“It’s so funny,” says Manhattan-based public relations consultant Christina Juarez, “I’ll get 500 likes on an Instagram post about my daughter or my dog. Then I’ll post a beautiful interior and get 57 likes.” It’s no secret that a degree of self-disclosure can attract interest and foster an appealing sense of intimacy on social platforms. All the same, when it comes to advising her design clients, Juarez cautions them that “people are looking to your account to see what you’re working on, what artists are on your list, what furniture makers and artisans you’re looking at.” An overemphasis on fashion selfies and see-what-I-ate-tonight pics can get in the way of the serious work a designer’s social media profile needs to do, which is to build rapport with potential customers, fellow professionals, publication editors, and any others who may one day be in a position to collaborate on a project or otherwise improve a firm’s commercial prospects. “So even though I get my best hits from those dachshund shots, I really feel it’s better to keep it business on the feed,” she concludes. “Then utilize Stories and Reels to get a little bit more personal and up close.”
Whether a designer and that designer’s business happen to share the same social media profile, of course, varies. Some people maintain solely a work-related feed, which might on rare occasions include the odd post not just related to work. Some have a company feed plus a personal account that is private, reserved for family and friends. And certain professionals have built personal accounts that supplement their company’s efforts as part of a coordinated PR and marketing plan.
Charlotte Moss is one such pro, although in her case the personal social media profile content came first. “What I wanted to post on my account was things that I experience: a trip I think someone else might enjoy, a place I’ve been, an antique shop,” she says. “It’s about being in the moment.” The technique has served her very well indeed: As of this writing, @charmossny boasts nearly 100,000 followers. When the decision was later made to start a business account, too, Moss continues, “I thought it was important, for people who have read my books and heard me lecture, that Instagram also have my same voice. If you have a disconnect and it sounds too corporate or too promotional, then people know it’s not authentic.” As a result, the way content is presented on both accounts, and even their photographic style, is quite unified. They reinforce one another.
Designer Matthew Patrick Smyth is unusual in having only a personal profile on social media, one devoted almost entirely to his own photographs rather than explicitly connecting with his interior design work. (He puts his Stories to more diverse use, promoting a book or perhaps giving a callout to another designer whose room caught his eye in a showhouse.) “What we see and what we do and where we go adds up to who we are as designers,” he says, echoing Moss. “And hopefully that comes across with my images.” So how does he see this strategy benefiting his company? “I figure if somebody’s that curious, they’ll go to my website.” The approach has worked: Although many of his projects come via word of mouth, Smyth reports, he has gotten clients from Instagram, who found something there that they related to.
To some extent, increased personal exposure is an integral part of today’s social media landscape, given the growth of TikTok and YouTube and the emergence of a whole class of influencers who post about interior design—a phenomenon the traditional design industry should take into consideration. “Influencer-designers showcase their homes, their lifestyles, and they are providing a lot of great design tips,” says Tavia Forbes of the Atlanta firm Forbes Masters, “whereas most of our designs can seem not as approachable. So we have to think about how we show up in that world.” She and her partner Monet Masters both have a public presence on Instagram, where they can highlight aspects of their lives that aren’t 100% related to their company, as well as a separate account for the business itself. “Monet and I have each gotten into posting on our personal pages more and not having that overlap with Forbes Masters”—a method, she feels, of coming across as open and genuine while “keeping the brand a little bit more aspirational.”
What may be most critical in the long run isn’t necessarily whether to mix the personal with the professional, but instead how the “personal” is defined and shown. Where do you draw the line between the useful, illuminating aspects of your life as an individual and things like offhand political observations or snaps from a niece’s school play (however adorable) that only your nearest and dearest truly need to see? The best advice, according to these professionals, is to put out content that’s aligned with your brand, the persona you’d like to convey, who your audience is, and how you want them to think about you—and let the rest go or keep it private.
