your expertise.
Use social media to stay in contact with industry experts you’ve worked alongside in the past. Similarly, use it to establish contact with new professionals with whom you haven’t met yet. If you find someone you want to network with, start by following their page, liking their posts, and leaving comments. (Just don’t go overboard with it!)
Once you think the time is right, you can then shoot them a private message and formally introduce yourself. If the two of you get along, you can always arrange to have coffee together once social distancing allows it. Alternately, you could even arrange for a virtual meeting.
By continuing to grow your network through social media, you’re bettering your chances of working with more people once it’s safe to return to in-person projects again. More jobs mean a better interior designer salary for you!
2 – Promote Your Virtual Interior Designer Services
If 2020 taught us nothing else, it’s that a LOT of design services can actually be offered digitally. Thanks to COVID-19, most people are wary of being around one another. E-design services allow your business to continue operating, booking clients, and earning a salary… without ever needing to be in the same room as your customers!
To help make potential clients aware of your virtual services, promote them on your social media! If you have the budget to do so, you can even pay certain platforms to boost your posts so that they can be seen by a larger audience.
Since virtual services – by their very nature – can be done from pretty much anywhere, you can strategically market these social media posts to:
- Nearby cities
- Different countries
- Various demographics and target audiences
Social media is a convenient way to get the word out that your business offers remote services. So, use it to your advantage, watch the bookings roll in, and see the positive impact this strategy has on your interior designer salary!
Pro Tip: Don’t know how to transfer your in-person design services to an online platform? Learn everything you need to know in QC Design School’s Virtual Design Training mini course!
3 – Post Original Content on a Regular Basis
If you do nothing more than share other people’s work, your audience won’t have any way to know what exactly it is your business offers. To make the best impression and have the biggest impact, you’ll want your social media content to be as unique as possible.
Try to only share photos of work that you yourself have actually taken part in. Make sure to post on a regular basis, too, so that your business always stays relevant. There’s nothing more frustrating than when you find a business that seems really promising – only to discover that they haven’t been active in months!
Do some research to find out which times of the day has the most traffic. This might vary, depending on the platform. Luckily, lots of social media sites have these sorts of analytics right at your disposal. Then you can specifically aim to post at those specific times.
These tips all work together to help you establish a reliable, strong social media channel for your business. Having a solid social media presence will attract more clients and followers, increase your exposure, and potentially lead to more bookings or referrals. Of course, this ultimately means a better interior designer salary for you!
Want to learn even MORE tips for increasing your interior designer salary through social media strategies? Keep reading here!
In the meantime, I’m curious to know if you have any tips you’d like to share with us. If you want to offer up your own advice on this topic, comment below and tell us your thoughts!
If you wish to connect with me directly, I’m always available to chat in QC’s Virtual Classroom on Facebook. Thanks so much for reading!
