Making Industrial Marketing Social Media Work
One of the most confusing areas of marketing we encounter when working with manufacturers is social media. The first question is, “Do we need it?” The answer is yes. It is an integral part of an inbound and outbound marketing program to grow sales. The next question is often, “Which social media channels do we need?” While many social media options exist, we recommend focusing on Meta, originally Facebook, and LinkedIn.
LinkedIn, established in 2002, is a social media platform designed specifically for B2B professionals. It offers a range of benefits, including the ability to connect with industry peers, promote your company, recruit employees, find jobs, and seek vendors. While it’s free to sign up, the premium Sales Navigator can provide detailed information on visitors for a fee, making it a valuable tool for those looking to boost sales. It’s crucial to set up a company page for posting, rather than a personal page.
Meta
Meta, a free social networking site, is all about connecting and interacting with family and friends through comments, photos, and videos. It also offers the opportunity to join groups with shared interests. For businesses, Meta provides the option to set up pages to promote products and services. While posting on Meta is free, paid advertising can be a powerful way to target potential customers. Like LinkedIn, it’s important to set up a company account, not a personal page.
Industrial Marketing Social Media Programs
As mentioned, be certain you are setting up business accounts for both LinkedIn and Meta. Because these sites are part of your lead generation program, they should represent your brand to assure consistency. If you are going to let employees post to your company page, you will need to make them site administrators (admins). To maintain control over content, we recommend limiting the number of staff that can post and approving their posts. For most B2B clients, we suggest at least 2-4 posts monthly. However, the content of the post varies on Meta and LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is business-focused, and your audience is business professionals who are members for business purposes. Subsequently, the content should be more sales-oriented. Of course, you can post company news items but promoting your products and services is expected. You can utilize educational selling by inviting followers to join webinars or visit you at trade shows. We encourage clients to have employees set up personal pages and share company posts. However, because you want to preserve a professional image, you need to provide text and graphics for the employee to use.
Meta focuses primarily on social interaction. Therefore, keep employees’ personal accounts separate from your company page. Like LinkedIn, the company Meta page should promote your brand graphically, and the posts should be business content only. This includes updates on company activities, industry news, and other news about your business. However, the posts should be less sales-centered as your audience is usually more vendors, employees, family members, and current customers. This audience is less interested in purchasing as keeping up on company activities.
Industrial Marketing Social Media Programs refer to the strategic use of social media platforms, such as LinkedIn and Meta, in the context of industrial marketing. These programs are designed to promote your brand, engage with potential customers, and generate leads within the industrial sector. We recommend a ratio of 75% sales to 25% news for LinkedIn posts and 60% news to 40% sales on Meta. Of course, these percentages vary from client to client. The essential factor is to understand how these industrial marketing social media programs work and set a proactive schedule for them to be effective.
Pappy
About the Author
Paul Kowalski (or Pappy as he is called around the office) spent over two decades working at other agencies before opening Conach Marketing Group in 2008. In the early part of his career, he worked with Fortune 500 clients at different agencies. However, he preferred working with smaller clients because of the impact on a client’s business growth and the formation of closer, personal relationships.
About Conach
When he created Conach, his goal was to bring those Fortune 500 strategies along with years of B2B marketing experience to small business marketing clients. By focusing on business-to-business marketing, we specialize in construction marketing, financial marketing, and industrial marketing. Even though we are in Mid-Michigan, Conach provides marketing services to clients across the country.
For more information visit conachmarketing.com or contact us or call 989.401.3202.