Social media offers design firms and individuals alike the opportunity to tailor their communications to the audiences they hope to reach and influence. Both have pluses and minuses. A firm can gain followers, but social media makes it very easy for individuals to reach others who share their specific interests.
Design firms know that just having a website and a blog aren’t enough, but social media complicates how they communicate.
So, let’s simplify things. For design firms, only two “strands” of communication really matter.
Strand 1 is how design firms have always communicated. Firms send out information through traditional channels (publications, newsletters, e-blasts, etc.) that convey their ethos and viewpoints, engage clients and influencers, and reach out to potential talent.
Strand 2 is as diverse as the individuals who participate in it. Their means and motives vary widely, but even in a professional or journalistic context, this is first-person communication by individual firm leaders to other individuals.
Tapping the synergy between the two strands is key to revving up your firm’s content engine. From the leaders on down, everyone associated with the firm is a potential contributor. Each is also a conduit to his or her own community, especially if he or she has followers willing to engage and share information.
Synergy is a byproduct of fruitful relationships—in this case, between a firm and its talented members. Individuals are a network of creators whose content you can curate and amplify. By taking communications as seriously as you take everything else, you’ll both set the tone and provide a platform for reaching wider audiences (and the publications that cater to them). By supporting your network of creators—and taking them seriously, providing media training for rising stars, and underwriting specific initiatives—you’ll be seen as an impresario, making It happen.
Influence, don’t control
Social media “flattens” the way your firm looks from the outside. Anyone associated with the firm can sometimes appear to be speaking for it. Simple rules to ensure client confidentiality, comply with workplace rules, and avoid embarrassment—coupled with media training—work better today than “command-and-control” diktat. Encourage not curb enthusiasm is the point.
Social media also increases the likelihood that internal communications will surface online. This is often inadvertent, but it’s a good reason to extend media training beyond traditional boundaries to encompass increasingly diverse forms of communication, from email to texts. And it enables loose cannons—even at the top, as we’re reminded daily. Tweet at your own risk.
Aim for substance
Content is still king. Online metrics don’t necessarily gauge true engagement. Don’t discount signs of resonance and recognition from influential others. When a client or journalist shares content approvingly with her own followers, that’s an indicator you can believe in.
Working the two strands creates a greater sum that reflects richer sources of good content and the added power of contributors with their own followers. Firms can add value to their efforts by curating the content and packaging it compellingly for a wider audience. You can also pull content together thematically so it can be pitched to important outlets and venues—just as you’ve probably always done. Individual contributors can then build on what’s communicated, adding their own comments or embedding it in new posts customized for themselves and their followers.
Embrace the new
Social media has also brought podcasts, narrated short videos, and virtual reality into the communications mix. This too is an arena for individual creative expression, with new online outlets actively seeking their output. Within design firms and outside of them, the “serious play” of experimentation is generating new content. There’s more interest in the unfinished—work that’s rough or in-progress. Creators can draw attention to their work and give it the right context and emphasis. Highlighting individuals with their proverbial boots on the ground gives a greater depth and stamp of authenticity to firmwide and individual communications that social media audiences demand. Social media activity by individual creators links their work with your firm’s brand and identity, an endorsement they’re likely to value.
Keep it simple—and real
The bedrock verities of design firm communications are unchanged by social media. Knowing and respecting your intended audiences—and editing and curating accordingly—is still your first priority. You can also tap into your network of talented collaborators to generate even more content that’s diverse, compelling, and relevant to their followers and yours.
This “virtuous circle” of mutual reinforcement gains substance from content that contributes to the discussions and debates current among clients and practitioners. Taking the time to identify shared audiences can help firms and their contributors map out strategies for reaching them with content that resonates and, because it emerges from the work itself, rings true externally.
About the Authors
Tami Hausman founded Hausman LLC in 2008 as a strategic advisor on communications to professional service firms and non-profit organizations. She engages architects and designers as clients and through lectures, publications, and active involvement in professional associations.
John Parman is senior advisor to Gensler. Formerly, he was the editorial director of Gensler’s communications studio, 1998–2017, overseeing its award-winning magazine, Dialogue, and its annual Design Forecast. He is on the Arcade editorial committee, and an editorial advisor to ORO Editions and U.C. Berkeley’s Room One Thousand.
Related Stories
| Feb 11, 2011
Research facility separates but also connects lab spaces
California State University, Northridge, consolidated its graduate and undergraduate biology and mathematics programs into one 90,000-sf research facility. Architect of record Cannon Design worked on the new Chaparral Hall, creating a four-story facility with two distinct spaces that separate research and teaching areas; these are linked by faculty offices to create collaborative spaces. The building houses wet research, teaching, and computational research labs, a 5,000-sf vivarium, classrooms, and administrative offices. A four-story outdoor lobby and plaza and an outdoor staircase provide orientation. A covered walkway links the new facility with the existing science complex. Saiful/Bouquet served as structural engineer, Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers served as MEP, and Research Facilities Design was laboratory consultant.
| Feb 11, 2011
A feast of dining options at University of Colorado community center, but hold the buffalo stew
The University of Colorado, Boulder, cooked up something different with its new $84.4 million Center for Community building, whose 900-seat foodservice area consists of 12 micro-restaurants, each with its own food options and décor. Centerbrook Architects of Connecticut collaborated with Denver’s Davis Partnership Architects and foodservice designer Baker Group of Grand Rapids, Mich., on the 323,000-sf facility, which also includes space for a career center, international education, and counseling and psychological services. Exterior walls of rough-hewn, variegated sandstone and a terra cotta roof help the new facility blend with existing campus buildings. Target: LEED Gold.
| Feb 11, 2011
Chicago high-rise mixes condos with classrooms for Art Institute students
The Legacy at Millennium Park is a 72-story, mixed-use complex that rises high above Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The glass tower, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, is mostly residential, but also includes 41,000 sf of classroom space for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and another 7,400 sf of retail space. The building’s 355 one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom condominiums range from 875 sf to 9,300 sf, and there are seven levels of parking. Sky patios on the 15th, 42nd, and 60th floors give owners outdoor access and views of Lake Michigan.
| Feb 11, 2011
Iowa surgery center addresses both inpatient and outpatient care
The 12,000-person community of Carroll, Iowa, has a new $28 million surgery center to provide both inpatient and outpatient care. Minneapolis-based healthcare design firm Horty Elving headed up the four-story, 120,000-sf project for St. Anthony’s Regional Hospital. The center’s layout is based on a circular process flow, and includes four 800-sf operating rooms with poured rubber floors to reduce leg fatigue for surgeons and support staff, two substerile rooms between each pair of operating rooms, and two endoscopy rooms adjacent to the outpatient prep and recovery rooms. Recovery rooms are clustered in groups of four. The large family lounge (left) has expansive windows with views of the countryside, and television monitors that display coded information on patient status so loved ones can follow a patient’s progress.
| Feb 11, 2011
Grocery store anchors shopping center in Miami arts/entertainment district
18Biscayne is a 57,200-sf urban retail center being developed in downtown Miami by commercial real estate firm Stiles. Construction on the three-story center is being fast-tracked for completion in early 2012. The project is anchored by a 49,200-sf Publix market with bakery, pharmacy, and café with outdoor seating. An additional 8,000 sf of retail space will front Biscayne Boulevard. The complex is in close proximity to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, the downtown Miami entertainment district, and the Omni neighborhood, one of the city’s fast-growing residential areas.
| Feb 11, 2011
Chicago architecture firm planning one of China’s tallest towers
Chicago-based Goettsch Partners was commissioned by developer Guangzhou R&F Properties Co. Ltd. to design a new 294,570-sm mixed-use tower in Tianjin, China. The Tianjin R&F Guangdong Tower will be located within the city’s newly planned business district, and at 439 meters it will be one of China’s tallest buildings. The massive complex will feature 134,900 sm of Class A office space, a 400-key, five-star hotel, 55 condominiums, and 8,550 sm of retail space. The architects are designing the tower with multi-story atriums and a high-performance curtain wall to bring daylight deep into the building, thereby creating deeper lease spans. The project is currently finishing design.
| Feb 11, 2011
Two projects seek to reinvigorate Los Angeles County medical center
HMC Architects designed two new buildings for the Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr., Medical Center as part of a $360 million plan to reinvigorate the campus. The buildings include a 120-bed hospital, which involves renovation of an existing tower and several support buildings, and the construction of a new multi-service ambulatory care center. The new facilities will have large expanses of glass at all waiting and public areas for unobstructed views of downtown Los Angeles. A curved glass entrance canopy will unite the two buildings. When both projects are completed—the hospital in 2012 and the ambulatory care center in 2013—the campus will have added more than 460,000 sf of space. The hospital will seek LEED certification, while the ambulatory care center is targeting LEED Silver.
| Feb 11, 2011
Sustainable community center to serve Angelinos in need
Harbor Interfaith Services, a nonprofit serving the homeless and working poor in the Harbor Area and South Bay communities of Los Angeles, engaged Withee Malcolm Architects to design a new 15,000-sf family resource center. The architects, who are working pro bono for the initial phase, created a family-centered design that consolidates all programs into a single building. The new three-story space will house a resource center, food pantry, nursery and pre-school, and administrative offices, plus indoor and outdoor play spaces and underground parking. The building’s scale and setbacks will help it blend with its residential neighbors, while its low-flow fixtures, low-VOC and recycled materials, and energy-efficient mechanical equipment and appliances will help it earn LEED certification.
| Feb 11, 2011
Texas megachurch inspired by yesteryear’s materials, today’s design vocabulary
The third phase of The First Baptist Church of Pasadena, Texas, involves construction of a new 115,000-sf worship center addition. Currently in design by Zeigler Cooper, the project will include a 2,500-seat worship center (with circular layout and space for a 50-person orchestra and 200-person choir), a 500-seat chapel (for weddings, funerals, and special events), and a prayer room. The addition will connect to the existing church and create a Christian Commons for education, administration, music, and fellowship. The church asked for a modern design that uses traditional materials, such as stone, brick, and stained glass. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer.
| Feb 11, 2011
Apartment complex caters to University of Minnesota students
Twin Cities firm Elness Swenson Graham Architects designed the new Stadium Village Flats, in the University of Minnesota’s East Bank Campus, with students in mind. The $30 million, six-story residential/retail complex will include 120 furnished apartments with fitness rooms and lounges on each floor. More than 5,000 sf of first-floor retail space and two levels of below-ground parking will complete the complex. Opus AE Group Inc., based in Minneapolis, will provide structural engineering services.