How to Expand your Social Media Skills

It's no secret that we're the generation who are supposed to be knowledgeable and in-sync with the quirks and requirements of social media. But as aspiring architects how can we use it to our advantage? Social media is much more than just posting pics of your dog (no matter how cute) and using it as a dump box for architectural images and models that don't really mean anything.

Social media could mean Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn even TikTok 🤮. There isn't any obligation to be on these platforms if you don't wish to do so. An alternative could be a portfolio website that showcases your projects and style if you wish to do so.

Your Instagram or LinkedIn pages could serve to become a portfolio of sorts for yourself if you see it as a personal brand. As architects we tend to overthink elements or disregard social media because we're too shy to put up our work. Let me tell you the top 3 mistakes architecture students make with their social media pages.

1. Not posting! The first step of mastering social media and creating a beautiful, elegant and professional social profile is to actually post content. But I don't just mean every sketch or every failed model. It has to be a carefully curated collection of images (and sometimes text) that represents who you are an an individual as well as a creative. Sometimes we hae a fear of getting negative comments but what many students don't realise is that the archi-community is a really positive and powerful space. Personally, I've never received or even seen negativity because we're all on the same journey more or less. We all know what it's like going through critiques every week and putting in long hours for our creations. No one is here to judge you, so be bold and show off your work!
   
2. Being detatched from your social profile. If you are going to jump on the bandwagon and put in the effort to create a social profile, make sure you're not being a robot about it. There's one thing about firms being professional and posting clean, minimal images because they have other media and clients to rely on - their Instagram's probably aren't their number one source. I've seen far too many students try and be all fancy and post one image a month with the simplest of all captions. The whole point of being on social media is to be social. Challenge others around you by asking questions related to your projects and images. Although we do love to see a intricate, detailed drawing - we want to know more about it! This could inspire someone down the line so try and explain yourself as best you can in the comments and be real about it - we don't want to see a mundane, boring explanation.
   
3. Not engaging enough. There are several ways you can get your name out there and turn some heads. But for those of you starting out it can be tough. So make sure you're engaging with content creators, communities, collectives and inspiring individuals to learn from them and support them. The more you do this, you will not only be exposed to similar content, you will also be inspired and the more people you follow the better chance of them following you back right? Other ways of engaging is to be really active in the community, interact with firms or blogs 😉 and don't be afraid to have real conversations. It really isn't good enough to post and then forget that Instagram exists, it makes your page effectively dead and defeats the purpose of being on their in the first place.

There are many other ways you can make your content stand out. Apart from having high quality images, experiment with the layout of your feed, the colour palette or even adding your own flair and style. You could turn your social profile into a brand and make it look pretty professional. One great way I saw of experimenting with your feed is by Esmae Abigail on LinkedIn. She essentially added captions within the images and separated each post into it's own little section, making it a visual CV on Instagram!

At the end of the day, you want to make it work for you 🤍. If you're not comfortable with having your name out there, post under an alias. Or, if you're super keen on building a personal brand make sure to be consistent and authentic!