Houzz

[craig]

Genuine question to all the self builders / renovators out there. Did you/are you using houzz? Did it influence you in anyway on suppliers from the recommendations? Did you end up going with a supplier as a result of houzz?

We have been discussing this today with them and it's a big investment in the current climate and a 12 month commitment, it was only covering approx 5 regions not even the whole of the UK (circa £4K for the 5 regions) which is not something we want to do but if it yields results then of course it makes sense. 

 

Obviously interested to hear people's thoughts.

Edited February 23, 2021 by craig

[Bozza]

I opened a houzz account thingy to help with interior design inspiration/ideas/products.   Don’t know if I was doing something wrong, but I found it complete rubbish.  If I recall it try’s to match your needs with local suppliers sort of an automated yellow pages..  Nothing near me if I recall and was basically electronically junk mailing me irrelevant stuff.  As I say it could have been user error on my part, but also because I’m not in a big city.  I unsubscribed.

 

I’m assuming you are a trade looking at registering with them?    Facebook seems to generate a lot of business for trades near me.

[craig]

I'am yes, that's my thinking behind it. More like a pinterest type thing for people to actually get ideas and a yellow pages type aspect. 

 

[Russell griffiths]

I use it all the time just for inspiration, probably look at it twice a week. 

[SuperJohnG]

I previously used it years ago. I still have an account and sometimes I look at the odd image there, but it'd much more interior design focused and heavily American. 

 

But it's time has come and gone imo. If you genuinely want to generate more social media awareness to generate interest and leads then it is all about Instagram. There you can see work businesses have done and see how it looks. I love it for that, you need to be consistent with posts though and committed. But easily there you can follow more self build accounts. We have 600 odd followers following our build and watching out stories. So getting tagged by accounts like that helps no end. 

 

In there though very few are interested in technical details, just how.it looks. People on here are the folk that want technical info.. 

[Gone West]

Knew about it but never used it during our build.

[joe90]

Never heard of it ?, bit late now I’ve finished!

Edited February 24, 2021 by joe90

[Ralph]

When I last used Houzz it seemed like it was Instagram but with links to product pages and some articles. It mostly seemed to be high end stuff that we could not afford or was in other countries. We never found it that useful.

 

You could probably better spend £4k on getting your social media up to scratch if it's not already. My wife posts photos of our build on Instagram and it's surprising how many people get in touch asking who we used for this and that. 

[recoveringbuilder]

9 hours ago, SuperJohnG said:

I previously used it years ago. I still have an account and sometimes I look at the odd image there, but it'd much more interior design focused and heavily American. 

 

But it's time has come and gone imo. If you genuinely want to generate more social media awareness to generate interest and leads then it is all about Instagram. There you can see work businesses have done and see how it looks. I love it for that, you need to be consistent with posts though and committed. But easily there you can follow more self build accounts. We have 600 odd followers following our build and watching out stories. So getting tagged by accounts like that helps no end. 

 

In there though very few are interested in technical details, just how.it looks. People on here are the folk that want technical info.. 

I have an Instagram account but unfortunately haven’t a clue how to use it! How would I find your build or others for that matter?

[Declan52]

Be safer setting up an Instagram account. It's a great place to go for ideas. Plenty of window companies have accounts which show their work in people's houses. It's free to run do can't really lose. Bound to be some employee of yours who knows how it works and will be able to give you a quick run through of how you work it.

[Bonner]

Tried Houzz, bloody awful IMO! Instagram is far better

[SimonD]

I used it a bit during our design stage but never looked at suppliers and didn't find it very good overall. My wife hated it with a vengeance. My details also got hacked from them.They didn't inform me, it was a piece of password security software that told me!

 

I do run a business focussed on a local demographic and found that the most successful means of getting customers was Google. I know some people get really good results from socials, but I didn't so stopped putting in any effort other than website and search rankings. With another business of mine, neither socials, nor web worked, all word of mouth. I think it largely depends on your business and customer demographic.

[jack]

We used it (along with lots of other sites) for ideas for our build 5 or 6 years ago, but the site was annoying and clunky, and there's no way I'd click through to buy stuff through it. 

[SuperJohnG]

8 hours ago, recoveringbuilder said:

I have an Instagram account but unfortunately haven’t a clue how to use it! How would I find your build or others for that matter?

 we are: self_build_ayrshire

 

Just search for that username. But to find others you would search for a hashtag E.g #SELFBUILD

 

Then that would show accounts who tag their pictures with #SELFBUILD, then you will quickly find lots of accounts.

 

Works for anything on there, so if you want to see pictures of cladding search #cladding or maybe  #timbercladding

 

give it a shot. 

 

[Declan52]

3 hours ago, SuperJohnG said:

 we are: self_build_ayrshire

 

Just search for that username. But to find others you would search for a hashtag E.g #SELFBUILD

 

Then that would show accounts who tag their pictures with #SELFBUILD, then you will quickly find lots of accounts.

 

Works for anything on there, so if you want to see pictures of cladding search #cladding or maybe  #timbercladding

 

give it a shot. 

 

Lovely site you have there. I think I would be eating venison regularly!!!

[craig]

Thanks for the feedback, it’s what I thought it would be and we aren’t going any further with it. We are on instagram though but I need to get better at utilising social media.

[SuperJohnG]

2 hours ago, Declan52 said:

Lovely site you have there. I think I would be eating venison regularly!!!

Ha they are always about, lovely to see them. Have a badger too that visits regularly 

[SuperJohnG]

44 minutes ago, craig said:

Thanks for the feedback, it’s what I thought it would be and we aren’t going any further with it. We are on instagram though but I need to get better at utilising social media.

I'll give you a few pointers craig next time we chat. ?