Decorex 2012

Decorex 2012 London

Trade Show for Interior Designers, Decorators and Specifiers 

"Good designers are praised for their technique, great designers for their impact"   Tate Linden

Christopher Guy Styrofoam Furniture Pile

Corita Rose Fabrics

I  always enjoy going to Decorex - it is informative, innovative and full of interesting companies with beautiful products and this year was no exception.  It is also great  to say hello to people and companies that you use and update yourself on their new ranges and  to see what the interior trends are and find new and exciting  wall coverings, fabrics, furniture and lighting.  

What did I notice about Decorex this year?  That bling is big!  Silver, gold and shine were everywhere.  It may have been accented with black and dabs of colour namely orange - but there was no getting away from the glitz.  Taupe or griz as a colour is still very popular especially for carpet and wallcoverings.  But here and there accents of eye popping colour made themselves known. Byron and Byron  curtain poles and the bright and beautiful fabric from  Corita Rose Fabrics.

Sharon Marston

There were  some fabulous lighting companies - I particularly loved the elegant, liquid lights by  Sharon Marston Delicate cascades of fibre optic lights that are formed into organic sculptures with or without the elegant porcelain shades.  These lights can be made into chandeliers, wall sculptures or set into the ceiling to glissen like stars at night.   The permutations are as endless as your imagination.

Another wonderful lighting stand with elegant glass lamps and fittings was Richard Taylor Designs whose bulbous table lamps in scrumptious colours enticed and delighted.  They also had matching chandeliers that can be made larger or smaller as required.   I also liked their organic form furniture - a console table can be seen in the picture.  

Encompass Furniture

Amongst the fabric and furniture houses was a great outdoor furniture supplier Encompass Furniture - with this wonderful metal brazier.  Something that I would love to have in my back garden.  A large table, with inset fire bowl and place to store the logs!  Would make marshmallow cooking easy.

Beaton Fabrics

And then to top off all of the wonderful things on show there was the #beatontweetup held at the Cecil Beaton Fabrics stand @beatonfabrics.  It was lovely to meet so many of the people that I have been in twitter contact with - putting real faces to twitter names and making some new twitter connections.  I met in the flesh @moregeous @madabouthehouse @karenhaller @charduck @nick_gee @Dreamwalls and many others.  In my excitement I failed to take a single photo - but that might have been the mind numbing effects of the cocktails being served by Beaton Fabrics to whom a big thank you is owed - (I think)?  

Goodie bags from Beaton Fabrics and Mad About the House

How to start in social media - Linkedin, Twitter, Blogging: advice given, lists and musings

My first post on this blog and it's not going to be about Interior Design but Social Media and how to do it!

Keren Lerner of Top Left Design and Alicia Cowen from Absolute Alicia (social media gurus - bow down in acknowledgment) gave an excellent seminar on Social Media and the hows, whys and wherefores of it all.  Between the two of them and some excellent graphics the intricacies and effectiveness of this new(ish) medium were explained to the dinosaurs in the room.

Advice Given:

Lots!  But of the many snippets of information one of the phases that most struck home was that "this kind of marketing is an effective online means of getting more people to know, like and trust you".

1. Have a plan
2. Decide how you want to be viewed and carry it across all media
3. Have a good 'landing page' - which should have an intro, great content and if possible a 'call to action' get people to do something so that they are 'engaged'.
4. Be informative
5. Optimize
6. Make sure your labels, tags, thumbnails hold key words to increase your SEO (see below)
7. Share interesting videos, facts and pictures.
8. Use google +

Linkedin

1. Join Linkedin - and ensure that this is a business orientated profile (although some people use it differently)
2. Be strategic about which groups you join on Linkedin.
3. Complete your profile
4. Don't link it to your twitter feed.
5. Do link it to your blog if you blog is business orientated and informative.

Twitter

1. If you join Twitter - remember to Twit!
2. Create lists of people that you are following.
3. It's good to follow competitors.
4. Remember to retweet - and credit the people you are retweeting.
5. A good ratio to work to is 80 others retweeting content and 20 your own.

Blog

1. Get your personality across
2. Put key words in your headline
3. Plan your content ahead of time.
4. There are many different blog hosts they mentioned wordpress, I personally use Blogger which I find easier to navigate.
5. Remember to put good words into your blog that are search engine friendly, also the title should be SEO (search engine optimized - and yes I was the one who asked what that was)!
6. Think of good, punchy, effective titles to you blogs.
7. Lists are good
8. Photo's to illustrate your blogs are also essential - and remember to credit people where necessary. 
9. Lots of white space ie don't make it to busy.  People read blogs differently than books, papers - they scan blogs.
10. Short sentences - punchy information
11. Be consistent about blogging.
12. A blog can be as good as probably better than a static website - it is an effective sales and marketing medium - use it well and it will repay you fourfold.

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So here I am trying to implement all that I learnt and at the beginning of my foray into Social Media.  Please do let me know what you think of my first blog and hopefully eventually, with the help of my dinosaur I will get onto Interior Design!