Walter and Berkley are bullish on the ways in which social media can support the design professions. According to the authors, "Today, telling and sharing stories couldn't be easier and digital formats are great for visually rich topics like design. Social media loves visual content. Videos are shared more frequently and posts (whether on a blog, on Facebook or LinkedIn) with striking images attract more readers. Once you start telling your stories in social media, your readers will let you know (like, share, comment on, etc.) the content they like the best – pay attention to what content engages your audience and you'll hone your story telling skills."
Developed exclusively for architecture, engineering, planning and environmental consulting firms,"Social Media in Action" is intended to help firms explore why and how they can use social media to support their practice, and provides examples of real firms that are using technology to their advantage.
"Social media can help advance public acceptance and even drive demand for high-quality design in our cities – and even the smallest firm can affect these shifts. PlaceMakers is a 7-person urban planning and design firm that uses its PlaceShakers blog and Facebook page to embrace the myriad of public stakeholder types through a dialog about great communities. Theirs is an excellent example of how firms can create a real following of clients and influencers by talking about what the topics that they can relate to. These tools effectively promote the firm even though PlaceMakers doesn't use them to promote themselves directly."
