1 in 3 Homeowners Report Spending 25%+ More on Home Improvement Purchases Because of Content Seen on Social Media

Social media has a sig­nif­i­cant role in con­tem­po­rary soci­ety, with many peo­ple using it as a per­son­al plat­form for shar­ing their day-to-day life and con­nect­ing with friends, fam­i­ly, and like­mind­ed indi­vid­u­als local­ly and around the world​.As a home improve­ment brand, though, the role of social media may seem a bit more ambigu­ous, espe­cial­ly when it comes to influ­enc­ing home­own­ers’ per­spec­tive, atti­tudes, and even pur­chase decisions.You might see it as a way to intro­duce prospec­tive DIY­ers to your brand or stay top-of-mind for those who’ve used your home improve­ment prod­ucts in the past and are like­ly to make repeat pur­chas­es. Hav­ing a strong social media pres­ence can also help build gen­er­al brand aware­ness. But does it have much of a pur­pose beyond that?

Is Social Media Relevant in the Home Improvement Industry?

Accord­ing to data from our 2025 report on Home­own­er Social Media Influ­ence on Home Improve­ment Shop­ping, spon­sored by Miller Brooks, the answer is yes. Social media has the poten­tial to accom­plish much more than rais­ing brand aware­ness when uti­lized effec­tive­ly. It can moti­vate home­own­ers to start, or accel­er­ate, home improve­ment projects, and even dri­ve them to make prod­uct pur­chas­es online. This is specif­i­cal­ly true of younger gen­er­a­tions, name­ly Mil­len­ni­als and Gen Z, who are active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in online com­mu­ni­ties and find them­selves strong­ly influ­enced in terms of ambi­tion, con­fi­dence, and project ini­ti­a­tion by peers, pro­fes­sion­als, and home improve­ment brands on social media channels.

The Role of Social Media in the Home Improvement Project Journey

First and fore­most, social media is a strong spark for inspi­ra­tion and project ini­ti­a­tion. While it is rarely used as the first or pri­ma­ry resource that home­own­ers rely on for prod­uct research (near­ly half of home­own­ers start on retail­er web­sites), it is grow­ing as a sec­ondary or sup­port­ing source​.As in a major­i­ty of HIRI’s research, the Social Media Influ­ence report breaks down data with an empha­sis on gen­er­a­tional vari­a­tions. In this case, age groups emerged as the most sig­nif­i­cant pre­dic­tor of dif­fer­ent atti­tudes and behav­iors in terms of social media’s impact on home improve­ment activ­i­ties and pur­chas­ing decisions.

Millennials and Gen Z Have Increased Project Confidence From Social Media and Online Communities

For exam­ple, Mil­len­ni­als and Gen Z indi­vid­u­als are the most engaged demo­graph­ics when it comes to online com­mu­ni­ties, and our research shows that near­ly half of social media users from these age groups come across social media con­tent con­tain­ing home improve­ment ideas at least a few times per week. They val­ue advice and insights from pro­fes­sion­als and relat­able peers alike. Mean­while, about 70% of Boomers say they’re not at all active in online home improve­ment com­mu­ni­ties, from groups and forums to com­ment threads.But for younger home­own­ers, online com­mu­ni­ties build con­fi­dence and encour­age more ambi­tious projects. It even plays a role in moti­vat­ing them to start a project. More than half of Gen Z and Mil­len­ni­al DIY­ers have ini­ti­at­ed a project specif­i­cal­ly because of an inter­ac­tion with some type of social media con­tent. The project cat­e­gories that see the high­est impact of social media’s influ­ence include:

• inte­ri­or painting
• gen­er­al land­scap­ing and putting in trees, plants and shrubs
• exte­ri­or painting
• adding or replac­ing out­door lighting

Three Distinct Buyer Personas Emerge

The report, avail­able in full for free when you sim­ply cre­ate a free account, also breaks down social media users into three dis­tinct seg­ments: Social Media Skep­tics, Inde­pen­dent Browsers, and Con­tent Dri­ven Doers. 

These per­sonas can help home improve­ment brands bet­ter under­stand cus­tomers, who they are, and their home improve­ment shop­ping in order to devel­op tai­lored mar­ket­ing and sales strate­gies. For exam­ple, the most obvi­ous tar­get cus­tomer base, or Con­tent Doers, like to post on social media and become vis­i­ble them­selves. They also are far more like­ly to act quick­ly on home improve­ment ideas gleaned from social media. Not all buy­ers should be con­sid­ered or approached exact­ly like them, though, as they are not the full extent of the mar­ket and there is still worth­while sales poten­tial among Inde­pen­dent Browsers and even Social Media Skeptics.

How Does Social Media Influence Homeowners’ Shopping Behaviors?

Social media plays its great­est role dur­ing the ear­ly inspi­ra­tion and research phas­es of a project. Indi­vid­u­als will use it for get­ting ideas and com­par­ing dif­fer­ent home improve­ment prod­ucts. As a project moves for­ward to the pur­chase and exe­cu­tion stage we see a less­er reliance on social media from the over­all home­own­er pop­u­la­tion. How­ev­er, many inter­me­di­ate and heavy DIY­ers con­tin­ue to revis­it plat­forms for trou­bleshoot­ing, prod­uct checks, or addi­tion­al guid­ance through­out the pur­chase and instal­la­tion process. There’s a sim­i­lar trend among the Gen Z/Y age group, with about 40% of DIY­ers from this demo­graph­ic report­ing that they check social media ​“fre­quent­ly” or ​“very fre­quent­ly,” which is dai­ly or mul­ti­ple times per day dur­ing a project.

Video Content Leads in Influence

Across age demo­graph­ics, YouTube is the most influ­en­tial plat­form, fol­lowed by Face­book, Pin­ter­est and Insta­gram. About two-thirds of DIY­ers across demo­graph­ics rat­ed home improve­ment retail­ers — think Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Ace Hard­ware — as a trust­wor­thy source for home improve­ment advice. Pro­fes­sion­al con­trac­tors and trades­peo­ple, as well as home improve­ment brands or man­u­fac­tur­ers, also rank high­ly. From the per­spec­tive of our buy­er seg­ments, four out of five Con­tent Dri­ven Doers rate home improve­ment retail­ers as trust­wor­thy sources. These enti­ties also rank high­ly among Inde­pen­dent Browsers and Social Media Skep­tics, who have a strong dis­trust of user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent and ama­teur influencers.

1 in 3 Homeowners Say Social Media Frequently Influences Their Specific Brand and Product Choices

It’s impor­tant as a home improve­ment brand to also rec­og­nize the impor­tance of social media in influ­enc­ing home­own­ers’ pur­chase deci­sions and treat it as a con­ver­sion chan­nel, as well as a means for con­nect­ing with prospec­tive cus­tomers over project ideas.About one-third of all home­own­ers say social media fre­quent­ly influ­ences their brand or prod­uct choic­es, with cab­i­nets, exte­ri­or win­dow treat­ments, fur­ni­ture and coun­ter­tops being among the cat­e­gories where social media had the most sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on purchases. 

Social Media is Accelerating Project Starts

Plus, on aver­age, near­ly two projects per year are start­ed or accel­er­at­ed because of social media con­tent. There is an even high­er impact when it comes to the Gen Z/Y demo­graph­ic: Near­ly half say it ​“fre­quent­ly” or ​“very fre­quent­ly” impacts their pur­chase decisions.There are some vari­a­tions, though, with Boomers slow­er to adapt and less com­fort­able about the idea of pur­chas­ing home improve­ment prod­ucts through social media links and shops.

1 in 3 Report Increases of 25%+ in Spending Because of Content Seen on Social Media

Look­ing at the num­bers, social media can be a pow­er­ful dri­ver of home improve­ment spend­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly among mid­dle-income Gen Zers and Mil­len­ni­als (those in the $80K to $160K brack­et). Younger home­own­ers report the high­est rate of spend­ing increas­es direct­ly influ­enced by high-val­ue social media con­tent, with 30% report­ing increas­es of more than 25% in spend­ing. We also see notable increas­es in terms of scope expan­sion, pre­mi­um prod­uct upgrades, and unplanned fea­ture addi­tions among this age group — and it far out­paces old­er gen­er­a­tions. Younger home­own­ers can be moti­vat­ed to spend more on their project and prod­ucts through tai­lored social media content.

How Can Home Improvement Brands Best Utilize Social Media?

The most obvi­ous use of social media for your home improve­ment brand might be as a source of inspi­ra­tion among exist­ing and prospec­tive cus­tomers. You can use it as a project cat­a­lyst by show­cas­ing high­ly visu­al, inspi­ra­tional projects and rel­e­vant prod­ucts. How­ev­er, since we see that some seg­ments of DIY­ers will con­tin­ue vis­it­ing social media chan­nels for addi­tion­al sup­port and guid­ance, con­sid­er design­ing con­tent that sup­ports the entire project jour­ney — from inspi­ra­tion to instal­la­tion. Treat social media as a sales dri­ver, not just a tool for increas­ing brand aware­ness, and make it easy for home­own­ers to dis­cov­er and pur­chase prod­ucts direct­ly through your online platforms.

Since age and income togeth­er define the strongest tar­get for social media impact on home improve­ment behav­ior, pri­or­i­tize social media strate­gies aimed at Gen Z and Mil­len­ni­al home­own­ers in mid­dle-income house­holds. These seg­ments are most like­ly to increase spend­ing and expand their project based on dig­i­tal influence.Additionally, home­own­ers are inspired by indus­try pro­fes­sion­als and peers, so you can lever­age trust­ed pro­fes­sion­als with­in your com­mu­ni­ty to build cred­i­bil­i­ty and ampli­fy your brand via tuto­ri­als, before-and-after trans­for­ma­tions, and relat­able DIY con­tent. Mean­while, you also can encour­age home­own­er-gen­er­at­ed con­tent along­side pro­fes­sion­al voic­es to boost engage­ment and adoption.

Leveraging Social Media for Your Home Improvement Brand

Social media con­tin­ues to play a sig­nif­i­cant role in both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al spheres, and as a home improve­ment brand, you can use this to your advan­tage to height­en aware­ness about your prod­ucts, build a pos­i­tive brand rep­u­ta­tion with exist­ing and prospec­tive cus­tomers, and expand sales through dig­i­tal chan­nels. For more in-depth data on the best-per­form­ing types of con­tent strate­gies for home improve­ment brands to pur­sue based on what social media users rat­ed as the most influ­en­tial, access the full Home­own­er Social Media Influ­ence on Home Improve­ment Shop­ping study for free here.