Dan McCarthy, the chairman and CEO of our parent company, Network Communications, Inc. (NCI), based in Lawrenceville, GA, blogs about the housing market AND is a forerunner in social media networking. This week, while he was researching how the design community is using social media, he discovered one very up-to-date Little Rock designer, and gave her a shout out. His post follows–
ViralHousingFix http://www.viralhousingfix.com/
Tracking ideas and innovation in media serving the local market
A Little Rock designer gets it: Social media is a lively conversation
I’m heading up to Boston this week to see our staff at New England Home and to do a presentation at a networking event about how the design community can use social media to help grow their businesses.
Pulling the presentation together has been fun and has given me an excuse to spend time browsing Facebook, Twitter and the web at large to see what some high-end design professionals are doing.
High-end design is so intensely visual and satisfying on one hand, and so much about the intersection of aesthetic and personality on the other. Designers have been using the web for a while as a useful place to present their portfolios, but very few are able to communicate the breadth of their vision and their personality through their static marketing sites.
Social media can give them the tools, the venue and the opportunity to share their personal vision in a more intimate way with a larger group of people.
In looking around for examples of design professionals who are using social media to these ends, I stumbled across Tobi Fairley, a designer in Little Rock, AR. (We publish At Home in Arkansas, based out of Little Rock. It’s also the town where my grandfather grew up and a place I really enjoy visiting.)
Fairley is doing an terrific job using social media to give us a look into what she is seeing, what she likes and what she’s doing. A prospective client who has interacted with Fairley across the multiple platforms she uses is going to have a good sense of who she is and how she works. This is the kind of connection that can create confidence in hiring someone for an expensive, personal service.
Take a look at Fairley’s body of social media work.
Her blog: http://tobifairley.com/blog/.
Her Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/tobifairley.
Her Tumblr feed: http://tobifairley.tumblr.com/.
You can also find her on Facebook. It’s a good social media footprint that she’s tending very well and is sure to help grow her business.
