3 Best Social Networks for Industrial Companies
The best social networks for industrial companies are LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. Learn more about these platforms below!
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insights from 237,500+ hours of manufacturing marketing experience
Is your industrial company looking for a way to expand your reach, outshine your competitors, and boost your revenue? If so, we’ve got the perfect strategy for you: Social media marketing.
Hang on, what? Social media? That might work for businesses that sell to consumers, but is that really a good idea for industrial companies like yours? Believe it or not, the answer is yes.
Here’s the thing: You might sell to businesses, but your marketing is targeting specific decision-makers at those businesses. And those decision-makers are likely on social media.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that every social media platform is equally beneficial for every industry. As an industrial company, you’ll find certain sites more helpful than others for reaching your target audience. On this page, we’ll look at the three best social networks for industrial companies:
You can find out more about why those platforms are so helpful for your marketing below. And if you want even more info on how best to market your industrial company, be sure to subscribe to Revenue Weekly, our email newsletter!
Social network #1: LinkedIn
The first social network on our list is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a business social media site where professionals can connect with companies and fellow professionals. It’s primarily used for job-hunting and professional networking, though companies also like to use it as a place to post achievements and news updates.
Why LinkedIn is good for industrial companies
LinkedIn connects more industrial and manufacturing companies with B2B clients than any other social network. That’s because LinkedIn is designed as a professional network, meaning its users are there for business-related information.
As an industrial company, that gives you the chance to connect with key decision-makers in a variety of industries. You can even do it across multiple accounts — in addition to what you post from your main business account, your high-ranking executives can also post various achievements and updates from their personal accounts.
However you go about it, though, it’ll help promote your business.
How to use LinkedIn for industrial companies
On LinkedIn, you build “connections” with other users by sending them invitations to connect. You can also “follow” certain industry figures to see their updates and hear the latest thought leadership in your field. That lets you stay up to date on your industry while you’re searching for new leads.
You can start getting those leads by connecting with decision-makers at companies that you think would be good partners for your brand. Then, you can send them direct messages to talk about their business, share information from your site, discuss other industry news, and more.
A direct message is one of the best ways to earn new leads because it functions just like email. You can demonstrate your professionalism and industry knowledge all in a short message. Once someone responds, you’ve got the ball rolling, and you can start talking about how your business can help theirs. When used correctly, you can essentially reach out to new leads the same way you would in real life sales situations. You can also use LinkedIn for recruiting skilled hires.
In fact, you don’t even have to do this through your main business profile. You can create a profile for your personal use and speak to potential leads on behalf of your company. That’ll have (more or less) the same impact as speaking directly from a branded page, and you can still get new leads.
Social network #2: YouTube
Next up on our list is YouTube, a site you’re no doubt familiar with. As the world’s largest video-sharing social network and community, YouTube is a valuable social media platform for all businesses, particularly industrial companies.
Why YouTube is good for industrial companies
It may seem odd to see YouTube listed as a social media option for industrial companies. After all, YouTube is probably best known for its many videos of cats jumping in and out of boxes.
But despite its reputation as a time-wasting website, YouTube offers a lot of potential value to industrial companies like yours. That value lies in how-to videos and demonstrations. This is where you get the chance to show your potential clients exactly what you can do with all of your industrial equipment and manufacturing products.
Better yet, you can establish a reputation for yourself as one of the leading authorities in your industry. You’re showing people how your equipment works, why it’s important, and how you help your clients. For anyone who’s still in the research process, those videos are worth their weight in gold.
How to use YouTube for industrial companies
It’s always nice to see that a potential business partner knows what they’re doing. And that’s exactly what you’re demonstrating to your prospects when you post videos on YouTube. After you post them, you can promote the videos by linking to them on your other social media accounts — especially LinkedIn.
Then you can add the videos to pages on your site (called “embedding”) so your visitors can see them while reading relevant information. That’ll also give your page a big SEO bump since Google loves to see videos on your site. All in all, that means YouTube gives you another social option, a great way to demonstrate your expertise, and SEO power all at the same time.
Just like with LinkedIn, you can start today with a free account.
Social network #3: Facebook
Facebook is the first platform many people think of when they hear the words “social media,” and for good reason. It’s the single largest social network in the world, with more than 1 billion active daily users. That makes it one of the best options available for businesses.
Why Facebook is good for industrial companies
Because Facebook is essentially the most popular social media platform in the world, the odds are extremely high that you can find your target audience there. It’s a goldmine for finding new industrial leads.
That’s especially true since Facebook has a particularly wide array of advertising options, allowing you to target your prospects with both organic and paid social media content. That combo will inevitably help you drive a lot more sales over time.
Finally, when you post on Facebook, it’s not just shown to your followers. Your posts will also show up in the feeds of your followers’ friends, meaning it doesn’t just reach your initial audience — it can reach hundreds or thousands of others.
This snowball effect is the biggest benefit of marketing on Facebook. Everything you say has the potential to echo to thousands of other people because of how Facebook designed its algorithm.
How to use Facebook for industrial companies
Facebook users mostly log into their accounts during their free time, which means your approach to earning new leads on Facebook should be different from earning leads on LinkedIn.
To start, you can create an account for yourself and then a page for your business. After that, you can fill in all the information Facebook requires, including profile and header photos. The photos may not seem important, but they’re a great way to reinforce your brand and show customers that you’re an active presence online.
The alternative is to keep Facebook’s default images, but those make it look like you don’t know what you’re doing online. And as we mentioned above, it’s critical that you inspire confidence in your brand when you use social media.
That means using unique photos, regularly posting updates to your business page, and even occasionally sharing your business’s updates on your personal page. But the beauty of Facebook is how easily you can reach thousands of people at one time.
To start, post something to your page about your industry. That could be a blog post from your site, a video from YouTube, or even just a thought that your followers would find interesting.
Then, users who follow your business’s page will see your update. That could be anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred people. But once they start sharing or commenting on your post, your followers can make your post more visible.
Best of all, you can post links to your other social media profiles to build cross-platform synergy. That lets you reach the same people in multiple places online, increasing the chances that they’ll eventually convert into new leads.
With all that, you have three powerful marketing methods that you can start today — and they’re all free!
WebFX is an expert social media agency
At WebFX, we understand that every social network offers something unique to industrial companies like yours, and we have a team of social media experts who regularly earn outstanding results for our clients with various types of social media marketing strategies.
In fact, several of our team members are industry thought leaders and regularly experiment with new ways to earn value for our clients by increasing product sales and earning the highest possible return on investment (ROI).
Contact us today or call us at 888-601-5359to set up a social media plan for your industrial company!
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