A Conversation With Veronika Eagleson, CEO of Designhounds and Modenus Media

I was so pleased to welcome Veronika as my guest on Meet The Members - an exclusive opportunity for interior designer members of my Facebook Group, Design Wealth, to ask my guests their questions, live, on a private ZOOM call I hold every Saturday with them, beginning at 9:30 am CT.

In last Saturday’s call, Veronika, myself, and the guests that joined us peppered Veronika with all kinds of questions they had about influencer marketing, including what’s important to brands, how to get accepted on her influencer marketing platform, Designhounds, and what the future holds for Designhounds and influencer marketing.

In this post, I am sharing with you my own 5 top takeaways from our conversation and if you are reading this and joined us live, I invite you to leave your own top takeaways in the comments.

I started the conversation with Veronika by asking her about her history within the world of interior design and social media and how she got started. We also talked a bit about our history and how we met each other.

Veronika entered the world of design as a kitchen and bath designer in Orlando, FL, but when the 2008 crash happened, that changed the trajectory of her career. She founded her first platform for brands and designers, Modenus Media, shortly after that.

Veronika and I first e-met each other in 2010, on Twitter, which is where the interior design and furniture industry gathered before Instagram was in existence.

When we first met there, Veronika had just launched Modenus Media, and I had been working in social media with furniture or furniture related brands for a couple of years, beginning in 2008.

We finally met in person when Veronika attended a multi-brand influencer marketing event I planned in partnership with Leslie Newby called Project U Design - a collaboration between our then mutual client, Cargill’s BiOH Polyols division, SCAD, Century Furniture and Ultrasuede Interiors, held in October of 2010 within the Century Furniture showroom at that Fall’s #HPMKT.

Here’s Veronika at that event, with Jeff of TLS Furniture.

Then, in early 2011, Veronika held her first Bloody Mary and Mimosas tweetup event in NYC, in collaboration with Architectural Digest’s Home Design Show. I attended this and we all had an incredible time.

From her website:

“In 2011, Modenus Media CEO and Designhounds founder Veronika Miller-Eagleson, driven by her own experiences as designer, blogger and marketing mind recognized a need to connect the dots between brands, design professionals and online audiences and responded to the market by launching Modenus Media’s first Influencer Meetup called Marys & Mimosas at the AD Home Design Show in New York City followed by the inaugural BlogTour London.”

The image below was from the 3rd of these events that Veronika held at the AD Show in NYC, but it shows you the incredible excitement and sense of energy we all felt as we came together to meet each other in person - or to see each other again in person - a feeling still in existence today.

Later in 2011, Veronika launched her first travel related event, her Blog Tour to London. She contacted me to see if one of my clients, Spirit of Sports, would be willing to be a sponsor and they said yes.

As a result, I got to go to London , and we all had such an exciting time going to all of the special events, including Decorex and the London Design Festival, that Veronika had set up for us.

Below is a picture of all of us who were there on Veronika’s first Blog Tour to London. I have remained in touch with most of these wonderful people throughout these ensuing years with a few of them becoming clients and/or collaborators on various projects with me.

This is a picture I took at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, with all of my fellow attendees lying on this gigantic rug installation. We had so much fun!

After executing on many exciting Blog Tours, where she took various interior designers to tradeshows and other venues around the world , Veronika started her second company, Designhounds.

Today, Designhounds is an influencer marketing network and a consulting firm, working within the kitchen and bath industry. Veronika herself has become a major influencer, utilizing her many platforms to amplify the messaging of the kitchen and bath brands her company works with or has worked with, like DXV, Signature Kitchen Suite, Mr. Steam, Compac, etc.

So, here are my top takeaways from my conversation with Veronika. Ready?

Top Takeaway #1: Brands Want To Work With Influencers Who Can Both Amplify and Specify

It used to be that brands were looking mainly for brand awareness ROI when seeking influencers. Now, the smart brands have realized they want to work with influencers who can not only amplify amongst the niche audience the brand wants to reach, but who are also in a position to specify.

Veronika said her firm is now tracking conversions [sales] for the brands that hire her to select a group of influencers for a particular activation event.

That leaves me out, since I don’t specify, but it bodes well for my clients who do.

Top Takeaway #2: To Be Accepted Into Designhounds, The Number Of Instagram Followers You Have Is Not Important.

What is important is listed in the graphic below.

To illuminate this point, we discussed how the first thing smart brands now do is to look at your FOLLOWERS list on Instagram, to determine if your followers seem to be mostly fake or bots.

The last point, the ability to be a team player, is also something that was stressed by Gary Inman and Shay Geyer, in a conversation I had with them last year on Clubhouse, about what they seek when they were in charge of helping to select people for High Point Market’s official Style Spotters team.

I wrote a post about that conversation with Shay and Gary, which I have linked to at the end of this post.

Top Takeaway #3: Long Term Value For A Brand Working With An Influencer Is Created Through SEO, Not Instagram.

Although Instagram is important as a short term brand awareness builder for a brand, long term value for a brand is created through working with influencers who have blogs, podcasts and/or a You Tube channel, and who agree to create content about the brand that is keyword enriched and SEO friendly to the brand.

Blogs and podcasts are indexed on Google forever, and YouTube, owned by Google, is the 2nd largest search engine in the world. Any blog, podcast or video can be found, forever, online, by consumers searching Google or any search engine for that brand’s keywords.

Working with a group of designers/ influencers who have one of these three tools at their disposal almost guarantees a brand a higher long term organic search engine ranking - a hugely valuable ROI outcome for any brand.

This was proven to me personally, in spades, when I was co-principal of indoor/outdoor furniture mfg., Seasonal Living’s virtual designer showhouse influencer marketing program in 2020/2021.

We saw Seasonal Living’s organic search rankings skyrocket up to Page 1 on Google for their important keywords, due to the number of blog posts and videos created about outdoor living, indoor/outdoor furniture and the keywords, virtual showhouse.

Top Takeaway #4: The Power Of Instagram Reels For Short Term, Organic Brand Awareness.

As mentioned above, the ability to create meaningful, engaging and beautiful content is very important to a brand seeking to work with an influencer.

And right now, almost every kitchen and bath or furniture related brand is seeking to work with influencers who can create engaging Instagram Reels, as Reels are getting the most organic, non-paid reach on that platform, which helps a brand boost its short term brand awareness.

During our conversation, Veronika called out Los Angeles based interior and architectural designer, Marbe Briceno, as a Designhound doing an excellent job with her REELS. Click the link at the end of this post to see Marbe’s REELS.

[ MY NOTE: Did you realize you can go to Instagram, click on the tiny icon for REELS above your feed, and share the link to all of your REELS, anywhere? Yep. ]

In Shot is a very popular video editor app that many design influencers use for creating Reels, and I’ve linked to an excellent YouTube video tutorial at the end of this post that will show you how to use it. It includes a great tip on music - a key element of Reels virality.

TOP TAKEAWAY #5: The Future Of Design Hounds

By now, you might be wondering how to apply to join Designhounds. It’s easy, and it’s free.

Go to designhounds.com and apply to join. That’s all there is to it. If you are accepted, you will receive an email from Veronika’s team, and you will be added to the Designhounds Facebook Group, which is where all opportunities with brands are announced.

The opportunities with brands are first announced in the Facebook Group and generally have to be applied for after the announcement. You will then be notified later if you have been selected for that opportunity, but some opportunities are first come/first serve, so if you are accepted into Designhounds, pay close attention to the DH Facebook Group.

My Closing Thoughts

One last story.

As I told everyone at the end of our Zoom call, the people I’ve met through being a part of Designhounds, have enriched my life in innumerable ways. They are like my family - my real online family. And noone more so than Veronika whom I’ve known for so many years now.

I was so honored when Veronika invited to speak at her first Designhounds event out in Napa Valley, sponsored by the luxury appliance brand, Signature Kitchen Suite, and I have a lovely image of that.

But instead of sharing that image to close this post, I want to share this image, taken by Susan Serra, from a lunch we all attended at the Culinary Institute of America during that trip.

It encapsulates perfectly the spirit of community at the heart of DesignHounds.

Can we all raise a toast again to Veronika and all she does for all of us?

Cheers!

Veronika: thank you for all you have made possible for me, and for my clients. I am so grateful.

And now for the links:

Modenus: https://modenus.com
Designhounds: https://designhounds.com
Instagram:
Design Hounds | Modenus

I also invite you to follow me on Instagram here:
https://instagram.com/lesliemcarothers

and, if you’re an interior designer, I invite you to Request To Join my own Facebook Group if you would like to be a part of these Zoom calls in the future.

https://facebook.com/groups/designwealth

Here’s the links I promised you in the body of this post:

Here’s the post from last week’s conversation on Meet The Members with Carla Aston: Top Takeaways For Monetizing Your Blog or Website For 24/7 Income.

https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog/2022/6/10/an-interview-with-carla-aston-her-top-takeaways-for-you

How To Be Selected As A HPMKT Stylespotter - A Conversation With Shay Geyer and Gary Inman:

https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog/2021/4/17/how-to-be-selected-as-a-hpmkt-stylespotter

Marbe Designs’s REELS that Veronika mentioned:

https://www.instagram.com/marbe.designs/reels/

The IN SHOT Instagram reels video tutorial

https://youtu.be/jcQkcDwNHv0

As always, thank you for reading this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

In Appreciation ~

Leslie Carothers
CEO, Savour Partnership

Named One of Home Furnishing Magazine’s Top 40 Most Inspiring Women In Home

If I can ever be of assistance to your interior design or home decor related company with online community management and/or planning a comprehensive digital and PR marketing strategy for national visibility and 24/7 online wealth creation, please connect with me here.