6th September 2022 | IN DESIGN ADVICE | BY SBID ShareTweetPinterestLinkedIn As an interior designer, you will have developed a portfolio of work that you can use to show off your interior designs. However, if you want to gain recognition and increase your reach, you’ll need to utilise your portfolio to maximise your chances of being seen by prospective clients. So, once you’ve done all the hard work and photographed your project, where should you look to promote your designs? Website When looking for interior design services, most people will immediately jump online to get ideas, find inspiration or search for interior designers they are interested in. Without an online portfolio or website, you will not appear in these all-important search results or be discoverable by potential clients you ideally want to reach. It’s essential you set up a website for your business where you can create a gallery or portfolio page to showcase your best and most recent projects. Clients will use this to judge your professionalism and quality, so make sure it’s heavily focused on your designs, easy to navigate and highlights your services clearly. Once that’s ready, you’ll need to make sure each page is optimised for mobiles and search engines as this will help with your site ranking. TIP: Consider your keywords carefully! Social Media Social media sites are ideal for showing off your latest designs – they can also help to bring you more contracts and an audience of potential clients, too. The trick is to choose your platforms wisely! Pinterest – This site is designed for sharing and saving ideas (especially in the creative sectors). If you have a nice portfolio or gallery of images, it can be helpful to also promote these design projects on Pinterest. People tend to share images they like, so it’s a good way to increase views of your work, and quickly grow a following. Just be sure to post regularly! Instagram – Specifically designed for posting visual media, Instagram is an important platform to support your online presence as an interior designer. You can post multiple images at a time, which is a good way to showcase different areas or rooms within a project. With an increasing emphasis on video content, you should also be making use of the stories and reels features to make your social media activity even more engaging. Hashtags can be a valuable tool to help grow your account! TikTok – While relatively new to the social media scene, TikTok is a great place to show off your interior designs in video format. Consider recording walk throughs, collating clips of key design elements or showing project developments – these short, fast paced videos can give people a deeper feel for the spaces you create. TIP: You can easily repurpose your video content between Instagram and TikTok to make the most of your material! Of course, there are many more social media sites, but we recommend these to get you started. Online Databases & Publications Websites like Houzz are ideal for showing off your designs, as well as advertising your interior design business. Featuring in the SBID Designer Directory can also provide valuable visibility for your practice in the online space. It’s a good idea to get your designs published on high profile websites, whether directories, award platforms or magazines, so you can take advantage of their online traffic and associated audiences. These sites may also want more than just the photos of your project, so be ready to prepare supporting descriptions too – for example, you might want to outline the client’s brief, where you found inspiration and why you made particular design choices! Do you need more information on promoting your interior design business? Consider joining the Society of British and International Interior Design to help you elevate your professional profile and increase your reach to wider audiences!