Michelle Lynne 0:02
Welcome to design for the creative mind, a podcast for interior designers and creative entrepreneurs to run their business with purpose, efficiency and passion. Because, well, every design is different, the process should remain the same. Prepare yourself for some good conversations with amazing guests, a dash of Jesus and a touch of the woowoo and probably a swear word or two. If you're ready to stop trading your time for money and enjoy your interior design business. You are in the right place. I'm your host, Michelle Lynn.
Welcome back to the podcast everyone. I'm so glad you're here today. Because today I have I'm going to kind of say, a friend of mine, Emanuela Schneider. She is a social media manager for interior designers. She has a background in journalism and copywriting. But she found her passion in helping designers with social media marketing. She now specializes in Instagram and Pinterest management. And she also helps designers generate leads and build a real relationship with their ideal clients. So welcome to the podcast. Emanuela. Thank you, Michelle. So good to see you. Likewise, likewise, likewise, I've known Emanuela for gosh, it's probably been a year or so now, a couple years. She's helped me off and on with some of my own social media. So she is trusted authority here on the podcast. Yeah, I appreciate you. So let's dig in and talk a little bit about social media how to outsource. But actually first, why don't you tell the audience a little bit more about you?
Emanuela Schneider 1:49
Yeah, in general, or professional
ever?
Professionally, like they'll tell you a manual is
Michelle Lynne 1:57
if you live in Brazil. But you know you How did you know Texas? You knew Texas when I first talked to you?
Emanuela Schneider 2:02
Yes, I graduated in your tea at the city of Texas.
Michelle Lynne 2:12
That's gonna get a big round of applause from a lot of the audience here in town. Yeah,
Emanuela Schneider 2:15
yeah. Oh, I miss it. I missed it. It's been.
Michelle Lynne 2:20
Yeah, especially these days with everything going.
Emanuela Schneider 2:23
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, no, I'm I'm currently in Brazil, and both Brazilian and American. So I basically spent my whole life moving back and forth. Because like in its design and states,
Michelle Lynne 2:36
that keeps you busy. That's, that's not just a small it's not a small plane flight.
Emanuela Schneider 2:39
No, no.
Michelle Lynne 2:42
Well, that's perfect, though. Because this way you can have the best of both worlds. And that's the beauty of, you know, working virtually, is global clients basically. Exactly.
Emanuela Schneider 2:51
Yeah. And I just got someone from New Zealand. So that's super exciting.
Michelle Lynne 2:56
Oh, my gosh, that is very cool. Very, very cool. It's, it's crazy how crazy how we get so interconnected. And especially recently, with everybody working remotely, it just seems like the world has actually gotten smaller. Exactly.
Emanuela Schneider 3:09
Yeah. Which is weird. Because with COVID. It just, everyone's supposed to be far away from each other. But
Michelle Lynne 3:18
it's true. It's true friends, from friends from all all walks of life. So let's let's dive out with that. So let's talk about how do you work with somebody like yourself virtually? Because I think that sometimes for for me before I started doing virtual, I felt like I needed to have somebody in the office next to me all the time. So how do you how do you work virtually? And then also, how do you learn somebody's voice? Like, I've got a quirky voice, but you still managed to pick mine up pretty well. We're working together. Yeah.
Emanuela Schneider 3:53
That's actually a big question. I have a coach as well. I think you know, this. Yeah, it's been something that it's been coming up every so often with her, like, how do we get voiceover clients? Because it does take time with you, it was super easy, because you're quirky, and adorable. And so you're, you know, like, your energy is already there. So you can just pick it up really easily. But for others, it's just, they don't have that super defined voice yet. Right? You know, like when you write something and they're just like a little uncomfortable, but they don't really know why. And then they're like, oh, I want to change it but I don't know what it is. So it takes time like that. It takes like a week or two to get that going. But so you
Michelle Lynne 4:36
kind of help people find their voice that sounds like exactly
Emanuela Schneider 4:40
yeah. Which is why I also send like a questionnaire of basically trying to figure out their voice so you know, do you use they are doing us we are doing use your own name. What kind of words do you use? Do you tend to use like cozy or do you tend to use more like contemporary style? All of that. Do you tend to make jokes? Are you more serious? Do you use emojis? Do you doubt? A whole thing? Yeah. So
Michelle Lynne 5:07
we, as interior designers dive into our clients minds through questionnaires through interviews through feedback in general. And I think that if us as your client could let go of our control and let you do your job, you extract from us, like we extract from our clients. Exactly. Their design style, it's your it'll be our social style. Exactly. Yeah. I never thought about it that way. But yeah, that's what we do. And I think we have to give you room to learn that style with some conversation back and forth, you're not just going to get it on the first post.
Emanuela Schneider 5:50
Exactly, yeah. And I also have, like one client who, for example, she still wasn't comfortable with the voice that I was projecting onto her. But she still didn't know how to explain it. And so there are ways around that. Like, for example, now she writes her own captions, but I just give her the whole idea. And you know, like these hashtags, call to action that you should use all of that, and she writes it up. That's
Michelle Lynne 6:16
awesome. So you're flexible in how you work with people? It sounds like,
Emanuela Schneider 6:19
yeah, yeah, for sure.
Michelle Lynne 6:21
Yeah, I think that's important. Because from, from like an interior design standpoint, not everybody's going to be a full service client, full service interior design client. And we've at ml interiors group had to figure out how to serve our clients and meet them where they are, and not just force them into the box that we want. And exactly. That doesn't mean that we can be all things to all people. But if it fits within your business model, and it's not going to cannibalize your services. Yeah, it's a great solution. I love that. Yeah. Yeah,
Emanuela Schneider 6:55
there are a few other things that I also want to like, start implementing, for example, not just social media management, but also if they want, you know, my clients, potential clients want to write their own content that I can just give them the strategy for it. And then they do it themselves, like a whole DIY marketing thing. Oh,
Michelle Lynne 7:15
that is genius. Yeah, because people might not be able to forge you completely, until they get more business. And then once they get that business, because you've given them the strategy, then you could start implementing it and taking it to the next level.
Emanuela Schneider 7:28
Exactly, because then they won't have time to actually do it.
Michelle Lynne 7:31
Right. Let me interrupt myself to take a quick moment to thank satin off Insurance Agency for sponsoring this episode of The designed for the creative mind podcast, their support and understanding of the interior design, decorating and home staging industries is unrivaled. Satin off understands what our businesses do, and they provide insurance that lets me sleep at night. Yep, this is the firm that I use. And they will do the same for your sleep habits. And your business too. They're more than an insurance agency, they are an extension of my business. They take care of the worry, because they are the experts, which allows me and my team breathing room to do what we do best design beautiful spaces, you can find their contact information below in the shownotes. Give him a call today. So so let's let's rewind a little bit. And let's talk about why should designers show up on social media? Like why should we even be there? Oh, elementary.
Emanuela Schneider 8:32
So important. It's incredible. I don't know. I don't know how people do without it. Unless they're, you know, luxury clients, like super duper, exactly. Superduper. And they're like,
Michelle Lynne 8:47
six digits. But I think even then, having a presence on social media still defines you as a brand.
Emanuela Schneider 8:55
Exactly. Yeah. So it's important for a lot of reasons for defining as a brand, like you said, for putting yourself out there and your brand out there. So people do recognize who you are. But also, in the approachable sense that you're not just a brand, you are a person behind the brand. You know, people don't really identify with brands, they identify with who you are your personality, your own style, all of that. So it's really important. I think that's the main reason that it's really important because even if they do like your style, they might not like who you are, and they are you are working in their own home. You know, it's a very personal thing. Yeah, yeah.
Michelle Lynne 9:36
I absolutely agree. Because that's one of the things that I teach is just be yourself. Because people are gonna gravitate to who you are. So once I figured out that I could be weird and quirky, and I love Jesus, but I love a little bit of the, you know, woowoo like the universe talk and all of that sort of jazz. Then it was like this is just who I am. And it was Much easier to show up on social media and be quirky and weird because that's natural than to try to be all designer II and, and false because then when people hired us, or me or my team, and we weren't all pretentious, you know, if that's what they were looking for, they were gonna get a shock. Surprise.
Emanuela Schneider 10:18
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that come in for? Yeah.
Michelle Lynne 10:23
And I've had a lot of people contact me. And while I don't believe that they will, some of them do. They don't necessarily go to Instagram to find a designer. But they went looking for a designer at one point, and then they followed us on Instagram and kind of got to know us then they call. Exactly, yeah. So I think people see you in variety places. Yeah. It's like you see him on the website. You see him on Instagram. You might hear a lot of interests. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Cuz you do Pinterest management, too. Yeah. Can we go down that bunny trail just a little bit? Yeah. So why is Pinterest important?
Emanuela Schneider 11:00
Let's see. There's so many reasons. Oh, it's big. Yeah, it's very, very important for your Google juices. That's what you call it, right. Google juice. Google juice?
Michelle Lynne 11:13
Yeah. That's a technical term. Yeah.
Emanuela Schneider 11:17
It's a word for SEO. Very, very important. Because it is a search engine. It's not. It's not a social media platform. It's a search engine platform. So it does really help with your SEO. But also, the higher paying clients are more there than they are on Instagram. And I think it's more or less. I know. Yeah, yeah, they are. And here are the statistics. 85% of women on Pinterest use it to plan life moments compared to 44% for Instagram and 53%. For Facebook.
Michelle Lynne 11:52
Oh, send me that information to put in the show notes. Oh, okay,
Emanuela Schneider 11:56
well, and then also 89% of Pinterest users use it for purchase decisions, and 42% of them plan on getting their ideal home within the next five years. So I think it's very, very useful for interior design.
Michelle Lynne 12:12
Wow. Yeah. And the more I learn about it, the more I know that I need to get a little bit more plugged in there. Yeah. In my spirit in my spare time. I'm just gonna have to give you a call when we're done here. So. So let's let's talk about if you had mentioned that, I think in the introduction, that you help designers generate leads and build a real relationship with their ideal clients. Talk, let's talk about the relationships and connections and so forth. That seems weird online, like how do you really connect with somebody, but I've had the experience, that's how we met like you and I connected online and developed a relationship. How do you do that for your clients? And why is it important?
Emanuela Schneider 13:01
It's important, exactly, for the reason that you said that you don't want to sound pretentious, and
but yeah, you don't want to just be there and have people not think that you know, you're not reachable, you're not approachable. So you do want to reach out and comment on other people's posts, and also send them friendly DMS and actually get to know them. Because even if they don't hire you, then they know that you are a nice and approachable person who creates beautiful projects. And you never know where your lead might come from, you know, might not come from that person, but maybe that person will refer you to someone else that they know, because you talk to them.
Michelle Lynne 13:46
And it's funny that you say that because I'll get inquiries, and they'll say, oh, so and so is my sister or so and so referred me to you. And I'm like, I don't even know that person. Awesome. Thank them for me, please. Exactly. And I think it's because they see us in different places. Yeah.
Emanuela Schneider 14:05
And they see that you are approachable, and you're funny, and you're quirky, and they like your energy and they want to go with that.
Michelle Lynne 14:09
Then I've got a badass team. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. So what this is, I might be setting myself up for something funny. What are the top three mistakes that you see designers doing when they use social media as a marketing tool? Oh,
Emanuela Schneider 14:28
I am so interested in what you think is funny.
Michelle Lynne 14:32
Because I've made every mistake in the book probably before outsourcing.
Emanuela Schneider 14:38
There's a lot. So the first thing that I would say, Okay, it's a tie, not showing your face, I think is one of the most crucial ones because designers do tend to just publish their projects and kind of forget about, you know, showing who they are and their personal side and their face and their voice and all of that. That's super, super important. Because it's the whole thing that we start again with seeing The face behind the brand. Yeah. And then the other one that really bugs me, as a social media manager is the hashtags? Oh, yeah, I know. Right. So
Michelle Lynne 15:11
talk about talk about the hashtags, what are we doing wrong? Sometimes you
Emanuela Schneider 15:15
don't use it, sometimes you only use five instead of 25 to 30. And other times you just use, there's so many so many areas that could go. Other times you don't you don't really target it. You're not using it to your benefit. You're just putting hashtags out there. But you don't really know why.
Michelle Lynne 15:31
Yes, I've been guilty of that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Emanuela Schneider 15:35
You do you want to? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. You do want to target your ideal client, so you know who your ideal client is in Dallas, then you put like interior design, Dallas, or Dallas homes, things like that. And your type of style. So if you're like more contemporary, if you are more modern, more rustic, put all of that in. And then also do a little research on who your ideal clients are, and use the hashtags that they're using all of that. And don't use hashtags that are like, 2 million posts, because those are, you're just gonna get lost in those. Okay,
Michelle Lynne 16:11
so bigger is not better when it comes to the popular tags. So, you know, like, what is the what's the popular one right now? House Beautiful, let's just say House Beautiful, or something like that, you're gonna get lost, because everybody's tagging that, and nobody's gonna search it per se. But they will search Dallas, best interior designer.
Emanuela Schneider 16:31
Exactly. Let me see how much house beautiful has 1.6 It's not that bad. I would say you can actually use that one. Because sometimes your post actually ends up on the Explore page. And once that happened, then it starts picking up on the bigger hashtags and putting you out there.
Michelle Lynne 16:49
And see that just went above my paygrade. So and that's why you outsource to the experts. So just like we tell our clients, that this is what we do for a living. Trust us. We know the details of interior design. It's the same thing when it comes to outsourcing anything, whether it's bookkeeping, or social media, or whatever we're not good at, because you just talked about getting picked up in the Explore page, and my eyes glazed over. Oh, I think it's like, oh, that's that's, that's starting to get more complicated. I just want to I just want to put pretty pictures out there. But there's a strategy behind it. Exactly.
Emanuela Schneider 17:24
Yeah. Yeah. You fill it up with House Beautiful hashtags, but you do want to put one or two
Michelle Lynne 17:30
out there, here and there. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you just definitely compounded more of a reason to hire an expert. Yeah. And I think, again, and I'm not pushing to hire Emanuela. Although I will say that she's lovely to work with. I think it goes back to we have to let go of some of our control. And we have to not be hypocrites because we tell our clients, hey, we're the expert. This is why you're hiring an interior designer. Yeah, when the time comes and you can afford to outsource you can't afford not to outsource. Because we make money designing we don't make money social media eating, if that's a word, and half assing it because we don't know what the hell we're doing. Exactly.
Emanuela Schneider 18:13
Yeah. Which also leads me to your third I remember you said there were three we only talked about two.
Michelle Lynne 18:21
Top Top Three mistakes. Yeah. Coming in hot.
Emanuela Schneider 18:25
Yeah. Not writing content that converts. That's really fun. That
Michelle Lynne 18:31
goes back to copywriting days, huh?
Emanuela Schneider 18:36
Copywriting Yeah. copywriting, for sure. But also copy for Instagram is way more specific. And it's a very specific strategy. That
Michelle Lynne 18:46
makes sense. It's a lot shorter. Yeah. To get Yeah, get to the point. Yeah. For example, I
Emanuela Schneider 18:51
think that really well. You write content that converts you know, sometimes you're inspirational. Other times you're educational. Other times you're very, very objection on like, Why? Why do you need a coach? Are you lost, you know?
Michelle Lynne 19:07
Yeah. I think that just comes from my sales background, and finally getting comfortable with my own voice. Yeah, exactly. being who I am. I mean, that just gives you so much freedom. Yeah, yeah. You're not trying to be somebody else? In your words, for sure. Exactly. Okay, to being okay to embarrass myself on occasion. Yeah, or just I think, being relatable to, to our design clients, as well as to my coaching community, and, and so forth. And I think that when you find somebody that you can outsource to that can capture that or even, you know, give us our voice. Give them a voice and just say, Hey, this is kind of what I hear and then tweak it accordingly is a blessing because it really allows you to focus your energy on your business, on your designs and so forth and not worry about How you're showing up on social media. But, of course, I will say it's important. If you do outsource anything, whether it's your bookkeeping or your social media or the production of a podcast, you still have to stay on it because it still represents you. So you can't just never go back into Instagram. Once you outsource it, you have to go back and make sure that it's, it's done well. Oh, for sure. Yeah, you
should definitely check it.
Y'all, this podcast episode was made possible in part by foyer, a lightning fast interior design software that creates photorealistic renderings. I'm not kidding, you can barely tell that it's not a real room. So why leave your beautiful designs up to the imagination of your client, when you can show them what their space is going to look like? You will sign more clients and get more approvals with the software. It's powered by artificial intelligence. And oh vouch for its ease. Because if I can do it, anybody can. Because y'all know that my design team are the ones who do all the work, find [email protected], as well as in the show notes. So, Emanuel, if you had to give just one piece of advice to a designer, before we jump into this next segment, I'll tell you about that in a second. What piece of advice would you give
Emanuela Schneider 21:24
somebody that you already said, which is be yourself?
Michelle Lynne 21:29
There you go. I'm glad we agree on that. So you heard it here, folks from two out of three. So
Emanuela Schneider 21:39
yeah, all right. I think, kind of just look at other designers and try to, you know, imitate their voice and compare exactly what they're doing. And it just doesn't work. Because, yeah, their strategy is different than your strategy, and they're not who you are. And it's all different.
Michelle Lynne 21:55
Yeah. And I think each one of us is so beautiful in our own unique way that we have to own it. And that's okay. Yeah, I love that. And I guilty of that. When I was first getting onto social media as I started to kind of grow and evolve into ml interiors group. It's growing pains, and it's okay not to be perfect when you first show up or even when it's okay not to be perfect when you show up 20 years from now, like imperfect. Perfection is perception. Yeah. And if you don't show up on social media, because you think you need to be perfect, then you're never going to do it. Exactly. You're never going to do it because perfection is unattainable. And it's almost a lazy excuse to get out of it. Yeah.
Emanuela Schneider 22:40
Hiding, hiding behind it. And it's also very intimidating. People want to see your imperfections. Yeah. Yeah,
Michelle Lynne 22:47
it's it's yeah, I I've gotten more responses and more engagement when it comes to just letting your guard down.
Emanuela Schneider 22:56
Yeah, for sure. That's,
Michelle Lynne 22:59
that's a great point. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to go be vulnerable on social media here again soon. Alright, Emanuela. So you know, I love to talk about all things business related, but I also like to have a little bit of fun. So this next segment is our rapid fire q&a format. This will let the audience get to know you a little bit better. Nothing's off the table. Okay, so let's see what comes up today. Um, are you ready?
Emanuela Schneider 23:29
I'm ready. Okay.
Michelle Lynne 23:31
Who is your favorite superhero?
Emanuela Schneider 23:33
Oh, oh, no.
Michelle Lynne 23:36
rapidfire Come on.
Emanuela Schneider 23:38
Come on. Come on. I'm gonna go with Michelle Obama. Hello. Very
Michelle Lynne 23:44
good. Okay. Very good. Chocolate chip or oatmeal cookie.
Emanuela Schneider 23:48
Chocolate chip for sure.
Michelle Lynne 23:50
Coffee or tea?
Emanuela Schneider 23:51
Coffee.
Michelle Lynne 23:52
When was the last time you laughed until you almost peed yourself?
Emanuela Schneider 23:57
Watching animals videos, where they're basically just doing human things.
Michelle Lynne 24:06
Things you find on Pinterest when you're working? Just kidding. What genre of music do you listen to?
Emanuela Schneider 24:14
Oh, everything. I actually tend to listen to more podcasts but I gotta say 80s 80s and 90s. Yeah,
Michelle Lynne 24:24
have fun. Fun, fun fun. Okay, um, introvert or extrovert? Introvert for sure. If you could have one superpower, what would it be
Emanuela Schneider 24:35
able to read people's minds and then make them happy. Oh,
Michelle Lynne 24:43
very nice. It's an interesting one. Yeah, definitely. That's good, though. That's really sweet. Dream travel destination.
Emanuela Schneider 24:53
Portugal actually. Ah,
Michelle Lynne 24:55
so in Brazil, you speak Portuguese, right? Yeah.
Emanuela Schneider 24:59
But it's so you'd be able, oh,
Michelle Lynne 25:01
it is. I didn't know that.
Emanuela Schneider 25:04
Yeah, we speak Brazilian Portuguese, they speak Portuguese, Portuguese. So the accent is so heavy that sometimes I can't even understand it. That's
Michelle Lynne 25:15
interesting. I never knew that see. So we learn something new every single time we do one of these rapid fires. Right. So, Emanuel, thank you so much for being on the show today. I know that our audience has loved everything that you've said. And you're just so genuine and kind and easy to work with. Will you tell our audience how or where they can connect with you?
Emanuela Schneider 25:36
Yeah, so Instagram, its marketing for actually its marketing, interior designers. And then my website is mondo schneider.com.
Michelle Lynne 25:46
So Ma, n u Sch. Any ID er. So a menu, Ella Schneider is shortened to Manu Schneider. And we'll have all of this in the show notes. So you guys can check those things out. So I will make sure that they're all listed out. And for those of you who can benefit from even more resources surrounding the business of running your interior design business, join my growing Facebook community. It's called interior designers business Launchpad. I think we've got, like over 2000 people right now. And it continues to grow a manual is in there. And it's just, it's community over competition. And it's just, I'm really proud of it. So yeah,
Emanuela Schneider 26:24
I'm happy to be there.
Michelle Lynne 26:26
Yeah, it's a fun group, isn't it? Uber,
Emanuela Schneider 26:29
they're just very interesting posts every day, and
Michelle Lynne 26:32
supportive, I love I love the support that goes on. And there's really no competition or sales pitches or anything like that. So if you're listening to this podcast, I would definitely appreciate if you would leave a review, it helps us stay relevant and stay in the search. So thanks for joining us. Thank you, Emanuela. And we will see you all next time.
Emanuela Schneider 26:54
Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle Lynne 26:57
Hey, y'all, if you love the show and find it useful, I would really appreciate it if you would share with your friends and followers. And if you like what you're hearing, want to put a face with a name, and get even more business advice than join me in my Facebook group. The interior designers business launch pack. Yeah, I know it's Facebook, but just come on in for the training and then leave without scrolling your feet. It's fine. I promise you'll enjoy it. And finally, I hear it's good for business to get ratings on your podcast. So please drop yours on whatever platform you use to listen to this. We're all about community over competition. So let's work on elevating our industry, one designer at a time. See you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
