In Ask an Influencer, Business of Home explores the creator economy. This week, we spoke with Ontario-based interior designer and content creator Karla Diaz (@karlahomestyle).
When Karla Diaz and her husband purchased their home, everyone thought they made a huge mistake—at least, everyone on the internet. Diaz had launched her Instagram account just four months before, and soon posted a video of the fixer-upper’s exterior along with a caption announcing her intentions to remake the space.
“People told us not to do it. They were like, ‘It’s an old house. It’s abandoned. You’re going to waste your money. It’s so much work,’” says Diaz. “Obviously, we didn’t listen. We were like, ‘We’re in love with it, and we want to bring it back to life.’”
The “before” video of Diaz’s new home may have piqued interest online, but the “after” video completely blew up. Just 10 seconds long, the clip showed the newly renovated home in all its glory—and racked up millions of views, quickly becoming her first viral post. But for the designer and content creator, there was never any doubt about the outcome of the space.
While she began her career in event management after studying communications and marketing in college, Diaz met her match when she started dating her now-husband, who was working in the construction world at the time. Together, the pair went on to purchase and flip their first house: He took on the renovation; she handled the design and staging. The process went so smoothly, the duo decided to make a business out of it, taking on their own clients via Diaz’s husband’s construction company.
When Diaz took off on social media, a new wing of the business soon bloomed: Karla Home Style, which now brings in revenue from brand deals and affiliate marketing, along with generating new design clients for her. Four years after the account first took off, she now broadcasts design tips and coverage of her ongoing projects to an audience of 44,600 followers on Instagram.
Ahead, Diaz shares how to kickstart a social media revenue stream, the benefits of bringing on a management team, and why she welcomes boundary-setting with clients.
Jump Right In With Monetization
In the early stages of building an audience, generating revenue from social media feels like a far-off goal—but according to Diaz, it doesn’t have to be that way. “I think it’s a bit of a misconception that you need 100,000 followers to be successful,” she says. “I think it’s all about how intentional you are with it.”
Around the time she hit the 5,000-follower mark, Diaz began fielding some of her first brand deals on social media. In order to keep that momentum going, she did her research: joining influencer groups to trade info on interacting with brands, and even taking a course on best practices for content monetization. “I got to the point where I understood it enough that I was reaching out to brands I wanted to work with, and that was also key,” she says. “I created a media kit—it’s basically like your resume, and it shows brands that you’re serious and what you offer, including your analytics. Then you start the conversation from there.”
Diaz recommends setting a goal of how many brands you’d like to work with, and then committing to a set number of outreach messages to send each week—starting with five or 10. Beyond simply reaching out, it helps to think deeper about what you might do if a brand does respond: a certain product you’re interested in, for example, or an idea you have for a reel or a story post.
“Pitch them the idea, why you’re interested in them and how they can fit into your content. Brands love that—even if they didn’t have it in mind to create that content, maybe you’ll prompt them to be like, ‘You know what? We love this idea, and yes, we will send you this,’ or ‘Let’s start the conversation for a sponsorship,’” says Diaz. “That can lead to bigger conversations, and potentially a bigger long-term partnership with a brand.”
A Healthy Balance of Design and Social Media
For Diaz, design work and social media are split 50-50 when it comes to time spent on her business. A large part of managing that busy schedule involves carefully setting aside time for specific tasks: shooting content on the weekends, and posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Still, the biggest time management tactic has involved bringing on a bit of help.
“I approach it on my own when it comes to content creation and engagement, but when it comes to brands, I now have a management team that [coordinates] my collaborations,” she says.
Diaz’s agency initially reached out to her more than a year ago. Following a series of introductory meetings, she decided to sign on with the firm to help her manage brand deals and contracts and reach new brands she otherwise wouldn’t have connected with. “They do the negotiations, check the contracts, basically handle the conversation. All I have to worry about is creating the content and concepts, executing and editing—everything except the paperwork,” she says. “Taking that off my plate is totally worth it.”
Respecting Client Boundaries
At first, Diaz established her social media presence with content centered around her own home. After a while, she realized that the platform could be a tool to draw in design clients; to do that, she pivoted her content to show how her services could extend beyond her own space. The transition, however, required a new consideration for her subjects.
“I’m now very careful with my design work and how I approach other people’s homes from a privacy perspective, because there are thousands of people watching my Instagram, and some of my clients don’t feel super comfortable [with that],” she says.
As for sharing content featuring clients’ homes, Diaz recommends having a conversation with clients beforehand about their comfort level. She typically includes a section in the marketing portion of her contract on the topic, and she respects a client’s decision if they opt out of having their space photographed for social media.
“I really suggest, if you’re doing this design work on a serious level and in a formal legal way, always be protected just in case,” she says. “Maybe it’s adding a little paragraph on your service agreement just to make sure that they’re comfortable with it. It’s a good way of protecting yourself and having that as a backup.”
Diaz landed on a strategy in which she focuses on behind-the-scenes content, posting footage of client projects mainly on her stories while keeping her permanent feed about her own home. The approach allows the designer to signal that she’s available for client work (and demonstrate how her process unfolds) while also opening herself up to establish a connection with her followers.
“[It] keeps potential clients connected to me on a personal level,” she says. “I’ve gotten feedback from my audience being like, ‘I would love to work with you because you seem so personable.’”
