One of the most enjoyably-challenging parts of our jobs is brainstorming. Getting those creative juices flowing. Trying to solve a challenge for your employer or a client. No idea is too stupid (more or less).
So, as a way to develop ideas for my blog, keep my creative juices flowing and a few other benefits, I thought I start a periodic series of how different kinds of businesses and other organizations can benefit from social media. Granted, there are other, more traditional marketing means companies should explore, but they are likely already doing them.
So, let’s have some fun and brainstorm ways that different types of organizations can take advantage of this new marketing vehicle commonly called social media. Please have a look at the below and offer your own feedback on my ideas, and offer your own on how this hypothetical company can take advantage of social media.
Company Profile: Medium-size manufacturer. Let’s say it’s a machine manufacturer that sells to molders, shops or related companies that make things. Predominantly B2B focus. If it’s public, there is a need to communicate with the investor community and media. If private, the focus is on the trade audience, including media. The only consumer media of interest is the local business media for each plant location. The local general consumer media is of interest, but definitely not an integral part of its marketing plan.
Being a B2B company, the customer and prospect based is likely well-known, and likely includes engineers, technicians, some type of trade personnel, assembler or related. While people in purchasing and management are important, you also want to reach those who’ll be directly using or handling your product.
To best take advantage of social media, here’s what I’d recommend:
- Of course, monitor social media. There are various comprehensive tools and services out there to use. Just like you would use a clipping service, you need to know what people online are saying about you and your industry. You should follow any social media mentions, and engage as appropriate.
- For B2B, discussion boards are your strongest community. It’s very possible that there are only a few or actually no bloggers to reach out to. It’s likely you won’t see good ROI if you start a company blog. Any blog activity you’re likely to see will be in the vertical markets. However, there is very likely at least one good forum out there to monitor directly and engage your direct customers and prospect. Become active in that or those boards. Use it to respond to application and similar, non-company questions; respond to questions or inaccurate information about your company; toss out ideas and general industry questions to use the forum as a targeted focus group.
- If you have training videos that are not proprietary, educate the market. Establish your company profiles on video sharing sites like YouTube, Vimeo and countless of others. It cannot hurt you to have better trained, more educated people operating machines — and if your machines are being used as the example, it can only spur interest in your company. You may not be able to trace direct sales from the published videos, but you’ll likely be the only or one of the few in the industry making a public effort to educate. Posting the videos on various sites would also improve your search engine visibility, and even spur story ideas from the media that cover you and your industry. You can track video viewership and other stats via TubeMogul and I’m sure other services. (NOTE: I used the free version of TubeMogul in my previous job.) One neat thing about TubeMogul is that you can see a large list of video sharing sites.
- Consider giving your Website visitors the ability to rate your product line (on a star or other grading system). Granted, machine specs for your customers vary and can be customized, but the base machines are pretty comparable for each line. Maybe you allow only registered site visitors to be able to rate machines. You’re not a large retailer, but depending on Web development costs and your marketplace, it could be worthwhile. Allowing your machines to be rated would be a way to get feedback on your product quality.
So, what do you think? Am I off base on any of the above? What else could a B2B machine maker do in social media? How could you work social media in with an investor focus?
-Mike
Image: Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii: Cotton textile mill, probably in Tashkent, ca. 1910. Some rights reserved.
