Promotion on social media is a more usual area for mass and consumer markets because it is the shortest and fastest channel of communication with customers. But on the other hand, every industrial company’s customers are people who use social media. Researchers argue that industrial companies rarely use social media, or use it as an additional means of communication. Therefore, the competition remains extremely low, and current promotion can increase the number of clients for factories many times over at a very low cost.
Why does SMM marketing for manufacturers matter?
Modern man is overloaded with information through various channels of communication. Therefore, he develops banner blindness, builds filters, and blocks attention. With competent SMM promotion, the main mechanism of interaction is communication on topics relevant to the user and the distribution of the content of interest to him. Communication and content contain a mandatory promotional message, but at the same time, unlike advertising, represent value for the user.
This is an excellent tool for solving strategic long-term marketing tasks: building brand reputation, increasing recognition and awareness of the brand, raising loyalty and trust in the company’s products, conducting market research, tracking opinions and attitudes among the target audience.
In the case of most other marketing tools, work with the audience is built in a one-way format: the advertiser delivers information about his product and has no opportunity to receive feedback. In social networks this process is two-way: users can express their opinion, ask, participate in polls. The result is a deeper interaction with the target audience than in the case of traditional advertising.
The key advantage of social networks is the maximum opportunities for targeting the audience. Users have already provided maximum information about themselves: age, place of residence, marital status, education, profession, hobbies, and many other facts. As a result, the marketer has much more information than in the case of other marketing tools, and it makes it possible to work only with those users who best match your target audience.
In social networks, you can participate in communities, groups and find representatives of that professional stratum, which is the target audience of the company. You can create your own groups to establish new business connections, promote products and services, discuss professional issues, exchange expert opinions and information.
Practice confirms that developing social networks helps SEO promotion. In this case, search engine optimization methods work faster and more successfully.
The functionality of social networks is perfectly suited to bring together not only potential customers and partners but also employees of the company. Closed groups can help organize the process of internal training and communications.
It’s no secret that the staffing problem has been acute in recent years. It is more difficult to find and retain employees. Taking into account the fact that today’s young people communicate on social networks, the company that will talk to them in the same language will win when recruiting staff at different levels.
How to start promoting?
Coming to social networks should be meaningful, planned, and with clearly defined tasks. The goals of promotion can be to create a positive image in social networks, increase sales, promote the HR brand as an attractive employer, etc.
It is important to prepare a portrait of the target audience. These can be customers for whom it is important to form a positive image and increase the popularity of the brand, employees for whom it is worth broadcasting the principles of the company’s positioning, and partners for whom it is important to form a high business reputation.
The next step is to create a content plan, which should have the following ratio: 40% engaging content, 30% expert content, 25% entertainment content, and 5% sales content.
It is important to identify the tools of promotion: community building, content management, community management, targeted advertising, organic advertising, cooperation with bloggers, contests, etc.
The strategy for promotion in social networks should be formalized in the form of a document and then work according to a clear plan, tied to certain deadlines. The strategy will make it possible to structure the work, control the process and promptly monitor the effectiveness.
Social networking is a dynamic environment in which things constantly change. Therefore, a common approach is to delegate promotion tasks to specialists. Now, it is not efficient to spend time on attracting initial activity, but it’s more profitable to buy Instagram followers, Twitter, TikTok, etc. It is important to attract a person who has good design skills, SMM tools, etc.
How to engage and retain an audience?
To begin with, you should think carefully about positioning. This will get rid of non-targeted requests and keep potential customers in the first seconds. To do this, write down the key advantages that separate your company from competitors, use figures, facts that confirm the reliability of the company, and increase confidence in the quality of services.
An important metric in social networks is the level of popularity. Popular accounts form a trustworthy first impression, are perceived as reliable and demanded, and reduce fear when making purchasing decisions. So, at the start of the promotion, it is effective to buy real Instagram followers, Twitter likes, YouTube views, etc. Almost all social networks today have a smart feed algorithm that notices content with high involvement and starts offering it to users. So, the purchase of activity metrics is an effective way to promote your account organically.
The growth of the audience and its loyalty directly depend on high-quality content and how interesting it will be for subscribers. The main components of great content are uniqueness and regularity.
To attract potential customers to our brand, it’s important to use a call to action in the content. For example, a call to sign up for a free subscription to a corporate magazine that publishes unique expert content or an invitation to visit an exhibition.
Use various quizzes, tests, polls, viral videos, promotional games, and other interactive activities that evoke positive emotions and increase user loyalty.
Conduct creative contests. This mechanic allows you to solve several problems at once. First, it increases the involvement of users. Being involved in active actions, users are more likely to return to the community, and, thus, a core of the target audience is formed.
The second is the ability to fill the group or page with user-generated content. Often contests are structured in such a way that participating users themselves generate content related to the company: for example, they take pictures with products or the logo, record video messages, etc. All of this accumulates in the community and thus increases its value.
Service as the most important factor
In industry, it is not only the quality of products that matters but also the service. In the zone of objective properties of products, everything is approximately the same, and demand in this area largely determines the comfort of interaction: speed, price, delivery, and information content. So, the service depends on how you provide information and keep in touch with the client on the Internet.
Proper informativeness is: when the content reflects problems and shows how the company can solve them, when the content is created in the language of the customer. When the plant focuses on decision-makers: not the mechanics, who are almost not involved in the purchase of parts but on managers, who need to convey the price and other benefits. When the plant is open to communication and actively responds to questions from the audience, such openness builds trust and invariably leads to purchases.
As a result, the use of SMM marketing will provide the ability to accurately identify the target audience and ensures its wide coverage, allows you to monitor traffic and analyze in detail the effectiveness of advertising companies, helps to maintain a dialog, and build trusting relationships with potential customers. The promotion of industrial enterprises requires a comprehensive approach, strategy development, and despite the specifics of the B2B sector, a creative approach.
