Day dreaming of exquisite exteriors, detailed designs, and state-of-the-art finishes? You have likely been perusing Pinterest and Houzz! I mean what is more fun than picking out finishes and designs for your dream house and saving them to Pinterest boards and Houzz ideabooks? I'm guilty of spending hours searching for new kitchen tiles and ideas for bathroom color schemes. Not only are Pinterest and Houzz great for leisure, but they are also two of the most important social media sites for the building industry.
Overview of Pinterest and Houzz
Not familiar with Pinterest and Houzz? You are missing out! Here is a brief overview of the two sites'
Pinterest is a social media site that is driven by images. Users create boards in different categories and then 'pin' web images and videos to these boards. The board serves as a visual scrapbook. The image is usually hyperlinked to another website where the user can click to read a blog post, view an infographic, or make a purchase. Content on Pinterest ranges from recipes and dcor to cars and clothing.
Houzz is similar to Pinterest, but specifically focuses on the building industry. Instead of creating boards, Houzz allows users to create ideabooks that revolve around designs and aesthetics in the building industry. Houzz also encourages users to dig deeper into the images by providing contact information for service professionals. The site offers discussion boards where users can ask builders, architects and designers questions about their projects and then reach out to purchase products or services.
Pinterest and Houzz as Marketing Tools
Both Pinterest and Houzz can serve as a marketing platform for builders, designers and architects. On these sites, professionals can easily share their projects with homeowners and other important players in the industry. As Lauren Passaretti explains in a Hawthorne Real Estate blog post, Houzz allows homeowners to find inspiration from professional projects and then gives them an outlet to contact service providers and manufacturers. This means professionals in the building industry can highlight their projects and work to attract further business.
Watch to hear architects, builders and designers discuss why they are using Houzz!
Pinterest is also a great outlet for building pros to market toward their consumer base. As Keller Tiemann writes in The Importance of Pinterest in Your Business, 'Pinterest shows a great deal of promise in assisting business owners who have a visually appealing product to capture more engagement, links, and website traffic than many of the other social media sites.' The building industry is fueled by visually appealing outcomes, allowing Pinterest to be the perfect place to market the services that bring about beautiful end products.
Monitoring Consumer Trends
Not only are builders and architects able to highlight their latest projects on Pinterest and Houzz, they can also gain valuable information on the latest industry trends. They are able to tap into their consumer audience and learn what that audience wants. By taking this information and utilizing it into their projects, builders and architects can be more successful in creating aesthetics that are desirable to their consumers. This information is gold and industry professionals don't even have to dig that deep to find it.
Tips for Creating User Engagement
It is essential to keep your Pinterest and Houzz social pages up-to-date and stay regular with posts and interaction. As Laurel Lindsay writes in a LinkedIn article, in order to gain more customers through Houzz, it is important to use the features provided. Professionals should utilize ideabooks, showcase their portfolio of projects, tag images with keywords, answer questions from users, and integrate Houzz into larger marketing strategy. Many of these ideas also apply to maintaining Pinterest accounts. Pinterest tracks keywords through hashtags so it is key to utilize hashtags and remain consistent with user interaction.
Are you currently leveraging the power of Pinterest and Houzz in your marketing strategy? I would enjoy learning about the tactics you are using! I would also love to share further helpful hints. Let's discuss in the comments section below!
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