With a whopping 2.3million+ active users, Facebook has grown to become of the largest connective platforms in history.

Everybody’s heard of it and, if stats like the one above are anything to go by, everybody’s using it.

Social Media Marketing

So, why did we start off this post by asking you that somewhat contentious question about how much time you’re wasting on it?

By ‘you’ we mean manufacturing businesses, who we’ve been providing proven lead generation sales pipeline and marketing services for, for more than 15 years.

And in our vast experience of leading and developing new B2B business opportunities for this amount of time, we know that (as much as we hate to say it) if you’re a manufacturer who’s putting all of their social media eggs into the Facebook basket, you’re most probably getting little ROI from it.

You see, plainly speaking, Facebook isn’t set up for B2B businesses. It’s great at showing you what your friends get up to at the weekend, who’s got married, who’s expecting and whose birthday it is, but from a B2B perspective, it’s not a B2B marketing platform.

What’s more, due to sophisticated algorithm updates, Facebook no longer shows all posts to all followers, which means it can be difficult to scale your efforts unless you use boosted posts or paid for advertising campaigns, which obviously come at a cost. You could try these options, but let’s face it, the chances of the likes of JCB’s chief buyer engaging with you on Facebook is highly unlikely.

But you don’t have to rip up your social media strategies right away, you just need to tweak them, so they’re more in line with the world in which you operate. And the good news is that it is possible to deliver social media for manufacturing companies that does make a difference.

For instance, you could focus on using a B2B platform, such as LinkedIn, instead. You’ll certainly see a marked difference in your results.

LinkedIn is great for researching job titles, but, of course, not everybody’s profile will show up unless you’re connected to them or subscribe to paid versions, which also have their limitations. Yes, there are automated systems out there that can help you with the LinkedIn legwork, but won’t guarantee the top buyers within the top companies are going to engage with you.

So, what’s the solution for amplifying your LinkedIn lead gen efforts? In fact, is there a solution at all? Yes, there is, and it involves building your LinkedIn activity around these three key areas:

  1. Proposition

Before you even start to put your LinkedIn wheels, or any other social media wheels, in action you need to nail your proposition, which involves asking yourself – why should companies choose you over the competition? What’s unique about your offering? How does your expertise stand out from the rest? What’s so impressive about your resources/service/delivery etc?

  1. Digital inbound marketing

How does your company perform in online searches? The best attraction marketing campaigns hone in on the decision-makers who have a challenge/issue they need to overcome now, hence the reason why they’re hitting the search engines. The question is – are your products/services guaranteed to show up within their search results, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated due to many factors including GoogleAds, artificial intelligence and voice-activated search, which is a whole world in itself away from traditional SEO?

  1. Outbound

Support your digital inbound marketing efforts with direct marketing campaigns that target the buyers and budget holders who don’t know and trust you yet, as well as those who’ve found you within their online searches.

Your outbound activity should involve carrying out desk research into identifying the right companies, using the telephone and LinkedIn to find the name of the right person to approach and asking permission to market to them. You’ll also need to deliver the right information at the right frequency in the right formats (words, graphics, emails, posted mail, case studies and videos), to encourage prospects to know you, like you and trust you. And this needs to be implemented using an integrated approach, which includes generating relevant tailored content on a regular basis.

Got any questions or need help with any of the three areas above? We have significant experience in creating and delivering highly successful social media for manufacturing strategies and can do the same for your business. Contact us on 01827 69772 or you can use the form on this page for more information.