How to get clients as an architect on LinkedIn
How to get clients as an architect on LinkedIn: what to post about projects, how to credit the team the way the AIA asks, and who owns your building photos.
How do architects get clients on LinkedIn?
By showing how they think, project by project, from the principal's own profile. A finished photo shows taste; the brief, the constraint and the decision behind it show judgement, which is what a client hires. Much work still comes by referral, and a referred client looks the studio up before calling.
The thinking behind the work, with nothing confidential in it
Three posts an architect can write this week
A constraint
The site sloped four metres, and the budget had no room for retaining walls.
Shows how you solve
A decision
The client wanted more glass. Here is why we talked them out of half of it.
Shows your judgement
A year later
We went back to a school we finished last summer and asked the teachers what works.
Shows you stay with it
Invented first lines. Post a client's project only with their OK.
Is LinkedIn good for architects?
For studios whose clients are businesses, developers and institutions, yes. Those clients are on LinkedIn at work, and many hire through people they already know of. In Hinge's survey of 523 professional services firms, architecture among them, 81.5 percent had been referred by someone who was never a client, most often for their expertise. More is in how to ask clients for referrals.
How should an architect credit a project on LinkedIn?
Say what you did, and who else did the rest. The AIA says failing to give proper credit is perhaps the most frequent breach of its code. Its guidelines cover marketing and public relations: if you were not the architect of record, name your role and the architect of record, as clearly as the project itself.
The AIA's credit guidelines, applied to a LinkedIn post
Your role, their name, as plain as the photo
Architect of record
The firm that held the contract can show the project without defining its role.
Anyone else
Define your role, and name the architect of record.
The team
Major participants should be acknowledged; a full list is not needed.
Visible
The credit as easy to see as the text about the project.
AIA, Attribution of credit, and Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, Rules 4.201 and 5.301, 2024 edition, read 10 November 2026. Binding on AIA members.
Can you post a project from your previous firm?
Yes, with your role named and the firm credited. The AIA's guidelines ask anyone who was not the architect of record to say what they did and acknowledge who was. Its Rule 5.302 also says members leaving a firm may not take its drawings or designs without permission, so ask before posting them.
Who owns the photos of your building?
Often the photographer. Under US copyright law, a commissioned work belongs to the person who hired it only in nine listed kinds, with a signed agreement. Photos taken for your own portfolio are not one of them. Unless your contract transfers the rights, check that your licence covers posting on LinkedIn.
What can an architect share about a client's project?
What the client is happy to share, and nothing that could harm them. The AIA's Rule 3.401 says members may not disclose information that would adversely affect a client or that the client asked to keep confidential. Its commentary adds that the law gives architects no privilege like a lawyer's, so the discretion is yours to keep.
Ask before you post, and agree what can be named: the client, the address, the budget, the photos of a private home. Many clients are glad to be credited on a public building and less glad on a house. The lesson in a post rarely needs the address.
How do you credit an engineer or a consultant in a LinkedIn post?
Name their firm and their part in plain words, such as structure by or lighting by, and tag their company page once they agree. The AIA asks members to recognise the contributions of colleagues and associates. How tagging works is in how to tag someone on LinkedIn.
How can a small studio post about its projects every week?
Say what happened on a project, and let the post be written for you. innernote writes it in your voice, or the studio's, follows the rule you set for naming clients, and posts it on the days you pick. Attach the drawings or photos as a grid or a PDF, and read every post first.
innernote is the #1 tool for architecture and design studios that want to post the thinking behind their projects every week, in their own voice.
Name the client only with their OK, or describe them by kind and size, and tag their company once they agree. The studio's page gets its own voice and its own posting times beside yours. See it for studios and firms: innernote for service firms.
Type one decision you made on a project this month and why, in two or three rough sentences. See the post innernote writes from it.
Start for free. Sign in with Google and your note is waiting in your composer.
Quick answers
The thinking behind projects: a constraint and how you met it, a decision a client pushed back on, what a building does a year after handover. Add a lesson for other clients and a credit for the team. A finished photo alone shows taste, while the reasoning shows what hiring you is like.
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Post the thinking behind your projects
innernote writes your project posts in your voice, or the studio's, follows your client rule, and posts on your days.
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