Professional's Corner: How Ideabooks Can Benefit You

Use this crucial Houzz tool to your advantage. Learn how to collaborate and share your ideabooks with homeowners and potential clients

Aditi Sharma Maheshwari 28 August 2019

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Houzz is a versatile platform that allows architects, designers and photographers to connect with the right target audience and interact with them via various means – be it through discussions, personal messages or ideabooks. Today we’re going to discuss how ideabooks can be a boon for professionals.

Once you’ve learnt how to create an ideabook, the next step is to use it to your advantage. Professionals can interact and share ideas with homeowners through it, and promote themselves within and outside the platform. Read on.

1. They help you create a more focused selection of your choicest works
Think of ideabooks as your personal pinboard or a catalogue. This is where you can make a selection of your choicest works and put them together for your clients to see. So, for instance, you can create an ideabook that only displays images of stunning facades you’ve designed across projects. Similarly, it can be a selection of feature walls, furniture designs or high-end luxury projects you’ve completed. Make sure you title your ideabook as clearly as possible (for example, ‘bathroom design’, ‘residential facades’, ‘experiments with concrete’). This way, when a homeowner visits your profile, even a cursory glance will tell them about your specialisation and aesthetics.

2. They allow you to share your work with specific clients
While pitching to a new client, or during ideation stages, many a time you need to share images and concepts with the homeowner. One easy way to do so is by collaborating or sharing your ideabook with them.

Here’s how it works:
You create an ideabook and populate it with the images of your works. Ensure that the privacy settings are set to ‘public’. In the ‘add or edit collaborators’ section (pictured above), click on the ‘+’ sign and enter the email address of the person you’d like to share your ideabook with.

Here’s how to share ideabooks

Your client will then receive this email. On clicking the green button, they will be directed to the ideabook you’ve created. This is an easy, quick manner of sharing your ideas.

Also, once you’ve collaborated with your client on an ideabook, select whether you want to give them permission to view, or view and edit, the ideabook. If you give permission to edit your ideabook, the people you invite will be able to add, remove or comment on the photos inside. This can be a great way to communicate and collaborate.

3. Clients too can share the vision they have for their home with you
Just the way you use ideabooks to share your work and ideas with clients, they too can do the same using images from Houzz.
Houzz has a large selection of pictures, from across rooms, categories and countries. The clients can get inspiration from them, add them to their own ideabooks and share them with you. This way, your client can communicate better their vision for the home. Together, you can help give form to a dream home.

Tip: Once you establish a good, healthy relationship with your client, encourage them to leave you a positive review on your profile. A glowing review can go a long way in helping you get more business.

Wondering how to find your next client?

Expert Corner: How Ideabooks Can Benefit You

4. These can be shared on social media to generate more awareness about your work
As we said before, an ideabook can give a peek into your expertise and aesthetics. Instead of bombarding your social media with endless photo albums or single pictures, consider putting together a select number of images in an ideabook and sharing the link on Facebook or Twitter (simply copy-paste the link of your ideabook on your social media profile). This way, not only will you be able to showcase your work in a streamlined manner, it will also encourage people to visit your Houzz profile, see and learn about all the other work you do. Even better, if you have a lot of client reviews and have won awards, imagine the kind of positive impression you will make on those visiting your profile.

Learn how to connect your website with your social media

5. In case your work makes it into editorials, you can further share it with the community
Apart from photos, another important element on Houzz is the editorials. The in-house editorial team is always interested in discovering new and interesting home design projects and including them in articles. If your project images get selected in any editorial (you will receive a notification when your picture gets selected in stories), you can share the same on your social media or copy-paste the link and email it to your clients, as a way of spreading awareness about your work.

Alternatively, if you have good writing skills and would like to share your knowledge, you too could create editorial ideabooks and contribute articles. Writing for Houzz can be a great way to interact with potential clients as well as show off your expertise. For this, make sure you get in touch with the Houzz editor first.

Read more:
How to Use Houzz to Further Your Business

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Is there anything else that you’d like to know about on Houzz? Tell us in Comments below.