Blog of an Architect

“Blog of an Architect:

More interactive than a traditional website, social media allows you to target your audience”

Did you know that you were being targeted? I didn’t know that I was targeting people – AKA “audience” – but as it turns out **SKA-DOOSH** I was. After I presented (as part of a panel) the purpose of Social Media for Architects at the 2010 Texas Society of Architects convention, I met Stephen Sharpe, the editor of Texas Architect magazine. Stephen is an interesting guy and a lot smarter than me – yet he still asked if I would write a 500 word article that summarized my presentation from the convention … so I did.

Three of four hundred iterations later, you get the article that just came out on the back page of the September/ October  2011 Design Awards issue of Texas Architect magazine Since my “audience” is in other places that don’t receive Texas Architect, I am recreating that article here.

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LAST MAY, THE NUMBER OF WEBSITES WAS EXPECTED TO EXCEED 324 MILLION. That’s a lot of competition for architects who want their message heard. A more focused alternative is to create a blog and use social media to reach your target audience. The key word is “social” because it allows for an interactive dialogue between two or more people who share a common interest.

Blogs (short for “web log”) that are most successful are those that provide a helpful resource. In my experience as a regular blogger since January 2010, I’ve found it important to marry your communication goals with the needs of your potential audience. A majority of the architectural work I do is residential, so I tailor my blog posts to that sector of the market. Accordingly, I present ideas and design solutions to common problems most homeowners are likely to face. After publishing a blog post, I often receive comments and emails in response, and an immediate two-way conversation begins. Homeowners are able to ask questions in a non-committal manner, which for them makes reaching out to our firm much easier and direct.

Another benefit to writing and maintaining a blog is that the personality of the firm can be presented. Most architectural firms can provide a building that meets the client’s programming requirements, but what makes you stand apart from all those other architects is your unique personality and ideas—an ethereal concept that is difficult to demonstrate and fully appreciate during the course of a single client interview. A major goal for my site is to express to my readers who I am, how I work, and what it would be like for us to work together. Personality-driven content is beneficial because a growing number of our clients are already familiar with my blog. With information readily available, clients have already spent time browsing the Internet to look at projects and search for images that illustrate what they cannot describe. During the course of that research, they frequently discover my site.

If you’re still asking yourself “why should I blog?” consider the fact that a website renders your online presence as merely a monologue. Through my blog, I am able to present myself and my firm as experts who listen and are responsive to questions and comments. That interaction conveys the promise that working with us will be a collaborative and rewarding experience.

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Here are the scans from the issue – I am very honored that I was asked to contribute to this issue. I used to tell people that I worried about what others would think about me whenever they read my writing. Eventually, within a few sentences they would realize that I have my own interpretation of “grammar” and “punctuation”. For the most part that isn’t true anymore because I have been writing so much that I have become numb to my obvious short-comings … except when those short-comings are on display to all of your neighborhood architectural peers. Hopefully nobody feels targeted except for me since I brought this on myself. Kind of like eating dinner at two buffets…

Cheers –

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even better stuff from Life of an Architect