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Patience Jones: Hello and welcome to as Built, the podcast about architecture firms and buildings and how both get built. I am your co-host, Patience Jones. With me is Brian Jones, your other co host. Thank you for joining us. Today we are talking about Discoverability. What is it?
Brian Jones: "Discoverability" is a term that we use to sort of encompass all the ways that you are found as a firm, and that could incorporate both things that are online and offline. It gets to the core of every platform, media, personal touch, etc. that shapes in part how people come to know about you. So that might mean SEO, it might mean social media, definitely your website, any content that you prepare, how you're perceived or found on AI, and then your relationships and networking and your presence in your community.
Patience Jones: I feel like there's like a bajillion ways for people to research and find information now. And so discoverability is basically saying, okay, what are the most likely of those bajillion ways? And how do we make sure that we are fully on those places with enough information so that people can find us, know what we're about, and contact us?
Brian Jones: I think that we want to be clear that this isn't just a substitute for search optimization. This is a much broader look at the multitude of ways that you can be found.
Patience Jones: Think of it as - and I know that there will be people that feel very strongly that this is not accurate, so you know, fine, but - think of it as search engines. It's for looking for something online using Google or Yelp or DuckDuckGo or whatever. What we are talking about is essentially search engine optimization, but for every type of way that people look for things. People look for information about firms through LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Instagram, at conferences, in magazines, over coffee, on YouTube, TikTok.
Brian Jones: I mean, it's everywhere.
Patience Jones: Because it can be. We have created a situation where you can find all kinds of things in the way that is most friendly to how you think and how you receive information. So we have to be competitive. We have to be where those people are and presenting information in ways that resonates with them and is also appropriate for that platform.
Brian Jones: I think one of the obvious questions is, "Why does this matter to me if I'm running a firm?" Or, "Why is this important to me?" I think the big takeaway is that you want to be known because you would like to get hired to do Work. That's kind of the core. If people don't know that you exist, they probably can't hire you. It's a fairly simple straightforward thing, but it holds true even now.
Patience Jones: Or they know that you exist, they've heard of you, but they don't know what you do, or they have the wrong idea about what you do. I think now, we are seeing the generational difference between how people understand information is greater than it has like ever been. If you think about a prospective client in their office, the person who ultimately makes the decisions says to somebody who's a junior person or mid-level person, "Go and find four architecture firms that could handle this kind of work." How that person does that research is going to be informed almost exclusively by what generation they are in. If you are not where they look for information, then you will not get floated as a possible contender.
Brian Jones: Taking that to the next logical step, which isn't only about being found specifically in the place that they want to be found, but also creating content and information in a way that can be consumed based upon that platform, which is a key component. Gone are the days when you could just take the same thing and blast it everywhere. Those days never -
Patience Jones: - should have existed in the first place. It's akin to, and I'm going to use these super aged examples so that everyone will understand what I mean, it's the same as if you did a print ad and then radio came out as medium and then television came out as a medium. Instead of crafting an ad for radio, you just had somebody read the text of your print ad and then your television ad was just somebody reading your print ad but being filmed doing it. That's how disparate the idea seems when you do things today that are the same thing going out on every single platform. It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't respond to how that platform was created and what it was designed to do, and, most importantly, what people expect to see and find when they go there.
Brian Jones: You're alluding to something too, which is it isn't just about the one time being discovered, it's also about the making that lasting impression. In order to truly be discovered, this isn't like, "Oh, I found you on Google search and now I know everything about you." It's maybe, "I happened to look you up. I saw a social post. I talked to a person." These all represent the realm of discoverability. The important thing is to see them as working in concert with one another and also that they are all equally necessary. You can't just turn one off and hope that it all works out. It really is a moment where you have to be working in each of those areas and it's super important.
Patience Jones: You make a good point about the supportive nature of all of these elements. It is almost worse to have inconsistent messages on different platforms than to not be found. Let's say your LinkedIn profile says that you work in education architecture, and that's your specialty, and then somebody goes to your website and it says, no, actually your specialty is hospitals and healthcare. And then there's a review from somebody that said, what you're really great at is warehousing. People aren't going to know what they're getting. It's really important to be consistent, yet to have how that consistency is delivered vary based on the platform.
Brian Jones: Keeping that together is a. It's a large task.
Patience Jones: Yes. I know that this probably sounds incredibly exhausting and daunting, and it's shouldn't be daunting. And it's not that it's not exhausting, because it can be, but the goal is to find how to make consistent messaging and then the different implementations of it will be much easier.
Brian Jones: Something that's true in marketing and definitely for discoverability is that you can't just do one thing all in and then none of the other things. Marketing is usually most effective when you pull a little bit on each lever. You may not be doing everything at level 10, but you might be doing everything at level two or three. Overall, that effort is raising your profile.
Patience Jones: And there will be things that will be a waste of time. Like, should you be on MySpace? Probably not. It's not that you have to be on every platform, as you put it, at a level 11 all the time. It's that you have to think about, "Who do we want to find us? Where are they?" Let's be there.
Brian Jones: And then also the generation behind them. How do we start to build and cultivate that so that by the time that they are at the age they can start to make decisions, that we've seeded awareness of us?
Patience Jones: It will be a lot easier if people are aware of you as they come up. And it is far easier to get on somebody's finalist list or to be awarded a project when they know about you before they are looking for somebody.
Brian Jones: Keep in mind that on an average day people are bombarded with brand messages and information in all kinds of formats. From casually walking down the street to using their device, to being in front of their computer and so on. It's really important to remember that people don't consume what you're up to in a vacuum. It's a part of this other larger world and you have to be mindful of that - that you're producing in a way that resonates, but also that you're there consistently enough that it creates an impact that can be lasting and can be perceived and stands out from all of the noise.
Patience Jones: And the way that you stand out from the noise is not by being the noisiest person in the room, it's by helping people by giving them the information that they need, making it easy for them to find, meeting them where they are. Not saying, "Well, this is how we present information and this is the one place we do it, and if you don't like that, oh well."
Brian Jones: I really want to highlight that it's easy to think that people are coming to you and then you get to define the entire relationship, but you really need to take into consideration that you are meeting them on mutual ground in ways that you have to mold to what their needs are. If they can choose to continue to in be involved, then they find ways to conform to you. But it's a two-way street.
Patience Jones: It doesn't have to be. You can certainly opt out and you can say, you know what? All we're going to do is print brochures that we keep inside our office. And if somebody wants to know about us, they can come there and take a print brochure. That is your right, but you are opting out of a significant portion of the market - almost all of it probably. I mean, I'm not sure that the person who's super-excited to come to your office to get a brochure because it's the only way they can get information is going to be a really great client, but I could be wrong.
