Khushboo Bhatia is Digital Marketing Expert at EMG, one of the leading integrated marketing communications agencies for industrial companies in Benelux & China
Many businesses we come across in the industrial manufacturing sector find it difficult to strike the right balance between the different kinds of content that result in a unique social profile that reflects an authoritative brand, engages audiences sufficiently to create loyal followings and still be a strong sales tool as well.
Many brands partner with service providers that offer excellent technical digital strategies and implementation support, but who often fall short on understanding their business and the depth required from a narrative development and engagement perspective.
There are now approximately 4.59 billion social media users worldwide. Social media is a hugely influential marketing channel. Far too influential for the industrial manufacturing sector to not to get smart, savvy and strategic about giving it centre stage in a marketing plan.
EMG has helped many companies in the plastics, chemicals and manufacturing sector to harness the power of social media to connect with customers, promote their products and services; and build brand awareness.
While technical expertise to maximise digital and social media efforts are important, there are a couple of things that are essential to help ensure campaign success:
Impart knowledge and join conversations
Successful socials are always two-way conversations, so balance product news and promotion with content that your audience will find useful, newsworthy and interesting. The 80/20 rule is that 80% of social media posts should be useful to your audience - meaning, it educates, entertains, or offers a solution to their problems - and only 20% should explicitly promoting your business.
Deep B2B industries can still tell a story
By focusing on the impact your company’s solutions have on the real world, you can make complex technologies more relatable, even in a deep B2B context. Use images and videos to tell stories about the people behind your innovations and create content around how your products benefit your customers – and their customers in turn – in day-to-day life.
Enlist Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs)
Industry KOLs might not have the star power that reaches thousands like B2C brand influencers, but they do exist in the form of leading sector editors, engineers, industry experts and innovators. Many of our clients work with industry influencers to help build trust and credibility with the access that KOLs provide to target audiences.
Use hashtags
Look for ways to incorporate targeted hashtags that are relevant to your specific industry, such as #plastics #sustainability #sustainable #polyamides #hydrotalcides or #chemicals. This will help content reach a wider audience, while also opening up opportunities to join relevant industry conversations and connect with businesses and professionals with shared interests.
The Power of Personality
Industrial technology companies often forget to personalise their online presence, especially when their product offerings are technical and business-oriented. Social media is the best forum for showing your audience the people behind the products. Create posts that highlight your company culture, celebrate staff achievements, and illustrate how employees participate in meaningful causes.
Visual is valuable, create videos
Video is a vital part of any social marketing strategy ,and its ever-increasing importance will continue to help drive engagement. Industrial companies are ideally placed to use video to showcase their products and expertise through demos, explainer videos and interviews with experts.
Paid investment gives campaigns extra punch
Paid content is an effective way of boosting your company’s visibility because it blends in with native posts, yet doesn’t rely on likes and shares to be seen. Use sponsored content strategically to highlight the value of your products and services to potential customers.
Not all of these tactics will be relevant to every industrial manufacturing business, and EMG’s digital experts work with our clients to get an in-depth understanding of what they want to achieve before building a strategy around that. Aligning social media activity with your business goals, creating a content calendar that integrates storytelling with smart promotional tactics and leveraging performance analytics to the hilt, will make social media a more powerful part of an integrated marketing and sales strategy.
Want to learn more about how EMG can customise your social campaigns? Please get in touch with Khushboo Bhatia, Digital Marketing Expert at EMG in the Netherlands.
EMG is a member of Eurocom Worldwide, the global PR Network for B2B & Technology, in Benelux and China