In Ask an Influencer, Business of Home explores the creator economy. This week, we spoke with interior designer Julie Jones.

Before Julie Jones started making social media content, her journey into the design industry was an uphill climb. After graduating from design school in Tampa, Florida, in 2008—and facing a job market in which she competed with her former professors for entry-level positions—she moved back home to San Diego with her husband and growing family. There, she started taking on freelance design gigs for $50 a pop, squeezing in clients while parenting. When she landed a part-time job at a local design-build firm in 2012, she felt like she had finally found a foothold in the industry, on her own terms.

Eight years later, in the midst of the pandemic, a friend convinced Jones to share her artwork (a newfound lockdown hobby) through TikTok and Instagram videos, coaching her through the process of speaking on camera and posting content. After a few months of consistent posting, she decided to take those nascent skills and start talking about design—her creative strong suit.

“Overnight, I had too many clients asking for me,” says Jones. “One video is all it really took to have 60 messages on Instagram saying, ‘I need your help. I saw your video. Can you come look at my kitchen? Can I call you? Can I FaceTime you?’”

Within one month, Jones quit her job at the design-build operation and set to work building her own design business. Now in its third year, her company has 12 staff members, a new in-house furniture line, and a variety of e-design (and occasionally full-service) offerings—all boosted by her 168,000 Instagram followers and 620,900 TikTok followers.

Ahead, she talks about the content approach that’s helped her win over would-be clients, how polling her audience has shaped more effective design offerings, and how she used metrics to find—and fill—a gap in the market.

Allowing the Audience to Shape Design Offerings
Jones may have a formidable following on social media, but she doesn’t consider herself a full-time influencer—in fact, content monetization, brand deals and affiliate linking are her smallest sources of revenue. At her core, she remains an interior designer, and she has shaped her services to capture the multitude of users who follow her work online.

One of her key strategies has involved building out robust e-design offerings, which allow her to take on a high volume of clients regardless of their geographical location. Currently, her firm offers three tiers: hourlong one-on-one consultations, in which clients meet with Jones virtually for design advice; space-planning services, at varied rates starting with dining rooms and entryways and moving up to kitchens and bathrooms; and at the highest price point, room makeovers, which are essentially space-planning services plus sourcing for decorations, furnishings and lighting. She also takes on a limited number of full-service projects.

Along the way, she has adjusted her offerings—adding exterior design work in recent weeks, for example—by using her social media accounts as virtual focus groups, posing questions and tailoring her services accordingly.

“I take it all in, and then I say, ‘What is the majority saying?’” says Jones. “Now, I have the luxury of saying we can poll a million people, but in the early days, it really was: ‘Let’s hear what these 700 people think. Let’s hear what these 10,000 people think. It really was being very open about, ‘I’m new at this, I’ve been doing this for a long time [in a different] way, but I’m going to do this virtually. What do you guys want from me? How can I help you best?’”

A cozy dining nook by Julie Jones DesignsCourtesy of Julie Jones Designs

Explaining the ‘Why’ Behind Design
Though Jones dabbles in tip-sharing videos and shopping recommendations, her main vehicle on social media is a series in which she walks viewers through her space-planning and design processes. The videos take on a familiar format: Jones herself is small on-screen, usually in a lower corner, while her work is full-screen—an intentional approach that not only keeps the focus on design, but also allows clients to see themselves in her work.

“I try to get out of the way in my content,” says Jones. “I have to tell a story about a client, [and that’s] where people start to see the value as well. They see how much time you poured into it, how much you studied the client. This is a story about them; it isn’t a story about me. I think clients feel very seen when you do that.”

While walking through her work, she’ll also divulge specific details about how a project came together—including the client’s needs, their wishlist, and parts of the project where she struggled to find a solution. “I think that’s what a lot of [design] content is missing—the ‘why’ behind our decisions,” says Jones. “Once I started doing it, it was a very helpful approach, and I feel that’s how we get so many clients, because people see themselves. They see, ‘Oh, she helped them, and I thought there was no way you could help that house.’”

Using Metrics to Inform Product Launches
The affiliate marketing platform LTK—which allows content creators to earn a percentage off of retail items listed on their page—may not be a major source of revenue for Jones, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been valuable to her business in other ways. Since she started using the platform, she’s been able to track metrics on which products her followers gravitate toward. She has also completed plenty of her own product research through her online sourcing as an e-designer and perusing countless client wishlists.

The result is the designer’s newest venture: Julie Jones Home. Partnering with a furniture manufacturer based in San Diego and India, she started with the number-one item her clients request that is reliably difficult to find—a solid wood dining table—and has since expanded into a variety of other pieces, along with offering products from trade brands like Rowe and Loloi.

“I’ve got a couple years of feedback on things in the industry and in the market, and I’m like, ‘We can do better—let me try to do better,’” says Jones.