Social Media Marketing Tools for Architects

This post is different than the rest of my posts so far. Let’s talk about marketing - a frequently neglected topic within Architecture and Design communities!

You are the brand

Let's face it, you are a brand. Your publish social media posts emphasize your interests and expertise, creating your own unique brand identity.

Whether you want to work in a big international architecture company, a smaller local firm, or wish to start your own business, you can always benefit from having a larger social media presence. Why? Having a social media presence shows your network that your are highly proficient in  your field. It helps to make your audience aware of what you are capable of, what you find interesting, and what you do. You audience could be potential clients for projects, potential companies you wish to work for, or educational community that you wish to teach to or attend.

Consistency in posting is challenging

Now, I believe by now we all know that we should use social media to expose our brand, but it's tough. Which social media channel is best? How much should I post? How about posting across social channels? How about being consistent? Consistency is the most important factor when you want to engage with a wider audience.

Posting individually on multiple networks and consistently, with images, hashtags, and specific limits for each social network could be daunting even to the best of us.

Luckily, there are tools that help with social media posting, so it is easy to bulk schedule and automate. Facebook has the most robust tool available on business.facebook.com that is linked between facebook pages, groups, and instagram business and creator profile. Twitter has tweetdeck.twitter.com, which is also an excellent research tool.

However, Linkedin doesn't have any natives scheduling possibilities. Also, what if you want to post the same thing across multiple channels? You would have to integrate either something like zapier, IFTT, or Integromat to push an update from one channel to the others. This works fairly well, but what if you want to edit something, specific for twitter, as twitter's limited characters frequently require custom edits. Also, where can you see what gets posted where? And what if you don't want to post the same posts all at the exact same time across the three networks?

Social media marketing tools and Publer

Social media marketing tools are not new - they have been around for a while. Their aim is to make it easier to automate and post. Yet, they have their own user interfaces, and it is yet another service, that usually comes with a fee for some of their more advanced features. But I believe it is the only way to be efficient across multiple channels without spending too much time cross posting.

Ok, so which ones? The most popular choices out there are Hootsuite and Buffer. Besides them there is a plethora of new services that seem to be coming out on a monthly basis (or at least that's what it feels like when I see constanty new ads on top of the google search result when i search for Hootsuite or Buffer). I've used the premium versions of both services, and I haven't been impressed.

Buffer is super simple, and it suffices for the most part. It's also well priced for 8 accounts However it doesn't have a unified calendar which defeats the purpose of an extra layer on top of the social channels to manage content. On the other hand, Hootsuite is more expensive, offers 10 accounts, and is feature packed. Too feature packed, bloated, and really clunky user interface. It does everything that I want - post, unified calendar, edit, and review. But the user experience is a tough sell! I wasn't satisfied with either, so the search went on.

I tried whatever else was shown on google, but the services were either too expensive or too similar to Buffer. I was ready to stay with what I know, but then friend of mine recommend that I try Publer. Like all the services, I created an account, added the social medial connections, and started poking around in the user interface.

And WOW! Super straightforward and intuitive to use! More feature packed than Buffer, and it is a much better user interface than Hootsuite. Also the chrome extension works really well. Buffer has a chrome extension. Hootsuite does not.

Posting is quite straightforward, by going to posts, and the editor looks good. There is also a hashtag suggestion as a premium feature. But my favorite use is the calendar. It looks beautiful and it's really easy to edit a post. I only wish that the posts could be grouped together instead of having to edit each one individually once they are scheduled. But that's a rarely seen feature. In fact I've only seen it another service called Planable (the user interface isn't as snappy on that service though and it's more expansive).

The publish window

Posting is quite straightforward, by going to posts, and the editor looks good. There is also a hashtag suggestion as a premium feature. But my favorite use is the calendar. It looks beautiful and it's really easy to edit a post. I only wish that the posts could be grouped together instead of having to edit each one individually once they are scheduled. But that's a rarely seen feature. In fact I've only seen it another service called Planable (the user interface isn't as snappy on that service though and it's more expansive).

The calendar allows to see posts from elsewhere. Editing them is as easy as clicking on one of the posts, and you get a pop-up

So in all, it feel like what a service on top of services should be - seamless, snappy, and easy to move content around, easy to grab new content with the desktop extensions.

Pricewise, Publer, is pretty competitive and has more flexible free plan. In fact you would be hard pressed to initially need more than the free plan as it contains 5 user accounts! The premium plans add features on top like analysis, marketing, and other nifty features. One I particularly like is called a signature, and it allows you to set the hashtags you use most frequently and have them always available. There are two paid tiers, with the top tier being the only option to post multiple images or GIFs. However, I’ve talked to their customer service and they will be introducing some of these features to the other tiers maybe with limits.