How Architects can use Instagram to Their Advantage
How Architects can use Instagram to Their Advantage

Social media networks have reached every corner of the planet, and the number of active users keeps growing by the day. Instagram is dubbed as the king of all social media platforms with over 1 billion active monthly users. As such, it’s an excellent place for architects who want to share their work and gain a serious following.

Since Instagram is a photography social media, it’s one of the best places to showcase your work, establish a brand, contact people, and build trust with clients. You’ll have to come up with some kind of a strategy, but with a bit of effort, Instagram can pay off big time. Stay with us, and we’ll explain why it’s an excellent starting place for every architecture and 3D rendering business.

Instagram is a Visual Platform

Everyone knows that Instagram is all about visuals. It was built around photography, filters, and many other features designed to help you make your visual art stand out. The entire point of the site is to allow users to share visual-appealing content, which makes it perfect for architects, designers, and 3D rendering experts looking to build up their brand identity.

It’s got a considerable number of active users, so you’ll be able to reach out to thousands, if not millions of people, with the right strategy. According to Instagram, the platform grows by 80 million images every day, so you’ll have to post your best work to stand out. With that said, this social media offers endless possibilities for showcasing your work and design ideas through images. You can use it to spread the word about your work, style and show how creative you are.

You should mix the content you post on Instagram as much as possible. Some posts should be about your work, while others should be more educational and inspirational. You should use it to share views on different building materials, ideas about the built environment, and everything in between. Instagram is a godsend when it comes to sharing architecture and 3D renderings.

Promoting Yourself Online is Essential

In this day and age, you can’t run any business without a prominent online presence. The world has reached the point where everything we know is moving to fully digital platforms, so the only way you can stay relevant and inform people about what you do is to establish an online presence. That will help you build up your brand’s identity, find prospects, generate leads, meet other architects with whom you can exchange ideas, and so on.

That usually includes building your website, a detailed portfolio with your best work, writing a few blog posts that tell people more about your business, and so on. Increditools.com refers to Instagram as an excellent entry point because you’ll be able to expand your reach faster than you can imagine. If you invest a little into paid ads, you’ll gain a huge following overnight. The competition in architecture and 3D rendering practices is very fierce, so you should use everything you can to get an advantage.

The truth is that you won’t be able to get any jobs outside of your local area without a well-designed website and a prominent online presence. If you don’t have the time to deal with running social media pages, you can always hire an online marketing expert and stay focused on your work.

Create Amazing Visuals and Share Regularly

As we’ve mentioned before, thousands, if not tens of thousands of architects and rendering experts use Instagram to share their work and establish a name for their brand. It’s a never-ending process, and to stay relevant, you have to keep posting new images at least a few times every week. You should always focus on creating breath-taking visuals to keep your audience interested in your work.

With regular sharing, you will not only show your followers that you’re a professional and that you know what you’re doing, but you’ll also gain new followers as well. Not only that, if your work is really good, other architects and experts might reach out and offer you a job or a project you’d want to be a part of. The bottom line is that regular posting will help you extend your reach and engage more people.

Find the Best Moments to Share and Engage

Sharing images, videos, and photos on Instagram is easy, but knowing what to share and when to do it is critical. Engagement is the most critical metric for any online business because it tells you if your content is reaching the right audience. You have to create your own style and share the type of content that engages the most people.

First, you have to figure out the exact time of the day when your targeted audience is the most active. That will probably take a few weeks of research and data analysis, but Instagram’s Insights feature will help you a lot. It tracks all activities happening on your account, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find the perfect time for posting new content. The general rule is that most people are active in the evening and around lunchtime, but that isn’t the same for all pages.

Don’t Forget Hashtags!

Hashtags are one of the most important features on Instagram, and they can help you find your target audience much easier. By using the right hashtags, you’ll be able to create an effective strategy that will bring your work closer to the right people. Hashtags such as #art, #architecture, #design, #buildings, #architecturephotography, #archilovers, and many others will land your posts exactly where you want them.

While using hashtags is very easy, using them in a smart way is a little more complicated. Before you post any hashtags, you should first do some research and find the most popular options related to your work. With that said, it’s imperative that you don’t overstuff your posts with hashtags. You shouldn’t place more than five relevant hashtags on your post. Having more than five will make your post look like spam.

Also, always include a hashtag with your brand’s name or one that’s unique to your business. It can be the name of your company, product, brand, or a motto you identify with. You can also encourage your viewers to post your stuff on their walls to help strengthen your online community. And, when potential clients see that people like what you’re doing, you will be able to land a deal much easier.

Talk to People

Instagram comes with a built-in massaging system that allows you to address your audience in private messages directly. You can use the platform for much more than just sharing images and photos. Direct communication with your audience will help you build trust, and you’ll get the chance to show your expertise. It’s most likely that people will ask you questions about design, ideas, which materials to use in their living rooms, and stuff like that.

While it might be a little overwhelming to answer all messages once you gain a formidable following, you should always take the time to answer as many messages as you can. Make sure that you’re always polite and try to answer inquiries as quickly as possible because you don’t want to look reserved and uninterested. Do the same for comments on your posts and simply show your audience that you’re a living, breathing person, not just a bot-operated Instagram page.

Honesty is Essential

Being honest is an absolute must when you want to build your brand’s or your company’s identity on social media. Following the current trends and repeating what other, more successful profiles in the same niche do won’t get you anywhere fast. It might be bad for your overall image as you’ll look like a copycat, and no one likes someone who copies other people’s work instead of coming up with their solutions. That goes double when it comes to architecture and design.

You should always show your followers that you’re not afraid to speak your mind and take a different approach to a problem. Don’t sugar-coat things, just stick to your style and your original way of communication, and you’ll have more success.

People appreciate honesty and originality, especially on Instagram, so instead of limiting your options, speak freely and show exactly how different you are. With that said, you should also avoid being too direct in case you don’t agree with something someone said. Keep your answers diplomatic and no matter how frustrated you might be because of someone’s comment or a message, always show class first.

Considered Paid Ads

Instagram has billions of profiles and pages; thousands of them will be similar to what you offer. Building up trust and manually gaining a bigger following can take months, if not years. The process usually involves a lot of trial and error, and no matter how hard you try, one simple mistake can completely ruin your original plans. Not to mention the fact that you’ll be facing far bigger companies and business competitors. That’s why you should think about getting paid ads.

Sure, it will be an investment, but it will almost certainly pay off. Why? Well, it’s simple. Paid ads on Instagram work through an advanced algorithm that can help you generate a larger audience much faster. Instagram will show your posts to people who already have an interest in your particular niche, and many of them will follow your page if your work is good enough. In other words, paid ads are an excellent method you can use to generate leads and get in touch with like-minded professionals. You’ll get the most out of the platform, and you might even land a few high-paying jobs quickly.

Follow People With Similar Interests and Careers

Another thing you should do when you create your Instagram page is to get in touch with people and professionals with similar interests as yourself. Doing so will provide you with a bunch of useful benefits. For example, you’ll get an endless supply of ideas and inspiration. You’ll also expand your reach and get a chance to post your work on their pages. Offer the same thing in return, and both parties will gain more followers.

You can also get a few jobs or an invitation to an important event where you can meet the right people in person. As we’ve mentioned before, you should use social media networks to your advantage in any way possible, and this is something you should do. You never know who is looking at your page and what type of offer they might have in store. Spread your network as much as possible, and it will pay off in the future.

Use Stories

The “Stories” feature is a very popular method of staying in contact with your audience, and it was first introduced by Instagram a few years ago. It’s one of the most valuable features that will help you enhance your account and further improve your methods of interacting with your followers. Published stories disappear after 24 hours, and you can use them to monitor your followers’ engagement.

You can add all kinds of elements to your Instagram Story, including polls, questions, music, locations, hashtags, and everything else that helps engage your followers. By motivating your audience to take action, you’ll be able to spread the word about your business offers. Stories can help you build a bigger following while connecting you with the right people. It’s a win-win situation.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that Instagram is an excellent social network for sharing architecture and building a strong brand identity. It can also work as your portfolio, and you’ll get a chance to find new customers and exchange your experience with other like-minded professionals.

If you still don’t have an account set up, you should think about doing so as soon as possible. With a little effort, a few paid ads, and the right use of hashtags, Instagram can help you grow your business faster than most other available options.