OEM News: It’s Time for Machine Builders to Get Social Media Savvy

The pandemic has forced OEMs to rely on digital communications, which has caused many manufacturers to pay closer attention to their marketing and social media strategies. In a digital world, it’s more important than ever to effectively communicate your brand story through social media to engage existing and new customers as well as to attract potential employees who are looking to LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest, to learn more about prospective companies as they consider their next career move. 

More than 3.6 billion people are on social media, which is expected to increase to 4.41 billion in 2025, according to Sprout Social, a social media software company. And right now, social media users spend around 144 minutes on social media every single day.

There are many ways to participate in social media as a manufacturer and there are many platforms to engage with. Whether you already have a strong social media presence, or your company is hoping to boost its activity and engage with customers, suppliers, or the present and future workforces, these best practices will help you identify a strategy so that your company can stay consistent with its social media goals.

Social media best practices for manufacturers

1. Take advantage of social media’s strengths.

One of the biggest advantages to becoming more active on social channels is the ability to reach your prospects where they already are consuming media and without email’s spam blocking or regulations. There is also an immediacy with social that’s difficult to achieve elsewhere, as you have direct insights into your audience’s needs and message preferences in ways like no other.

2. Determine your voice, audience, and goals for your company’s social media presence.

Whether you are embarking on your social media journey or wanting to improve your approach, it’s important to have a discussion about your company’s mission, the story you want to tell on social media, as well as who you want your audience to be. Having these conversations can help your marketing team create a strong plan for social media that provides you with the results you’re looking for, according to Clare Blodgett, CEO, Clareity Marketing and Principal of The Sourced Collective. The Sourced Collective specializes in helping manufacturers find their voice and drive engagement on social media.

“Great brands are built, they’re not marketed,” Blodgett says. “You build a great brand by having that foundation and an understanding of who you are. Then, having a plan that you’re going to consistently execute over time versus just jumping into something without structure, which is a recipe for failure. We encourage manufacturers to start with a really strong and well-articulated brand strategy and that sense of ‘who we are.’ So now, they have something that they can consistently communicate to their audience through social media.”

While it may seem straightforward that your social media audience should be your customer, there may be other people you want to reach on social. Blodgett shares how to narrow in:

“When we engage with a manufacturer, the leadership team has one idea of what they want to see for their marketing, but the salespeople have a different idea of what they want to see, and then marketing may have a different idea, too,” Blodgett says. “So, we interview each sales team member and ask them what are your clients asking you for? What are they asking from you? What do they want to see? Do they need to see a video? Do they want to see more photos of the application? They’re the ones with boots on the ground so asking the sales team and doing that research will give you a deep understanding of the audience you should be speaking to.”

3. Create a content calendar and schedule social media posts.

One of the most important factors in growing your social media presence and audience is consistency, Blodgett says. “Hashtags are important to use if they are specific to the people you need to reach, but the biggest audience development tool is posting to your accounts consistently.”

Morrison Container Handling Solutions’ marketing communications manager Allison Wagner uses a content calendar and other planning tools to...

Continue reading this article and discover our top news of the past year in the FREE PDF DOWNLOAD.