The power of social media is truly remarkable and it’s one of the greatest technological marvel humans have ever created. It allows businesses to effectively market their products and get noticed, the same goes for professionals such as architects. Integrating social media in your business can give your business drastic exposure, based on what you do with your social media handles. The last 5 years have proved it in every way possible and everyone understands the true power of social media nowadays.
It has always been one of the most powerful tools to market one’s skills and expertise. Architects can use it to get noticed by potential clients by launching targeted ads, creating an online community, communicate with other architectural firms, and interact with their audience which is, after all, the most crucial part of all. Altogether, social media sites such as Facebook come as a great tool for architects to engage with their audience and showcase their skills.
However, as an architect, you can’t grow your audience and build an online presence unless you post some engaging content on your social media handle. You can show the culture of your company, share party pics, share photos of your teams, and other engaging content. Don’t bore your audience by showing off your projects, you always have the option to redirect them to your website for that part. Let’s see what you can do with your social media handles to build an online presence and attract more clients.
Top Uses of Social Media for Architects
- Use Social Media for Building Trust
Trust is an important factor when it comes to investing a large sum of money in your business. Clients can’t just blindly throw money on any architect unless a trust factor is there. Building a Brand is one effective way to gain trust. Having a strong and carefully tailored portfolio website is the first step of building a brand. However, building a brand is not that easy, you have to take care of a lot of minor things such as the clothes you wear and the car you drive, etc. You can have a decent-looking website but if you ignore such small things, it’s going to hurt your brand.
Your brand reflects the experiences of your customers with your business, as stated by the U.S. Small Business Association.
Everything from the visual elements of your business to how you interact/treats your customers, how you do your job, the information you share, etc, come into play in building your brand and online presence on social media.
The key point to note here is that you have to be different from the others, have a competitive advantage to stand out from the crowd. Why should a customer choose your business over others? That’s the question you have to repeatedly ask yourself to get better.
- Build a Network
Throwing money on advertising isn’t the only way to market your business. You have to interact and communicate with other businesses to build a network. Interacting with other players in the industry can turn out to be very beneficial for you.
They may get you more clients or customers and give you some exposure if you gain their trust.
You can get involved in community groups, ones that are in alignment with your target market. This will help you connect with more people in your target market. It’s a great strategy to build your online presence without investing a ton of money on costly advertisements and ad campaigns.
- Demonstrate Finished Projects in Action
Once the project gets completed and gets running, you can show that using your social media handles. After all, seeing their work in action can be a treat for any architect’s eyes, the excitement that follows is incomparable. You can post photos and videos of your finished projects on your social media.
Demonstrating finished projects reflects the quality of your work and the confidence that follows. That helps your clients get an idea of your work and attracts a lot of potential clients.
Showing a full-day time-lapse of the building with lots of people moving in and out can be a great way of demonstrating your project in use. Showing actual people in those videos gives your potential clients the assurance that you’ll be able to deliver similar results with their investment. You call it a ‘trust factor for clients.
- Show Statistics
Being transparent with your audience builds trust and improves the relationship with your audience. It truly reflects how your business is doing in the industry. You can show how many projects are in the works, how many are finished and in use, profits, and losses, etc. You can also add a section for customer feedback.
Customer feedback are testimonials of people who have used your services. These testimonials reflect the satisfaction of people who have used your services and give the potential customers the assurance of the quality of your work.
- Upload 3D Renders of Your Projects
In 2018, Facebook added a new feature that allows you to post 3D models of your projects directly. People can see it from different sides and angles, the lighting support is also there for an even realistic experience. This also enables your potential clients to get a brief idea of your creativity and the quality you put in your projects.
Brands are already utilizing this feature of Facebook to promote their content. Advertising and posting such interactive 3D content improve engagement with your audience. You can even advertise in 3D to get more hits on that advertisement.
- Post Video Testimonials
Posting video testimonials is one great way to showcase the satisfaction of your clients. The satisfaction of your clients directly reflects the quality of your work which, as a result, attracts more clients.
You can ask a client to record a video which you can later post on your social media handles. Or you can just record a testimonial on a Skype or Zoom video call for the same.
- Engage with Your Audience Using by Going Live
Going live and interacting with your audience is the best way to build trust among them. You can have a fun question and answer series once every week to get their doubts cleared.
Also, you can showcase your project in action on live stream, give your audience a detailed walkthrough of the property, or just use the Livestream to promote an interview with your employees, etc.
- Give Expert Opinions
Use your social media presence to give expert opinions on topics related to your industries, even some controversial statements to get some exposure. However, giving controversial statements is a bit risky and can get you in trouble if not taken care of.
Giving opinions on how to make the process more efficient and effective, and proposing ways of making buildings more energy-efficient can reflect your expertise in the industry. All that the customers need to be assured of.
You can also propose new design ideas which will showcase your creativity but be careful as anyone can steal your ideas and make them their own. Overall, sharing expert opinions on topics you fully understand can help you build new audiences and attract more potential clients.
- Gather Opinions
Ask your audience about how they feel about your work and business. What would they like you to improve? Conduct polls frequently and ask your audience about their opinions. This will give you better engagement and improve your social media presence.
You can do this once every few weeks to get an idea about what you’re doing wrong and what you’re doing right.
Top Social Media Platforms for Architects
Now that you know what to do with your social media presence, let’s find you some of the best social media platforms. There are quite a lot of social media platforms that you can choose to market yourself. However, we recommend you choose your social media handles from the ones we’re listing below:
Instagram currently enjoys itself as the most popular social media platform after taking the crown from Facebook. Instagram has gained popularity because of its simple and straightforward approach to sharing content. It connects people solely through visual content which is generally high-quality videos and images.
It also comes with a “promote” feature which lets you promote your content. Moreover, it lets you choose your target audience which can be of a particular area or of particular interests. It’s the best platform to post images about your business and ongoing, finished, or upcoming projects.
It also has a direct message feature that the potential customers can use to directly interact with you.
Businesses of almost every industry prefer Facebook for advertisement purposes, thanks to its user base of more than 2 billion. Furthermore, Facebook has implemented the best algorithms in their systems that can target a specific type of audience that will be interested in your services.
The USP of Facebook is its versatility and no other social media platform can come even close to it, making it ideal for businesses to grow their audience and advertise their products. Recently in 2018, Facebook added a new feature in their systems that allows you to post 3D content which users cannot just see but interact with.
This allows the architects to post their designs as a 3D model which leaves a much deeper impression than a simple image or video. Facebook has literally nailed the advertising department and is currently dominating the advertising and marketing game.
The power of ‘tweets’ is real. Twitter comes up with the functionality of posting tweets which can be in the format of the text, image, video, or a combination of all three. Businesses all across the globe prefer to advertise on Twitter simply because Twitter gets a whopping 187 million daily monetizable active users. This number used to be 330 million until Twitter decided to report monetizable daily users only.
Architects can specifically target an audience that might be interested in their services. Furthermore, ‘hashtags’ is another major feature that Twitter users utilize to the fullest. It allows the users to filter the content accordingly.
You can use these hashtags to your own advantage, connect and engage with other architectures and build a loyal audience.
Since its inception, LinkedIn has risen to the top position in the networking game. Using LinkedIn, you can showcase your skills, accomplishments, and the years of experience you have in the industry. You can redirect the customers to your LinkedIn profile to get a better idea about your skills and level of expertise.
Moreover, the best part is that if you gain enough experience and followers on LinkedIn, your name will start popping up on Google searches too so that anyone in need of your services can contact you.
LinkedIn isn’t just a normal social media platform where you can post anything. Users and businesses see LinkedIn as a tool to measure the credibility of a professional. You’ll also come across many like-minded people on LinkedIn that will help you grow your business if you’re qualifying enough.
Conclusion
Attracting clients has always been one of the most difficult tasks as an architect. With social media, things are not the same. It’s the best tool for you to showcase your skills and attract potential clients.
All you have to do is post some images and videos of your projects, if they’re good enough, clients will automatically come to you. However, you have to earn a significant level of trust before that.
Social media is worth a try even if you’re not much into technology and stuff. You may hate social media for some reason but even you have to admit that as an architect, it’s the most cost-effective way to market your services and gain an audience.
The more audience you have, the higher the chances of you getting a high-ticket client. There are a lot of ways in which you can use the power of social media to your own advantage, all you have to do is understand them and utilize them.
