It Was Me! Lessons Learned in Social Media

My background is in architecture. Not the digital architecture that includes wireframing, or the mapping out of websites and applications, but the kind that deals with gravity, building materials and a team of engineers (I know, I should write an article on the journey from architecture to internet marketing).

Thinking about a social media strategy for my own business, I am reminded of a project I did in my undergraduate years, while attending SCI-Arc, a little architecture school in Los Angeles. I thought I would share.

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SCI-Arc's move to a freight yard in downtown Los Angeles was the largest alteration to the Artist District at that time. The school now found itself situated in a culturally diverse and active community. How the institution and community adapted to accommodate this transplant was a delicate subject. I and two other classmates, decided to address the school on the architectural level and its cultural responsibility. Since the new building was spatially unique (having a nearly two dimensional floor plan that is 1/4 mile long and 60' wide) the building's skin had the potential and responsibility to function not only as the barrier exiting between interior and exterior, but also as a major visual and social presence. We figured the social responsibility of this facade must establish communication with its new environment and neighbors.

It Was Me! Lessons Learned in Social Media

We initially considered creating this communication by covering the facade with school news and activities by projecting exhibition dates, reviews, and student work. However this uni-directional conversation; the institution speaking to the community, would do little to develop a true relationship with the public. After realizing that transforming the facade into an overwhelming billboard was not the solution, we understood that we had to create a skin that became involved in the community by somehow creating a public forum. We began thinking of the school not as a fixed concrete object, but as something far more ephemeral, visualizing skins that blurred the confinement and inclusion of the school itself. Knowing that our goal was to create a condition that encouraged dialogue, action, and reaction by the students and community without bias- we began the following project.

"I will purr for you- swf" was the first message we posted. It appeared early one February morning atop the freight yard building. The sign was constructed of 10 sheets of whitewashed plywood spanning 40' x 8' with three foot black and white Helvetica lettering. This initial sign was an attempt to cause intrigue and the opening line in a semester long conversation. Within a week "I will purr for you" disappeared from the roof and "you are dumb" appeared on a neighboring fence. The message carried no apparent relation to the previous sign, yet the format was identical- 40' x 8' of whitewashed plywood with Helvetica lettering. From this point on, approximately 75 t-shirts and hundreds of stickers using the same white background and Helvetica font complemented the weekly signs.

They were left at random locations throughout the community from the school bathrooms to art district town meetings. They carried messages that conversed with the 40' plywood message- "not dumb" "am dumb" and "dumber" etc. This created a media conversation in which a sticker on a light post would relate to a person wearing one of the T-shirts that then corresponded to the sign in the area. The focus was never on the message itself, but its location and effect, encouraging any response whether it is compliment or criticism. Though the messages discretely provoked communication at some level they did not directly relate to each other in order to keep the publics intrigue high and turn their ambiguous meanings into conversation topics.

By constantly changing the location of the signs in the community they redefined boundaries within the area involving the habitants in a common conversation. By the fourth week accusations of the possible culprit were so high, we responded by placing a sign in a vacant lot adjacent to SCI-Arc, which read, "it wasn't me." By the end of the week the sign had been changed to "it was me," then to "it was meat," and "it was neal" (referring to the director of the school, Neal Denari) by various unknown parties. Ultimately numerous conversations, web postings, and two other graffiti projects were created as reactions. We began seeing people unaffiliated with SCI-Arc wearing the T-shirts and placing stickers on their personal property. In collaboration with a local art gallery, variations of the weekly message appeared on its sign above the gallery. This weekly transformation continued for the next nine weeks culminating with a final sign that was backlit by fluorescent lights in a grassy vacant lot. The sign read "purrr- swm" in correspondence with the first sign that sat above the freight yard building. On the final day of the semester anonymous artist hung a 18' x 20' banner from a neighboring loft building with a large bulls eye painted area with the word "hom" in the center, signifying the school's acceptance to the neighborhood.

The ultimate goal was to create a skin that was not defined by any tangible constraints, but by creating a dialogue with the community. The skin was now anywhere that the message was identifiable or discussed, with no constant beginning or end.

...So how does this apply to my thoughts on social media?

#1. The best conversations are often ones that standout because they are unique, showing personality which in return provoke conversation.

#2. Engaging in authentic conversations isn't just about yourself, your company, or about self-service. It can't be a unilateral discussion, or a daily quote from a famous dead person (who cares about that- right?).

#3. Social media is about getting attention by focusing on a specific community with a strategy in mind.

#4. Your voice needs to be strong enough for people to want to follow and collaborate with you.

#5. The results of a good social media strategy are that people will start to get interested in your dialogue and they will start to tell others about it.

It Was Me! Lessons Learned in Social Media

A Columbia graduate with a background in architecture, Ginger is your first point of contact and team leader for Marketing Collaborative. With a 10 year history of working on digital strategies, including her time as a professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Ginger is here to hold your hand through what can otherwise be a somewhat daunting process.

Her focus: proper UX design and testing methods, walking you through the design and development process with care, making sure the final product is one you'll be proud to show off. Ginger is your point-of-contact, and while her head is full of ideas - the occasional daydream of scuba in the Galapagos islands sneaks in here and there.

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