10 Practical Tips to Build Your Interior Design Business on Instagram

Instagram isn’t just for keeping your friends and family updated on your life. It can be a great tool for you as a business owner — provided you use it wisely and strategically.

When you increase your Instagram followers, you build credibility in the interior design business. You also increase the likelihood of gaining more clients. But how do you get started using it for your interior design business?

Here’s our guide to marketing your interior design business by building your audience on Instagram.

1. Post Consistently — But Don’t Overdo It!

The key to success on Instagram is gaining loyal, engaged followers. But if you only post once every couple of weeks, users are likely to forget you exist. After all, Instagram is full of distractions, so if your content isn’t regularly popping up on their feed, they’ll find another designer to engage with.

Finding the right intervals to post is always a balancing act. If you go too far in the other direction, you’ll irritate your followers. Over-posting makes you seem spammy, so Instagram users are more likely to unfollow than they are to actually engage.

So what’s the right number of times to post? Advice varies slightly depending on who you ask, but most social media marketing experts suggest posting from two to three times a week to one to two times per day. That’s enough to drive engagement, but not so much that followers get annoyed.

Maintaining a posting schedule on top of everything else you do for your business might seem like a little much. Fortunately, there’s a way you can (almost) put your Instagram posting on autopilot. You can create a “content calendar” where you plan what you’ll post and when, and you can even create posts in advance.

Instagram also lets you schedule posts, meaning you can upload the post but choose the exact date and time it will be shown to your followers. This is a relatively new feature. Instagram only added it in late 2022!

2. Build a Profile That Supports Your Brand

Say an Instagram user sees one of your videos on the platform, and they love it. They click over to your profile and see barely anything. There’s no profile picture, no link to your business’s website, etc. The user can’t really tell what services you offer or where you’re located, and on top of that, the profile just doesn’t look professional. They decide not to follow.

If you create an Instagram profile that builds upon your brand, you’re more likely to gain more followers (and maybe even a few new customers, too). Instagram profiles aren’t quite as involved as some other social media profiles, but there are still some key things you need to include:

• Your Business Name: This may sound obvious, but make sure it’s the same name you have on your website!
• Your Profile Picture: Ideally, this will be your company’s logo so customers can easily identify you on other platforms
• Your Username: This should be as close to your business name as possible (but keep in mind you can’t use spaces!)
• Your Bio: This should be a succinct bit about what your business does — make it catchy!
• Links: You’ll want to make it easy for users to get to your website, business Facebook page, etc.
• Contact Info: Similarly, you want it to be easy for would-be customers to get in touch
• CTA Buttons: You can include a button for profile visitors to book a consultation, place an order, etc.
• Category: When you fill out a profile, Instagram asks you to select your company’s category — make sure you choose accurately!
• Story Highlights: This is where you can save your top Instagram “stories” (short videos) for viewers to see

In building their library of Instagram posts, too many business owners forget the importance of creating a professional, informative business profile. Don’t be one of them! A great profile is vital for effective interior design marketing.

3. Write Engaging Captions

Instagram is a primarily visual medium. But the best interior design Instagram accounts don’t rely only on interesting and inspirational photos. They also have captions that both offer context and encourage engagement.

If you’re running short on inspiration, you can try using AI to generate captions. Most of these tools ask you to put in keywords, and from there, they create a caption.

However, some of the captions generated by these tools may come off as robotic. They are, after all, written by robots. One useful strategy is to use an AI tool for inspiration. You can then rephrase the caption it generates, making sure to keep it in your brand voice.

4. Use Hashtags the Right Way

If you were part of Instagram in the site’s early days, you might remember the posts with short captions followed by endless hashtags. Hashtags are still helpful, but like keywords, they should be used in moderation. The current recommendation is to use only about three to five hashtags per post.

Instagram’s algorithm places more importance on keywords than it does on hashtags. What’s the difference? Keywords are for SEO (another important element of marketing your interior design business), which means that well-placed keywords increase your post’s chances of showing up in a search result on Google or Instagram.

Hashtags aren’t useful for SEO, but they do help your core audience find you. Here are a few examples of trending hashtags you might consider using to grow your audience:

• #bohostyle
• #urbanjungle
• #modernhome
• #midcenturymodern
• #beachhouse
• #scandinaviandesign

Of course, you’d want to only use trending hashtags relevant to your own interior design business. Here are some of the best interior design Instagram hashtags:

• #interiordesign
• #interior
• #homedecor
• #homedesign
• #interiordesigner

If you’re ever in doubt or aren’t sure what hashtag to use, it doesn’t hurt to check out what your competitors are doing!

5. Time Your Posts Carefully

The content of your posts is (obviously) important. But when you post can also make a difference in your posts’ success. Search Engine Journal recently did a roundup of studies on post timing. The results varied pretty dramatically, but more often than not, they found that posting early in the morning (before most people start work) and in the evening (when most people are off work) was best.

Pay attention to how your posts perform — you likely will find that certain times work better for your audience than others.

6. Collaborate With Other Artists/Designers

Just like a crossover episode on TV, a collaborative post with someone in a similar field is a great way to cross-promote. You obviously don’t want to choose a competitor. Instead, you might consider working with someone in a complementary field.

For instance, someone interested in hiring an interior designer is also likely to be interested in buying furniture or wall art. A post or series of posts of interiors you’ve designed using pieces from a local artist or furniture retailer will likely be beneficial for both of your businesses, and it will give your audience plenty of interior design inspiration!

7. Don’t Forget to Use Reels

You probably already know that Instagram videos are a great marketing tool. But Instagram “stories” are videos aimed at existing followers. They can boost engagement, but they aren’t ideal for broadening your reach.

Reels, on the other hand, are short videos set to music. People who don’t currently follow you can find them easily, and you can even promote them like you would an advertisement. 

If you don’t have experience creating videos, there can be a bit of a learning curve to this step. However, reels are so useful for promotion that it’s worth taking the time to learn how to make them (or to hire someone to do so).

8. Connect With Potential Clients Through Location Tags

Marketing your interior design business locally is a key part of landing new clients. Building an Instagram following is one thing, but unless you have a nationwide business, you also need to make sure you can connect with people nearby.

Fortunately, Instagram makes this easy to do. When you use location tags, people searching nearby will be able to quickly find your business. Locations also have dedicated Instagram feeds, so when you regularly craft content that shows up on them, you greatly increase your chances of connecting with potential customers.

9. Harness the Power of Influencers

People listen to influencers. Instagram influencers are people with a large, active following. There’s no consensus on how many followers you need to be considered an influencer, but the number is often at least in the tens of thousands.

Unless you already have a high-profile interior design business, it’s unlikely that an influencer with millions of followers will promote you. However, if you find someone with a decently large following, they can still get you more exposure for a reasonable rate.

The nature of design makes influencer promotions especially easy. For example, if you run a paid promotion with an influencer, that influencer might post about how your work has helped them with interior design inspiration as they’ve decorated their own home.

You might wonder whether influencer promotions work better than ads. They do, and the difference is greater than you might think. 

When you partner with an influencer, you build both reach and credibility. Paid ads boost your reach, but they don’t make you look more credible. One survey found that 38% of consumers trusted branded social media content, but 61% trusted recommendations from influencers.

10. Give Your Customers a Platform, Too

This might sound like an odd way to gain more followers. But when you include what’s known as user-generated content, you build credibility with your audience. 

User-generated content is essentially any social media post that a follower makes about your brand. For an interior design business, user-generated content might look something like this:

• Written testimonials or reviews
• Videos showing your design work and the customer’s response to it
• Photos of your work with comments from the customer

If an existing customer sees that you care enough about their opinion to request a review, reaction, etc., they’ll feel appreciated and will probably stay loyal to you. And if potential customers see user-generated content on your page, they might just start to feel a connection to you. After all, this type of content goes a long way toward humanizing your brand and making it seem more accessible.

Of course, not all customers will feel inspired to send you feedback. If you want to post user-generated content but aren’t getting much material in, consider running a contest or otherwise offering incentives.

Find Community in the Interior Design Business With Behind the Design

If you’re looking for a community to help you build your business and connect with other designers, Behind the Design is for you. Sign up for free resources to help you develop a great interior design marketing strategy and become the best designer you can be — and check out our Instagram, too!