by Usman SheikhTop 5 Channels – Social Media Marketing for Manufacturing Companies (Stats & Benchmarks)
Top 5 Channels – Social Media Marketing for Manufacturing Companies (Stats & Benchmarks)
So Why You Need Social Media Marketing For Manufacturing Companies in 2021?
Social media is vital to having a successful manufacturing company.
The importance & success of social media for manufacturing should not be immediately tied to revenue growth or sales uplift in our opinion.
Social media is all about engagement and brand awareness.
It’s as much as listening and a connection tool as it helps in building your brand presence online that will not only attract customers but also:
- Engage the existing customers (yes, they still need to be catered to via social media after they have bought from you 😊)
- Attract new vendors & help new vendors & suppliers
- Engage existing employees & attract new talent
- Get on the radar of influencers and build relationships
- Help with reputation & crisis management
Most of all, brand awareness will allow you to be top of mind as a thought leader in your industry – which helps close sales faster, build trust and grow your brand over-time.
Related: Social Media engagement also helps with your other digital marketing efforts such as SEO. Learn how Social & SEO work together to give your brand a boost in our blog
You may be wondering just how to use social media to increase your online presence. Below are the top 4 social media channels for digital marketing.
1. LinkedIn & Its Powerful Capabilities
LinkedIn is one of the most powerful forms of social media for manufacturing companies. With its ability to connect with employees, other companies involved in the manufacturing market, and potential partnerships for your manufacturing business, LinkedIn is considered the best B2B marketing platform for manufacturing companies.
With over 260 million active users, many of which are in the 50-65 age range, your manufacturing company can reach experienced professionals through this social media platform with just the push of a button.
LinkedIn is the best source for generating leads by a long-shot compared to other social platforms that – especially when it comes to B2B (and that is where most of the manufacturing companies fit):
Image Source: Hubspot – Linked 277% More Effective Than Facebook & Twitter
Ok, you might need more than just a push of the button. Here’s what you’ll need to do:
- Set up and complete your manufacturing company’s LinkedIn profile.
- Share engaging content targeted towards the manufacturing industry.
- Interact with and add fellow manufacturing profiles to build up your audience.
Check out how Midas Safety Inc (one of our client partners that we help within social media marketing 😊 – yes I know we are biased here!) thriving on LinkedIn.
By posting regular content, including videos interviewing experienced manufacturers in the company, Midas is building a reputation that is sure to boost their social media presence.
In fact, since taking over and managing their profile by creating and sharing regular content, we have seen an uptick in the following key areas:
- More followers (500+ new in the last 6 months)
- More decision-makers looking at the content
- More engagement from existing followers
- More prospects seeing the updates
All of the above can and does help grow brand equity, brand trust and trust with key decision-makers in North America. Versus other platforms, this is where the true power of LinkedIn comes into play!
2. YouTube
Many manufacturing companies are using YouTube videos to both educate viewers and strategically market their professional services. YouTube is often used in the following ways:
- Demonstrates products in use to help viewers imagine themselves using the products
- Shows how-to tutorials on troubleshooting or DIYing manufactured goods
- Gives you insight into the creation of their manufacturing products
A great example of a successful YouTube channel for manufacturing companies is Toyota.
Toyota uses YouTube’s social media presence to successfully market its latest products and services.
Now you may be wondering – YouTube is a social channel?
More brands consider YouTube to be a social media platform as much as a video viewing channel. YouTube is a lot of things, but it does offer brands to host the following elements to make it social:
- Brand Profile
- Regular content updates
- Content descriptions
- Comments & Engagement sections
If all that is not characteristics of a social media channel – then I don’t know what is 😊.
Also, after Facebook, people spend more time on YouTube than any other platform:
Source: Broadbandsearch.net
They have 1.5 Billion monthly active users and this number is only growing.
While the demographic does skew slightly younger – the penetration of YouTube across all age groups in 2020 is at least 70% in the United States!
Source: Statista Internet Users On YouTube as of Q3 2020
That is huge penetration. So if your site is on YouTube, is optimized and engaging with the right keywords, hashtags and content, your audience will discover your brand!
Finally, YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world (and the biggest is Google. Google also owns YouTube by the way)! So keywords & optimization play a huge role here for your social engagement and presence.
3. Twitter
Twitter is a social media platform that has over 145 million daily users, making it a prime platform for marketing one’s manufacturing business. Most notably are Twitter’s features of sharing, following, and using hashtags to connect to your target market audience.
Obsidian Manufacturing Industries, Inc. harnesses the power of Twitter to reach thousands of followers. By having an established profile stating your company’s location, official website, and a catchy description, you can increase your followers on your business’s Twitter account.
They have nearly 3000 followers and posted 3072 tweets over the 3 years!
Being active on Social helps gain visibility.
Their content type on twitter includes:
- Giveaways
- Videoes
- New Vacancies
- Retweets
- Questions & Engagements
- Motivation posts
- Insights
- & more!
They also post multiple times and types of most per day!
4. Instagram
Instagram is a social media platform primarily for younger audiences, with the most prominent age group falling between 25 and 34.
Image Source: Statista.com
The platform is all about visuals, so if you have high-quality photos of your services or company, consider using Instagram to market your business.
For example, General Electric uses Instagram and catchy hashtags to demonstrate manufacturing tutorials, behind the scenes, cool engineering shots for its audience, building up a good following on the platform.
It really is a marvel to look at and appreciate.
They have catered to the Instagram audience and have been able to attract not only potential prospects but potential employees, vendors, suppliers, contractors, and others who will want to be associated with a cool brand.
Their content types on Instagram include:
- Stories
- Images & Videos
- (drone shots, heavy equipment, engineering, and complex equipment shots)
- Brand Videos
- Employee Videos, Photography & Spotlight
- Company initiatives
- Success stories
A manufacturing brand like GE that is very heavily engineering-based appreciates great design and understands the importance of appealing to the younger audience on Instagram.
5. Facebook
Facebook is powerful for many reasons. This social media platform has survived controversy after controversy (remember Cambridge Analytica or boycott by big brands with #StopHateForProfit).
Despite that, this social network not only has grown more profit, but acquired more brands, added more features and offerings, and grown their monthly active users month after month.
Kudos to Zuckerburg for keeping it going! The numbers and their growth do not lie!
However, Facebook is playing an increasing role and penetration in Asian countries now more than ever.
India, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Egypt, Bangladesh & Pakistan are accounting for the bulk of the penetration.
Source: Statista – Leading Countries Based On Facebook Audience Size as of October 2020
So if you have a manufacturing brand that has a global reach with markets or ambitions to sell overseas, then being on Facebook plays an important role.
Brands need a presence of Facebook to reach end consumers as many of them have a Facebook profile
Also, Facebook does have a high penetration of older demographic vs. younger demographic (compared to Instagram).
Facebook is a very versatile platform that allows for pretty much anything and everything:
- You can have links (you can’t on Instagram; except in the bio or when advertising
- You can share pictures
- You can upload videos or share videos (it prefers when you upload directly to its platform vs. sharing a YouTube link as it considers it a competitor)
- You can do live videos
- Hashtags
- Contests
- Long-form content
Because of that, the flexibility in creating and sharing content on Facebook for marketers in manufacturing companies is truly amazing.
On top of that, now with Facebook being able to provide e-commerce capabilities right on the platform, it allows for ways to generate a new channel for revenue growth.
If you have a manufacturing operation that sells direct to consumers (instead of B2B) – Facebook is even more important.
A great example of this is the Timex Page on Facebook:
Again, they provide great details and highlights about their company culture, engage users and actually sell on the platform with their Facebook catalogue.
Conclusion
Social media is now at the forefront of nearly every business on the market, including manufacturing companies.
Make the most of your business by establishing yourself online using the social media networks mentioned above, and start building your reputation & growth for years to come.
Want to learn how we can help with your social media? Check out our social media services.
Or better yet, call us at 1 833 WEB WORX and contact-us via email we can give you a quick consultation on how we can help!
From a start-up helping local small businesses, over a span of 5 years, Usman has built Web Worx Labs to be a leading provider of digital marketing solutions that employs 15+ full-time employees and has customers in over 30 countries.
Outside of work and his passion for all things digital, Usman is a proud father of three, loves running and is an avid reader.
Follow Usman on LinkedIn or Twitter as he is always sharing tips on strategy, branding, marketing and analytics.