Social Media Management Tips for Cutting Edge Manufacturers
Navigating social media’s uncharted waters as a manufacturer can seem like a grueling task, especially at first. Most marketing managers in the manufacturing space are skeptical about using social media as one of their marketing tactics. Unsure if they’ll find an audience there, or if they’ll have anything engaging to post, most marketers choose instead to ignore social.
The fact is, smart manufacturers have been finding meaningful ways to connect with their audience for several years now on social media. With more millennials making their way into senior roles in the manufacturing industry, establishing a social media presence as a manufacturer is more important than ever.
Today, we’re going to take a closer look at manufacturing social media management, and share some best practices for how you can grow your reach and engage your audience through these valuable platforms.
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Why Manufacturers Need to Focus on Social Media
A recent study found that only 44% of manufacturing companies are leveraging social media. Meanwhile, 96% of B2B buyers are looking for more content from thought leaders in their industry.
These statistics make a few things crystal clear. First, less than half of manufacturing companies are taking advantage of social media, representing a tremendous opportunity for your business. Second, the decision-makers responsible for buying products and services from companies like yours are looking for greater participation from brands on social channels.
The Most Important Social Platforms for Manufacturers
There’s no shortage of social media platforms that your manufacturing business can create a presence on, but not every platform is worth focusing on. Depending on your particular vertical, you’ll find that some platforms are more impactful than others.
Here are the most important platforms you’ll want to establish a presence on.
Many businesses ignore Facebook because they see it as a consumer platform that has little value for industrial manufacturers. While that much is true, smart companies like Caterpillar and Seimens have found meaningful ways to leverage Facebook.
Not only are many of the decision-makers your company needs to reach using Facebook, but it’s also become a de facto customer service hub, and an excellent tool t build relationships with your customers. A Facebook page for businesses allows for instant communication, so it’s where many consumers are turning today to have questions answered in real-time.
Facebook is a great place to engage with customers and prospects, and it provides you with some unique inferences into your followers’ likes and dislikes.
Twitter has always been a popular platform among businesses, and top manufacturers like Boeing have leveraged the platform to significant effect. Now that Twitter allows for 280 characters, it’s even easier for companies to share insights, valuable content, and connect with their audience.
Twitter is a great PR tool as it allows you to keep your customers up to date with company happenings, insightful new content, and more. From a commerce perspective, Twitter is a useful tool for connecting directly with the decision-makers and executives your company needs to reach.
LinkedIn began as a social media platform for professionals, so it’s no wonder why it’s such a useful tool for the manufacturing industry and other businesses. LinkedIn allows you to connect with decision-makers, thought leaders, and influencers from your industry, and it’s also one of the best hubs for distributing your valuable content.
Considering that 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute their content, it’s easy to see the value in using LinkedIn to establish a social presence as a manufacturer.
YouTube
Everyone is familiar with YouTube as the world’s premier video sharing site. Still, it’s also an excellent platform for B2B companies to promote products, share informative vlogs and how-to content, and position yourself as a thought leader by sharing essential industry knowledge.
More than a billion people use YouTube each month, making them the largest search engine in the world behind Google. Many of these searches are for how-to videos and other informative content, representing an excellent opportunity for your business to establish a presence with a Youtube channel.
The one caveat of YouTube is that creating quality videos on the platform requires some investment from your company. If your marketing department doesn’t already focus on video, you’ll need to add staff to create and edit the videos you post.
Customers don’t expect Academy Award-worthy videos, but you’ll need to put the work in to produce straightforward and easy to understand videos.
Most Manufacturers Struggle with Generating Leads Online...We Fix That!
Since 2009, we have helped many Manufacturers grow strategically. Let us do it for you!
Manufacturing Social Media Management Tips to Maximize Reach and Engagement
Getting the most out of your social media presence is all about maximizing your reach and getting your content in front of as many relevant eyeballs as possible. The tips and best practices below will get you off on the right foot so you can turn your social media efforts into a valuable marketing channel for your company.
Do Your Research
Long before you begin posting to your social platforms, you’ll want to take time to understand the social ecosystem that your business exists in.
Start by finding your target audience on various social platforms. Please pay close attention to the kinds of things they’re discussing on social platforms and note them. These concepts are all valuable content ideas that can help you join the discussion or start new conversations relevant to your target.
Take note of how your competitors are using social media. See how the competition communicates with their network, and pay attention to the type of content they’re producing, and the voice they use to engage with their audience.
Your findings in this stage will provide you with valuable insight into the type of content your audience is most likely to engage with, and shed light on how your competitors are engaging with your market.
Deliver Value at All Times
Social media channels are a treasure trove of marketing opportunities, provided you use them correctly. When your prospects are using social media, the last thing on their mind is engaging with businesses. For your content to stand out and attract the kind of engagement you’re looking for, it needs to deliver value to your audience.
Your customers aren’t interested in seeing a bunch of ads that do nothing to enrich their lives or help solve their problems. Still, if you’re providing them with content that’s genuinely useful to them, you’ll be able to drive engagement and increase your reach.
Delivering value could mean that you’re providing useful content, such as blogs, how-to videos, infographics, or interviews with other thought leaders. Delivering value can also be as simple as offering a witty joke or anecdote. The key here is to make sure that whatever you’re posting, it’s exciting and worthwhile so people want to engage with it.
Social Media is not e-Commerce
Many manufacturers fall into a sales trap when using social media, and use the platform to drive sales and generate leads. While it’s possible to generate leads through social media, it should not be your focus, and you should avoid coming off as “salesy” at all costs.
Your prospect’s news feed is already flooded with content they’re interested in, and if you use your platform as an extension of your sales team, you’ll end up souring your prospects to your brand altogether. Your posts will get blocked, your reach will suffer, and you’ll fall short of accomplishing your social media goals.
The 60-40 Rule
For manufacturers using social media, it’s all about compelling content. The 60-40 rule is a great way to drive engagement and interaction with your target audience while also positioning your company as a thought leader.
The 60-40 rule suggests that manufacturers should concentrate on providing a mix of 60 percent original content, and 40 percent curated content.
In other words, six out of every ten posts across your social platforms should feature original content that’s thought-provoking and insightful, while the remaining four of ten should feature curated content from thought leaders and other high-authority voices that will deliver value to your followers.
Get a Hand From Your Customers
Generating quality content is a significant undertaking for any business, but your network of followers is often a great place to turn for help in the content department. Search hashtags related to your business in search for content that people who use your products have created, and amplify their posts through your social platforms.
This kind of content is a great way to show social proof; your followers will appreciate content that shows other industry professionals using your products. Using user-generated content also takes some of the pressure off your content team, as it’s one less piece they’ll need to worry about creating.
Maximize Your Marketing Efforts With Advertising
As a business, social platforms will typically stem your reach, so your posts will only be seen by a small subset of your total audience. To get your posts in front of a larger audience, you’ll need to play ball by advertising.
There are ways to increase your reach through organic methods with other platforms, but those only go so far on social media. Thankfully, the price of advertising is much lower on social platforms compared to Google. Businesses can dramatically increase the reach of their social media posts with only a small investment in advertising.
Best of all, social media advertising gives you access to a world of different metrics and demographic information you can use to segment your ads, ensuring that you’re able to target all your advertising to the most relevant audience possible.
Track and Adapt
Whether you’re advertising on social media or making the best of the organic reach you have, you’ll want to carefully monitor and track the different metrics you have access to. Each platform provides different metrics, but they all offer valuable insight into what your audience likes and dislikes, so you can adapt your content to fit your audience’s needs.
Once you have a baseline for the content that your target audience is most interested in engaging with, you’ll be in a better position to produce content that speaks to those interests.
Consider incorporating A/B testing to your manufacturing social media management so you can gain even greater insight over what your audience engages most with.
Final Word
The days of excluding social media from your marketing strategy manufacturing company are in the past. Social media marketing represents an opportunity to grow your business while engaging with your potential customers. The best practices above are all things you’ll want to add to your manufacturing social media management plan, and you can leverage them to get your social media presence off the ground today.
Most Manufacturers Struggle with Generating Leads Online...We Fix That!
Since 2009, we have helped many Manufacturers grow strategically. Let us do it for you!