10 Social Media content Ideas for Manufacturers
We often look at manufacturing and social media as strange bedfellows. We don't see the connection and the relationship, but the reality is very different.
Manufacturing and its processes can tie in very well with social media and you can use social media in many ways to generate interest in you, your brand and your company.
"Manufacturing is more than just putting parts together. It's coming up with ideas, testing principles and perfecting the engineering, as well as final assembly". James Dyson
Manufacturing is about putting things together and social media is about telling stories of things. So, why don't you try to tell stories about how things are put together. There is an interest in how things are made. we seem to be hard-wired in to asking questions of how and why things are made.
How do you make that?
Why do you make it that way?
How can you put this things together to make something that improves my life?
These are just a few of the questions a social media marketer can ask in order to construct their story to tell your audience about your product.
I am a firm believer that social media is all about giving a shop window to a product, an idea or a person, and it can be done for anything. All you need to do is search for inspiration in the product and create content that will get people talking a out you and your brand.
Whether you are B2B or B2C, your goal is to sell a product. Sales come from building relationships, and it doesn't matter who your customers are, you can use social media to engage with your customers; engagement leads to sales.
Below are ten ways social media can be used to promote you and your brand, raise awareness and increase engagement with you, which in turn can be used to convert your audience into customers and those customers in turn can become brand advocates.
Contents
Blog posts
Blog posts are great ways to get your thoughts about aspects of your industry to a wider audience. Choose a series of topics and write about them to show who you are and what your company stands for. The blog is also an invaluable medium for you to show your expertise, thus raising yourself up to be seen as an expert in your field.
Blogs can also be used by your employees, where they can blog about their job, their routines and the reasons they chose to work with you.
E-Books
E-books are another great way to let your audience know who you are and what you and your brand are about. You can use your blog posts to create an e-book on an area of your industry you can then illustrate to your audience how much of an expert you are in your chosen field.
Through branded e-books you can set yourself up to be seen as that expert in your field, which will ultimately increase your reputation and your standing in the industry. This standing will in turn illicit increased sales and revenue.
Factory Tours
Your business is part of your community. Your workers come from the community. Your sales may even come from within your community, so being seen as open and welcoming in the community raises brand awareness. Use in-person or virtual tours to educate.
One other important feature of factory tours is that you can educate the community in what you are about and you can then reach out into the community for your workforce. Teaming up with local educators to participate in the factory tours opens up avenues for potential employees to take up apprenticeships in manufacturing, which in turn lessens the skills gap and reduces the skills shortage.
"The factory is the machine that builds the machine". Elon Musk
Open Days
Open days are very similar to the factory tours we have mentioned in that you are reaching out into the community to educate, engage and empower the individuals in remembering your brand.
Open days can be used through liaison with educational services to raise awareness of your business, specific roles within the company and how your company is not just about making money. Open days can show that your company is responsible to the community at large and that there is a symbiotic relationship between brand and community. The company is better with the business in it and the business is better within the community.
Q&A Sessions
Social media can be used to show Q&A sessions through video, live video posts, and through interactions on social media platforms.
For example, you could use Twitter and YouTube to live stream a question and answer session on particular aspects of your business. This event could be tied to an open day or a factory tour, where you can gamify the Q&A sessions and tours to encourage an increased engagement with your employees, your customers and visitors.
News & Views
Do you send out a regular newsletter to your mailing list? If you do then good. If you don’t, you really need to start. A regular update of your brand, your company and your industry keeps people thinking about you and your brand.
You can use social to perform similar uses. Post regular titbits about your brand or industry through your social media and ask questions. Ask questions of your audience and reward the best answer. Again this type of engagement could be gamified to increase interaction wth the brand.
“Build it, and they will come” only works in the movies. Social Media is a “build it, nurture it, engage them, and they may come and stay.” Seth Godin
How to Videos
The how-to videos can be produced to work with the e-books, tutorials and the shop window. They are a great way to show what you are producing and how you are producing it. There are many videos these days of time-lapse additive manufacturing, but you do not have to limit yourself to this.
Try and produce a video of how your product fits into the end product or how to use the product and how that product can improve the life of your customer.
You can gamify this by offering prizes to your workforce for the production of the best videos.
Tutorials
A tutorial is an account or an explanation of a subject or task, especially as an online video. Using this definition, look at areas of your business where you will be able to educate your audience on the use of your product, a particular aspect of your business or of how you and your business work within the community.
The tutorial is the perfect way to showcase your company and show your audience how community-centric you are and how you environmentally aware you and your brand are.
Shop Window
Social media has a global audience and there are 4.55 billion active users which equates to over 50% of the world's population. Think about it. You are now able to potentially reach half the world to show your brand to, so if you use social media in a strategic manner, you will be able to increase your reach and your potential customer base.
Therefore, you need to view social media platforms as a way to showcase who you are and what you do.
Interviews
Take the time to interview your employees. Let your employees tell their stories and let them show why you are a good company to work for and why you are a good company to do business with.
You can also conduct interviews with suppliers and vendors and again, allow them the time to praise you and your organization. These interviews can be reciprocal, win-win for you and your supplier, vendor, customer, end-user; whoever you choose to interview.
Your interviews are the modern testimonials you would have received before the advent of social media.
In order to be successful with your use of social media, it would be advisable to remember what it is you do and who your ideal customer is. If you aim your content at educating the customer and answering the questions they have about your brand, then you will be able to engage with a wider audience thus increasing your sales potential.
If you would like to find out how Accent on Training can help you become a more efficient and effective manager, contact us and we will be happy to talk with about what we can do for you.
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About the author
Jonathan Moore is the founder of Accent on Training, a Social Media Management, Brand and Website design agency based in Seoul, South Korea. For nearly ten years, he has helped clients in developing their businesses online through branding, website design and bespoke social media marketing solutions.
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