Perpetual Work in Progress

If you have stumbled upon this blog post either directly from a link I sent out, or an RT (retweet) from someone else, the main question you are probably asking yourself asking yourself is, “What can I get out of Twitter to help me as an architect: A) Get more business, B) Be more visible in the design community, or C) Meet and network with people who need architectural services.”  This post isn’t about WHY you should use Twitter, but HOW.  Knowing how you can use it gets you closer to the why, and if you have to ask yourself why then you are not ready for Twitter.

Like me you have probably already read up on all the other blog posts and articles out there about twitter for beginners, twitter for business, etc..  Nothing though really tells you how it pertains to the world of architecture, so humor me while I try to sort this thing out:

1) When selecting your profile, figure out if you are going to BE the company, or if you are going to be an employee IN the company.

This is very important because it will give you an insight into how much personal information and interaction you will need to provide in your tweets.  If you are a company like HOK, SOM, or Morphosis, you could essentially create a profile, link to your website or blog (read: chest-thumping news articles) and sit back and watch the followers sign up.  Tweet now and then about the newest project or an issue with a client (assuming there is not a non-disclosure clause), or your trip to Sri Lanka with a photo, and you’re golden.  Anyone else will need to get more personal and interactive with their twitter profile.

If you tweet as an average everyday run of the mill architecture firm, here are the people that will most likely follow you:  architecture students, other architects, suppliers and product manufacturers, building and trade journals, and random spammers and people looking to boost their follower count.  You will probably tweet about issues as they pertain to architects and the industry, maybe snap a photo of your most recent project, and tell everyone about a new client you just landed or a project you completed on time and under budget.  You can interact by getting more personal and interactive with your followers, but it will probably take you longer to get people to re-follow you after you follow them.

If you tweet as an employee in the firm you have much more leeway with what people will accept and who will follow you.  People will see you as a person with an opinion not just another company trying to spread the word about their business.  You can tweet more about your life, which is the essence of Twitter, connecting with your followers, interacting with them and sharing information.  Your followers can run the gambit depending upon who you decide to follow and what you tweet about.  If you are into sustainability you can get alot of environmentally conscious followers.  If you want to have more of a presence in your community, you can find followers from your area, maybe people you know outside of the office.  Unless you are a starchitect or one of the more famous architecture firms, this is probably a better route to take to get value from your Twitter experience.  If you have already made a decision to be one, and realize that now you want to switch to the other, you can.  Twitter lets you change your username whenever you want.  It knows who you are since a name is just a name so one day when I log on I might se Jack Smith, but the next day I might be getting tweets from JSM Architects.  Depending upon the conditions, there is always a chance of follower attrition, but there will be others to take their place.

2)  If you tweet it, they will come.

Before you can have followers you must have content.  You are less likely to be followed back if you only have a couple of updates.  That may have been fine in the early days of Twitter, but its gone mainstream with 50,000% growth.  Now, those that have been on here a while are more picky about who they will follow, unless they are the type who follows anyone and everyone in the hopes that they will get followed back to increase their follower count.  SO, what is your content?  Well, as stated above, talking about projects that you are working on, or linking to some press release about something you have done is only part of it.  That is the selling part.  That is what people DONT want to see.  If you go to my profile @threefourteen, you will see that my tweets are the only ones there.  Granted they may seem disconnected and not make any sense right now, what you don’t see is alot of repetition of the same information.  Now go to another profile like Franksbusiness and you will see that his engagement is merely superficial, which is probably why he is following twice as many people than follow him back.

3)  Because you follow someone doesn’ t mean you are talking to them.

This is where Twitter is vastly different.  Sometimes its hard to remember that not everyone is following everyone else.  If you see something that someone says, and they are not following you, they will not see your tweet in reference to theirs unless you put @ with their username in the tweet.  Also note- that unless they are following you, you cannot send them a DM (direct message).  If you see a person out there following 300 people with 3 followers, they don’t get it.  No matter what they say, the only people seeing it are the 3 that follow them.  The problem sometimes is that anyone can send an @ reply to anyone else so even if you aren’t following someone, they have the ability to send you a tweet by putting @ in front of your username.

4)  Fill out your bio.  Provide an avatar photo.

This one is not just for architects.  Everyone should, at a minimum, have a good photo (or logo if you are a company), a link to something, (website, blog, or otherwise  just no myspace links- its a turn-off for other twitter users), and a good bio with a short blurb about your company.  Note that the bio is searchable, so instead of full sentences, organize keywords and terms that you would like to be found by.  I.E. If you are LEED accredited, put down LEED AP in your bio.

5)  Start getting noticed by providing value, not tweeting about your lunch.

Twitter is more than just telling people what you are doing.  Your followers don’t necessarily need to know that you just had tea.  Now, if you just had tea with the Queen of England, that would be something to tweet about.  Some users choose to tweet about links they find thorought the day.  Others may have a special skill and tweet tips for other users, for example, if you specialize in dentist office architecture, tweet about issues as they pertain to dentists.  There ARE dentists on Twitter and its likely that they will do twitter searches.  Your job is to guess at what they might search about and tweet it.  Tweets don’t go away, so even if you tweeted about something a year ago, a dentist today would still be able to find it.  Note:  I said tweets don’t go away, so if you tweeted about that bender you went on last night.  A year from now, someone can find it.  If its not something you would want posted on a billboard or sent to your grandmother, you might consider not sending it, or if you do- remember to go back and delete it.   Finally, hashtags have been used if you have a particular theme so others can find info on that theme.  #dentist would be a good one for tweets about dentists offices.

6)  Information is power- utilize search and set up RSS feeds.

Google is envious of Twitter.  Why?  Because of its ability to track, in real time, keywords in every tweet that is posted.  Considering that millions of tweets are posted a day, and the search goes back to the beginning of Twitter, that is ALOT of information.  Information Google would love to get its hands on, along with the ability to perform real-time web search.  Once you have figured out what you are looking for, start a search at www.search.twitter.com.  You can try it out by selecting keywords.  Once you get one you can then get an RSS feed for it.  Click where it says “Get a feed for this query” and it will take you from there.  Once you get the hang of simple searches.  Click on “Advanced” in the same window and you can do MANY other things with your search.  Only interested in information that is happening in a specific area?  You can localize your search by where tweets originate.  You can also search by specific date range, whether it contains links, even attitude : ) or : (  The possibilities are limitless you just need to work at it to get good results.  Some search terms I have set up are BIM, Building Information Modeling, Facility Management, and I even have client names in my searches so I know if something is happening with one of my national clients.

7)  Encourage others in your office (or offices if you have multiple locations) to use twitter.

I will admit that Twitter can be a complete time waster.  This does not mean that you should block access to it in your office.  Instead be proactive and write rules about Social Media use.  Here is a link to a great blog post regarding policies for Social Media in the Corporate Workplace with subsequent links to specific examples.  Each office is going to be different, but it feels more real if more than one person tweets about your company.  Especially if its a larger company and they can provide different points of view and reach a different audience.  Identify these people early on who have an interest in Social Media.  This is not always a young person in the office, and its usually not a marketing person.  It should be someone who is doing the work.  The median age is somewhere around 34 for Twitter FWIW.

8)  Get an application to manage your twitter stream(s).

Twitter is great, but twitter through an application such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop, Hootsuite, or some similar application is even more powerful.  If you have a hundred or so followers its easy to manage the conversations and stream through the web interface.  What you will notice though is that you have people you talk with more, or have different things in common than others.  Maybe there are a bunch of local people that you follow, but then you also follow a bunch of architects.  Applications such as those mentioned above allow you to split these people into groups.  Profiling is big on Twitter.  I have groups for Architects, but I also have a local group, and other groups for things I am interested in such as news, stocks, celebrities, professional organizations, whatever!  Applications allow you to more easily follow a greater number of people, search tweets, add and remove followers, and favorite tweets for later.  I would encourage you to try a couple out before settling on one.  Even then I still find myself using Twitter from multiple sources.  I personally use Tweetdeck, but on my phone I have Windows Mobile so I use PockeTwit.  PockeTwit is proably the best out there for Windows Mobile.  Otherwise if you have an iPhone there are MANY choices.  I even use the web some times just to get a different view.  If you are already into social media with Facebook, LinkedIn, and others.  Try Peoplebrowsr or FriendFeed.  These allow you to aggregate your information into a single application so you can more easily manage announcements across multiple platforms.

9) CEO’s of fortune 500 companies (and many other smaller companies for that matter) are not on Twitter.

Okay, that was an unfounded statement.  If they are, they are not looking to be marketed to.  This doesn’t mean that Twitter is useless.  Just because you are not talking to the CEO of the company it doesn’t mean you aren’t making an impression.  Twitter is about buzz, its about relationships based on 140 characters, its helping others so they can help others knowing that it will come back to you.  Twitter Karma.  That’s what they call it.  What you will begin to find is that the same poeple on LinkedIn are on Facebook and also on Twitter.  By being visible and giving people information and sharing about yourself you improve your chances of marketing on Twitter.  Some people will be good at it, and some will not.

10) Retweets, Followfridays and Tweetups oh my!

Now that you understand the basic principle and how to use Twitter, have your Twitter interface, set up some searches, and have some followers, its time to get real. Here are some other terms and features that you will see on Twitter.

RT= Retweet: This is typically used when you find a good link or bit of info and you want to pass it on to others who might follow you.  Note- just because you see something that has been RT’d a couple of times, it doesn’t mean you are too late to send it out again.  RT’ing notifies the person that sent it that you are interested in what they have to say, at the same time allows people who follow you to see it where they might have not gotten it from the source.  Many times people will shorten RT’s so it fits without going over 140 characters, or so they can add their own personal comment at the end.  Making your tweets RT friendly is important.  If you constantly use every possible character you will never get retweeted.  Leaving 15 or more characters available at the end allows someone else to send your tweet back out there, without modification.

Followfriday: This obviously occurs on Friday.  #followfriday is used in conjunction with other usernames to let people know that you find a particular user interesting and that they should follow them.  Good #followfriday suggestions usually include a few usernames with a short description why someone should follow them.  I typically “Theme” my #followfridays, i.e. “#followfriday @breaking news and @cnnbrk for current up to date news information”.  If you are using Tweetdeck each username is highlighted.  if you click on it you can pull up their profile right in the application, follow them if you like, and if you have groups set up, add them to the group straight away, without alot of steps.

Tweetup: This term is reserved for an actual face to face meeting of Twitter users.  GASP!  Say it aint so!  Yes, as much as we like to use social media to stay connected with others, Face to Face contact is necessary to complete the bond and provide useful networking opportunities.  Many times its just a social gathering where you get to know other users at a local establishment over lots of alcohol and good times, but there are also LinkedIn Tweetups that are more networking intensive where people come with the expectation that they may walk away with a few business cards at the end of the night.

Favorites: (bonus tip via tweet from @traciknoppe 4/27/09): Favorites (or Favourites for those across the pond) are a great way to mark something that you see to refer to it later.  If you are working on blog posts, creating favorites helps you bookmark tweets with links or other information that you can refer to at a later date without having to search for it.  Its especially helpful if you are busy at work but still following twitter, or on the road and are following from your phone.  Personally my phone cannot handle alot of the links I get aside from the occasional twitpic or two, so I favorite many tweets from my phone using Pocketwit.  I can then go back later when I have more time, read any links and then delete the favorite so I know I looked at it.  Many people do not use this option as much as they could, but if used more I think you would see more Retweets later in the day, week, or longer.  As a for instance.  You find a new architect friend who is just learning Twitter.  If you have favorited a tweet that sent my blogpost out, you could then send it to them via RT (retweet) if you think its especially helpful info.  Thanks Traci for that great tip.  She is not an architect, but this just means that by only following architects and profession oriented tweets, you miss out on valuable info that others can provide.  If you want to see who favorited your tweets check out Favotter.

So how do You use Twitter?

Right now I primarily use it to stay in touch with local people and friends, find out about new ideas and people in architecture, stay current on news events, and keep up with various trends.  I try to center many of my non-@reply tweets around architecture, what is happening in St. Louis, News, and Brewing since these are my passions.  I also try to throw in a tweet here and there about Building Information Modeling, Oculus Inc. and my interactive floorplans that I do.  If you made it this far, and want to follow me to hear about any of those things you can find me @threefourteen

I am also working on a new Twitter page on this blog.  Stay tuned as i will be putting alot more info out here about different twitter tools and applications that I find helpful in my daily Twitter usage.  The primary reason for this?  I know there are other blogs and sites that have similar pages, but this is for ME.  So it may not be organized as you might want it to be, but it will be organized so I can easily find something that I keep using without having to go to my browser favorites every time.  This way they will all be in one place.

I am following you, but how do I find other Architects on Twitter to follow?

There are two sources I use to find architects on Twitter.  The first being RSS feeds for particular topics I am interested in.  The other is HERE.  Thanks to @SuButcher for getting  architects together across the globe.  She has a great blog too called “Just Practising“

Tags: 10 Tips for, Architects, architects on twitter, Architecture, Twitter