In a digital-first world where consumers expect more authenticity from brands, using behind-the-scenes (BTS) content has become an essential strategy for fostering trust and connection. Whether you’re a designer, architect, landscaper, decorator, or a product brand, showcasing the process behind your work humanizes your brand and builds genuine relationships with your audience.
Why Behind-the-Scenes Content Matters
Your audience isn’t just buying a product or service; they’re investing in your story, vision, and process. Behind-the-Scenes content gives them a glimpse of the craftsmanship, creativity, and passion driving your work. This transparency helps:
- Build trust: Showing how the magic happens reassures clients and customers that your work is thoughtful and high-quality.
- Create emotional connections: People connect with people. Sharing your process makes your brand relatable.
- Set yourself apart: Highlighting your unique methods or team dynamics differentiates your brand from competitors.
Likely you too, most designers and entrepreneurs feel this is very hard – they rather shy away from the camera and only show perfect images of their work. However, using BTS content makes your social media feed interesting, and helps your future clients to build an emotional connection with your brand.
What Types of BTS Content Work Best?
BTS content can take many forms, each offering a unique way to engage your audience. Here are some ideas:
Work-In-Progress Snapshots
Share candid images or videos of your ongoing projects. For a furniture designer, this might include carving wood, assembling pieces, or adding finishing touches. Decorators can showcase mood boards, fabric selections, or room layouts evolving over time.
Tip: Keep it real. Flaws and challenges add relatability to the content. If you don’t want to show your face, you can show your hands creating the work. Also, you can create time-lapse videos of you designing a room layout on your computer!
Your Workspace
Let your followers take a peek into your studio, design office, or even a cluttered workshop. Highlighting where the creativity unfolds offers insight into your process and can be surprisingly engaging.
Tip: You can do walk-arounds in the office to make it familiar for your future clients to see where they will meet your team and work with you to create their dream home!
Meet the Team
Introduce your team members and their roles through casual videos or interviews. Highlight their personalities, expertise, and contributions to your brand. These don’t have to be videos in case your team members don’t want to be part of video materials.
Tip: Add a photoshoot into your team member onboarding process and introduce your team members to your audience regularly.
Process Demos
Walk your audience through the steps of creating your product or service. For example, an interior designer might explain their process for sourcing sustainable materials or creating custom wall treatments.
Tip: You can create educational videos where you explain how your team delivers the work. This is great for showcasing how your design process looks like to to make your clients appreciate the hard work (and understand all the details) that goes into turning houses into amazing homes!
Company Culture and Daily Life
Highlight company values through events, team collaborations, or even coffee breaks. A snippet of team brainstorming sessions or celebrations can humanize your brand further.
Tip: You likely visit many showrooms and locations. Take some shots when you do that, or have your team member to record short videos while you select materials. Your showroom partners will love this extra marketing, too!
Bloopers and Outtakes
Everyone loves a laugh. Sharing behind-the-scenes mishaps or humorous moments makes your brand more approachable and authentic.
How to Use BTS Content Effectively
While BTS content has potential, its success depends on how you share and strategize it. Here are some tips to maximize impact:
1. Use Storytelling
Don’t just post random pictures; craft narratives around them. Explain what’s happening, why it matters, and how it connects to your overall mission. Don’t be afraid to talk to the camera!
2. Be Consistent
Consistency is key to maintaining interest. Incorporate BTS posts as part of your regular content strategy, ensuring your audience gets an ongoing look at your journey. Try to get the BTS content to become your weekly activity, or even multiple times per week. And yes – you can pre-record some shots for later use, and re-use your content!
3. Engage Your Audience
Invite your audience to participate. Ask for opinions on design choices or sneak peeks. Engagement strengthens relationships and keeps your audience invested in your brand.
Tip: When you share materials and selections, you will get questions in the comments. Many will know about your sources and choices. Now you need to decide whether you share your design selections or not.
4. Choose the Right Platforms
Tailor your BTS content to the platform. Use Instagram Reels for quick insights, TikTok for creative process videos, and LinkedIn for showcasing team culture and thought leadership.
If you only use one platform, such as Instagram, you can put your BTS content in the reels & stories, and photo-ready content to your feed. Or, if you want to keep your feed pretty but still share BTS content, you can add a nice-looking thumbnail to your post.
5. Leverage Trends
Stay on top of trends to amplify your content’s reach. Pair BTS snippets with trending music, hashtags, or formats to attract more viewers.
Benefits of Sharing BTS Content
- Builds Trust: Clients see your attention to detail, validating the value of your services.
- Generates Excitement: Sneak peeks create anticipation for upcoming projects or launches.
- Encourages Collaboration: Sharing your process can attract like-minded brands and collaborators.
- Strengthens Loyalty: Customers feel connected to your journey, increasing brand loyalty.
