Social media is becoming an ever-growing presence in the manufacturing world. With that in mind, let’s look at some quick win tips for how you can optimize your social media presence among the online world of manufacturing.
- A Day in the Life – Share images of company bonding experiences and team building to show what it’s like inside your company.
- The Fans – Facebook business pages are about the fans, and fans help you gain online authority. Prompting likes and shares through directives, branded images and statistics on your product success will drive people to engage.
- Lead Form Ads – Create a lead form advertisement so potential manufacturing clients can be led directly to a page to enter contact information. This can be an alternative to gaining business leads through your website landing page.
- Facebook Live – There are many ways to optimize the FB live experience in creative ways, as shown in this decor8 blog article. Hosting live polls on products with sites like GoUpLive or rolling out a new product via the stream will create a unique way for customers to view your work life and products.
- Video for Cover Photos – Create a montage video that showcases your manufactured product as your background image for your business page. It is a quick way for customers to see the versatility of your product as they first see your page and start to engage with it.
- Link Building – Write a blog post about other manufacturers to follow on Instagram, then reach out to them to see if they’d want to share the post to the link in their Instagram bio. See good examples of how to link build on this episode of Moz’s Whiteboard Friday.
- Hashtags – Hashtags connect you to a network of manufacturers and clients talking about your industry. Here are some of the top-rated manufacturing hashtags:
- “#Instafamous” – Following and gaining followers from popular manufacturing accounts is important to your Instagram’s credibility and appearance to your audience. For an example, check out this TYKMA Electrox article—which includes a list of manufacturing Instagram accounts to follow and engage with.
- Boomerang – Create a Boomerang mini video of your product that loops back and forth as an alternative to a still shot post.
- Join Interest Groups – Join industry-related topic groups to bounce professional ideas off other experts in the manufacturing industry. This network acts as a resource for people in your industry and also potential clients.
- Create Your Own Community – Starting a LinkedIn group can allow you to make your company the featured website for a group. This will increase company exposure to other manufacturers.
- “Bites” of Information – Create content for your social media that is stripped down and focused on the meat of what you are trying to get across. A good rule of thumb is to write your content out, and then cut it down to HALF of what you had initially written. Just think: If I’m not going to read that “whole thing,” who will?
- Target Posts – Posting targeted updates can optimize your audience outreach and help you to specifically reach manufacturers and targeted geographic areas related to your business. This is a free service that is available on your company page once you have 300 followers.
YouTube
- Product Demos – People love action shots, and this is the perfect time to show these off. Use video for your product to display:
- How it works
- What is does for customers
- What its features are
- Why it surpasses the competition
- This video by Wonderful Engineering is a great example representing the four possibilities above.
- No Mission Statements – You should avoid at all costs the slideshow video format with the company’s mission statement as a voice over. People want to view things at their leisure on social sites that are going to entertain, not parrot your “brand identity.”
- Clear Descriptions – Optimize your video with text captions for people without sound to improve accessibility to your company and emphasize the purpose of your video.
- Interactive Thumbnails – Create a thumbnail that includes a play button and a time stamp to prompt engagement. This will let viewers know the exact duration and act as an additional prompt for them to start the video.
- Twitter Chats – Engage in daily, weekly, or monthly conversations with manufacturing industry followers via Twitter chats. Post the hashtag of the chat and engage with other industry experts. A great one to consider is the monthly #mfgchat hosted by National Industrial Supply (@NISchain).
- FollowerWonk – This is a useful tool that searches Twitter biographies for keywords related to business. Use this to find followers associated with manufacturing.
- Follow + Favorite – Don’t just add people—engage with your followers. Like, retweet, and message your audience with feedback on their content on a consistent basis. Here are some good manufacturing industry accounts to interact with:
@TheManufacturer
- Simplify Sharing – Twitter’s main purpose is to share others’ content and ideas. Place social share buttons at the top or bottom of all blog posts on your website. That way, people will be prompted to engage with your account.Adding the number of people that have already shared the article in a box next to the icons encourages sharing. This is because people are more likely to share something that they think others are already engaging with.
- Selling Products – Many do not think of Pinterest initially as a sales platform, but adding a $ and a link back to your site or landing page can encourage viewers to buy the product.General Electric does a good job of featuring their products for sale in their “Gifts for Geeks” Board which links out to a purchase page via Quirky.
- Be a Resource – Pinners seeking out manufacturing-related materials are looking for helpful industry tips, not a super-salesy pitch on why you’re the best industrial company. Fill your boards with infographics, instructional videos and recommendations. Here are some good examples of manufacturing industry accounts:
- Design for Discovery – As one Search Engine Watch article deemed it, Pinterest is “designed for discovery” where “93% of Pinteresters use the interface to plan for purchases.”Target your Pinterest theme around your brand personality—showing not only what you represent, but what kind of content you engage with outside of manufacturing. Expanding the type of content that you engage with outside of shots of equipment and trade shows will maximize your exposure on the platform.
- Trade Show Promo – Believe it or not, many companies are now using Pinterest to show previews to their stands and displays for industry trade shows. A good example of this is Business Industrial Network’s board.
As you can see, incorporating a few simple social media strategy changes into your marketing approach will optimize your existing efforts tenfold. After implementing these changes, let us know your results… they might surprise you!
Also, don’t forget to reach out if you are interested in learning more on how to grow your manufacturing business through digital marketing and SEO!
