Architecture and the Social Media

By Nathaniel Rhine

Increasingly, architects, including myself are tapping into social media to connect with peers and promote our work to the general public and to network. It is something that is relatively new to me as well as others I am sure. However, it is never too late to utilise such tool. And yes, social media is a tool. A tool used to let the entire world know that you exist and that you have a wonderful service to render.

I have used blogging as a means to share my knowledge of architecture and other things with others who may be interested in whatever it may you do and services I have to offer. In my case, it is architecture.

Generally, when one mention that they are an architect, almost immediately one would think of high fees, without actually knowing what it is that architects do. They may be clueless as to what architects do and how we charge for our professional service. That is the primary reason as to why I being blogging, to help educate the public as to the important role of the architect in every society.

Not only do I blog, I also tweet; use Twitter. I find it to be a wonderful place to share ideas, statements, comments etc with 140 characters or less. I even liken it to my architecture which is to produce the very best architecture within a restricted or limited budget. Such restriction encourages creativity.

Tweeter has given me the platform to communicate with other architects who also tweet. Therefore, I am not the only architect out there using social media.

At the moment, social media for me has yet to bring in new clients. Actually, I do not think it was meant to bring in new clients. Rather, it was designed as a platform to share one’s ideas and views with others around the world. It is a tool to help one to achieve something, namely that of sharing oneself with others on a global scale.

Over a period of time, I am confident that people will gain clients by means of using social media. The business of architecture is a service. All architecture firms do the same thing which is to provide design services. However, why does one architecture firm get a particular client when another architecture firm may not get that client? It all boils down to chemistry between the architect and the potential client. Social media is a tool to enable one to develop that chemistry. The more a potential client knows about you and what it is that you have to offer, the greater the possibility of business could be created.

Therefore, I am a strong believer that the blog sites are more powerful than the web sites, due to the fact that blog sites are very personal in nature. They are always changing with the times. Whereas websites are usually very static, never changing, or shall I say, change very seldom. Blog sites are updated regularly; to some that may mean once a week, to others it may mean once a day and still to others it may means several times a day! That is the excitement of blog sites. That is way I have this blog site.

This is a very interesting subject matter that can not be concluded so easily. Therefore, I intend to write more about this in future posts. I hope to talk more about how it may help in getting the word out about your firm, how it may even help in recruitment and other areas.

Thank you for your time and enjoy your day.