Social media can be a valuable asset for marketing engineering companies due to its vast audience reach. However, there are huge numbers of platforms to choose from. Here we will consider which platforms will help you most efficiently.
As an engineering or scientific SME, your company is aiming to engage in business-to-business (B2B) interactions and LinkedIn is an ideal social media platform to focus your efforts. Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn is specifically designed for professional networking, making it an excellent environment for connecting with any industry, from aerospace, defence, automotive, energy, transport …
You’ll be able to reach purchasing teams and engineers on production lines who need precisely the product or service you are offering.
One of the primary reasons LinkedIn stands out for B2B engagement is that the audience is already open to professional and business-related communications. This means your target audience, and that can include potential and existing staff and funders, is likely to be more receptive to your message.
You won’t need to rely as heavily on the flashy or entertainment-focused tactics that are often necessary on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube to grab attention.
Instead, LinkedIn users are typically happy to learn about opportunities to grow their business, learn about industry trends, discover valuable services, and connect with other professionals, which aligns perfectly with B2B goals.
Moreover, LinkedIn allows you to present your brand as an expert within your industry through articles, case studies, white papers, and insightful posts. This type of content adds value and showcases your company’s expertise, which will lead to stronger engagement from your audience.
WGM Engineering (https://www.linkedin.com/company/wgm-engineering/) is one of the many engineering companies to efficiently express all the information they want to share on LinkedIn. On their profile they have a clear and concise summary about their company, such as how many employees they have and different job roles available in the company.
Looking at the latest available data, the most popular social media platform with over 3 billion monthly active users is Facebook. The main function of the platform is sharing interests and starting conversations through images, short videos or statements.
However, with 37% of the world logging in at least once a month, this is still a huge audience particularly within the 25–34-year demographic, which represents almost a third of the total.
Facebook has several techniques to market your company, particularly in business-to-consumer (b2c), such as: direct response advertising, creating a Facebook business page and regular communications to increase brand loyalty.
Most of Facebook’s audience are not looking for goods or services to purchase, but for socialisation and entertainment.
Therefore, your social media posts will need to incentivize the consumer with an efficient, creative way to make them click and learn more about your product or engineering service.
A good example of a large company with an effective Facebook communications strategy is Airbus (https://www.facebook.com/airbus). It has built 2.8 million followers and amassed 2.4 million likes on their Facebook account.
To achieve this, they post simple images about their planes, other products, services and the company as a whole, informing everyone who might be interested, whether that’s existing and potential: customers, staff, funders … everyone.
An example of a smaller engineering company having success with Facebook advertisements is Balfour Beatty (https://www.facebook.com/@balfourbeatty) who have amassed 25 thousand followers and use hashtags to pull in an engineering specific audience.
Anyone who searches for certain hashtags they use such as #engineering will be able to see what they have been saying about that particular subject.
YouTube is another efficient channel to market engineering companies , with 2.5 billion users logging in monthly. The focus of YouTube is video based with an average video length of 10 minutes, but video marketers recommend between 6-8 minutes to maintain viewer retention.
GKN Aerospace (https://www.youtube.com/@GKNAero) have created a YouTube channel which shows another side of the company by uploading relatively low budget videos of their workers discussing the company to create an authentic, personal feel and increase relatability .
These videos have gained up to 8.1k views and every view is a potential new client, or member of staff.
One of the many benefits of using any social media platform for advertising is that the cost is relatively low but can still bring in large audiences if you post regularly enough and share the right information creatively.
Additionally, on social media you can manage your budgets effectively from no cost to paid advertising options. It’s important to do this, placing limits on your spend, and although each person you reach costs a very small amount, this can quickly rack up as audience numbers are so huge.
A lack of social media presence can also negatively affect your marketing, not only because of the missed opportunity, but also not appearing when searched for. For example, other people’s videos about your company such as criticism can take your place spreading bad press about your company.
Overall, social media can greatly benefit marketing your engineering company (large or small) with its vast audience of both consumers, other companies and potential customer – all able to easily access information about your company if your social media is run correctly.
If you want more information on this, or to explore more opportunities around social media, drop us an email- info@aroprandmarketing.co.uk or phone 0117 379 0008.