3 Social Media Sites AEC Marketers Need to Know

3 Social Media Sites for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction community and what you might do with them:

1. Site: LinkedIn Purpose: Networking, recruiting, advertising Summary: LinkedIn is one of the obvious choices. It's the facebook of the corporate world. It's also one of the best places to "connect" with industry professionals and not feel like you're stalking them. It can be used as a great networking, recruiting or advertising tool. If you're working leads online--this is the place to get in front of (or follow up with!) high profile firm leaders.
2. Site: Facebook Purpose: Customer Service, branding, advertising Summary: Facebook has exploded recently to what's suggested as 400 million users. That's a lot of people in the social media world. Granted, not everyone is into AEC--but a lot of potential partners, clients, advocates etc. are. You can create a business page for your firm and share some of the great things you're doing, projects you're winning/chasing, and even interact with existing or potential stakeholders. It can be a great brand building item for your company...and best of all, you can help drive traffic to other vehicles (like your website or photos of projects you've worked on).
3. Site: Foursquare Purpose: Internal marketing, project management, general management Summary: This is a new one. Foursquare's been out for over a year now but it's intriguing because a) they just picked up a ton of funding and b) there are more and more users trying it out. There are some ways I could see this working as a great internal marketing tool for firms. For instance, helping employees link up for lunch or figure out where to find great deals on cheap office supplies. From a business standpoint I think there could be some incentive system tied to "checking in" at places that an AEC firm might partner with to achieve discounted rates for employees...like a gym or local businesses.

There are a ton of social media networks that pop up everyday. Some survive and most don't. These are just a few of the big ones now. Any relative networks that people know about or ideas for using these mentioned please comment below.