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Many architects and designers have experimented with showcasing architectural works on social media but only a few have succeeded. The opportunities on social media are enormous, thus effectively showcasing your architectural works there can bring increased awareness and possible patronage.
However, social media has become a complex and competitive platform where you require great strategies and persistence to thrive.
Some of the most popular social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn and they all allow image sharing. Nevertheless, they have varying lengths for the number of words they can allow, with Twitter being the shortest.
Furthermore, despite the limitations to unlimited words on some social media platforms, pictures on the other hand they say – “are worth more than a thousand words” and are easier to comprehend and remember than just words.
Thus, the best way to go on social media with architectural works is via a combination of images and words rather than worded posts only.
Some ways to go about it are:
1. Include Name/contact information on images.
Compose the images of your architectural works to include your firm’s name or logo and contact information. This is so because you may not know how far the image will go online and how often and where it will be downloaded.
Thus, by so doing, your name and contact information will always be accessible to your audience. Also, this can help to reduce unauthorized usage of your images.
2. Use Quality Images
The quality of your images will go a long way to showcase your professionalism. It can also boost your brand credibility and communicate to your audience that you are serious about business.
3. Update profile.
Go through your profile to ensure that the information contained in it is relevant, complete and up to date.
Also include your contact information, except if you want to create awareness for awareness’ sake.
4. Tell good stories.
For every image you post, always tell a story about it to reinforce the post’s message.
Just posting an image alone without a story or caption is not very engaging for most audiences.
The image on its own is devoid of vital information such as what, when, where and (sometimes) why.
Besides, you don’t want people drawing their own (sometimes unpalatable) opinions about your images thus losing the opportunity to sell yourself.
A well-written story creates an emotional bond between your audience and the project.
5. Use social media platforms that work for you.
There are several social media platforms and it is advisable to explore them all. Nonetheless, with time you should limit your usage to only platforms with the best engagement and feedback so as to conserve and focus your energy and resources.
6. Target audience
Ultimately, the goal is to attract tremendous awareness to your architectural works and the best way to do this is through a targeted audience.
For most people, the majority of the contacts on their social media platforms are friends and acquaintances.
So sharing and posting your work to this same contact may not achieve the desired results. Therefore, you need to strategically expand your contacts to potential clients or promote your post through social media advertising to reach the targeted audience.
7. Use Hashtags
Hashtags (#) are used to index or identify keywords in social media and facilitate search on it too.
Trending hashtags drive enormous traffic to certain keywords thus certain posts.
This is so because people are talking about and searching for that keyword.
Therefore, when you use a relevant trending hashtag on your post you increase the chances of visibility of that post.
An example of a trending hashtag on Twitter is #ToRussiaWithCoke. So if I was writing about or responding to a tweet or post on the world cup, I may include that hashtag for more visibility.
8. Talk about yourself periodically.
Periodically talking about yourself and strides in your career will help increase interest in your posts and images.
Moreover, people want to relate with other people and not just have lifeless tweets or Facebook posts. This can help to create a bond with your audience where they begin to know you and understand your philosophies.
Perhaps, may one day develop an interest to work with you or at least refer a friend to you
9. Be consistent.
Consistency is key to remaining visible. However, different audiences have different interests and you may not be sure what post will attract the desired feedback.
So, consistency will help you stay in the mind of your audience until they eventually see something that makes them want to reach out to you.
Furthermore, social media monitors your consistency and activities on its platform. When satisfied it pushes your content to the front of your contacts’ feed especially when they have been liking and commenting on your post.
10. Monitor traffic using Analytics.
Most social media platforms offer free services where they analyze your post performance and give advice on what should be done to reach more audiences.
Take advantage of this and modify your strategy whenever you notice you aren’t reaching the desired target.
