Social Smackdown: What Are the Best Social Media Ads for Manufacturers?
by MGB2B
Social media advertising is a valuable piece of your manufacturing company’s marketing program. It’s right up there more traditional media like in-person events and trade publications. And just like choosing trade shows or magazines to run ads in, social media channels depend on your brand, message, and budget. So, to help you along the way, we’ve evaluated Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn below. Take a look and determine which offer(s) the best social media ads for manufacturers based on campaign goals and budget.
Social Smackdown: The Best Social Media Ads for Manufacturers
First up: the channel that is still largely believed to be a B2C only platform. While Facebook certainly falls on the more social side of social media, it has a whole host of B2B benefits. Facebook is a good place to highlight your company’s personality and culture through photos and videos. Imagine your target audience scrolling through their news feeds – what are they doing? Glancing at photos of friends and family, checking out local events, and reading articles related to their personal interests. So Facebook isn’t the ideal place to promote your highly technical white paper. But it is a great home for photos of your latest employee recognition night, holiday party, or trade show. When it comes to advertising on Facebook, here are a few things to keep in mind:
What Facebook Ads Are Good For:
- Growing your social media audience
- Recruiting talent
- Promoting content (blogs, infographics, videos)
What Facebook Ads Cost:
- Under $0.50 CPC (cost per click)
- Under $0.50 per like
To learn even more about what to expect with Facebook advertising, check out this guide from Buffer.
Next up: Twitter, the micro-blogging channel often favored by manufacturers and B2C companies alike. Twitter has made rapid response a standard in social media customer service. Twitter is ideal for dropping a quick hook and pulling users onto your manufacturing website. Many users follow a combination of personal and professional accounts. Users are generally less put off by promotional messaging than they would be on Facebook. That being said, Twitter has become an advertising ocean where your message can easily get lost. Using attention-grabbing visuals and carefully built audiences can help your ads land in front of the right eyeballs.
What Twitter Ads Are Good For:
- Growing your social media audience
- Promoting content (blogs, articles, infographics)
- Building awareness
- Highlighting event attendance
- Launching new products
What Twitter Ads Cost:
- Around $1 CPC
- Under $2.50 per follower
To learn how to improve your Twitter ads (while they’re running), read this blog.
As the social media network for professionals, LinkedIn fits right into many B2B social media strategies. Since profiles are tied to users’ professional identities, it’s more likely that their information is valid and up to date. Half of B2B buyers refer to LinkedIn when making purchase decisions. Running social media ads for manufacturers makes a lot of sense. Content like white papers, blog posts, and technical articles that didn’t work on Facebook are a great fit for LinkedIn. And, you can target users based on their job titles, functions, and seniority. But before you slap some ads up, here’s what you need to know:
What LinkedIn Ads Are Good For:
- Promoting content (white papers, technical guides, downloadable resources)
- Recruiting talent
- Building awareness
- Lead generation
What LinkedIn Ads Cost:
- CPC ranges between $3-$10
Including social media advertising in your marketing strategy can help your manufacturing company reach new audiences, share valuable content, gain leads and talent, and help support existing customers. Every campaign is different, as are the costs and benefits, but the guidelines above can help you begin to form a plan for your social strategy. Need help taking it to the next level? Drop us a line.
Continue Reading6 Ways to Use Twitter Moments for B2B Brands
by MGB2B
Photo Source: Twitter Blog
Twitter has been bending over backwards to gain new users. You may have noticed a slew of new features such as: “What’s Happening?” at login, a channel-wide push for live video, and notifications that tell you what people you follow are saying on Twitter. Yet, what is possibly the most useful tool Twitter has released in the past several weeks seems to have slipped under the radar: Twitter Moments. The feature is accessible to everyone as of a few weeks ago. And it is now available for use on mobile for the first time!).
A Little Background on Moments
Maybe you remember all of the pomp and circumstance around the release of Moments in late 2015, topped off with a TV ad campaign earlier this year. Moments launched as a feature visible to all Twitter users, but customizable by only a few. These collections of five to ten tweets about topics like science, sports, and entertainment were curated exclusively by Twitter employees and select publishers, leaving average users rather disconnected. Now that they are available for all users to create and with the ease of using your phone, Twitter Moments for B2B brands can become a useful tool in your social media arsenal.
Unlike a single retweet, a Twitter Moment allows you to collect and share several tweets at once from other users. For example, if you were to create a Twitter Moment about Elon Musk’s recent presentation on traveling to Mars, you may have selected a tweet from The Verge showing people flooding into the room, a tweet from a fellow viewer as Musk took the stage, and several tweets highlighting main points Musk made, as well as questions from the audience. While none of these tweets came from you personally, they would represent discussions and points of view that interest you.
Once you have a handle on how to create them, check out these 6 ways to use Twitter Moments for B2B brands:
- Cover events and trade shows. B2B trade shows create a flurry of great tweets and exchanges between exhibitors and visitors. In addition to pumping out content about your own experience at the show, use a Twitter Moment to aggregate 10 or so tweets that sum up the event. You or someone on your social media team can create Moments as in-the-moment updates during the show or as a summary of each day of the event.
- Offer commentary on conferences. Similar to the trade show tips above, Twitter Moments can create valuable summaries of conferences, webinars, workshops, and other live events for you and your followers. A Moment consisting of tweets posted throughout the presentation can help demonstrate your company’s perspective on a topic or simply act as an outline of the information you just received.
- Bolster product launches. Many trade publications rely on social media just as heavily as email to distribute news about new B2B products. As you send out your press release, create a Moment to aggregate tweets from these publications as they spread your news on Twitter.
- Follow market trends. Use Moments to track things that impact your industry (or your customers’ industries) such as new regulations, research, and other changes. Follow emerging technologies that could become new applications for your company’s products. Or monitor fluctuations in market value.
- Showcase your company’s interests. Does your company support a cause? Or are you closely tied to the surrounding community? Help your followers learn more about your company by sharing Moments about things that are important to you.
- Position your CEO as a thought leader. A CEO who maintains an active social media presence can offer many benefits to their company. Most importantly, it ties a personality and face to the company. This creates a persona customers can connect with. It’s a great way to demonstrate interest in things that impact the company’s well being. Yet with only 39% of Fortune 500 CEOs using social media, many Twitter users following B2B companies don’t know who CEOs are or what interests them. This is something you can take the lead on.
Now that the feature has been extended for use on mobile, Twitter Moments for B2B brands can become an even more versatile tool for PR and event coverage. Time to seize the Moment!
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