logo

“We Didn’t Know You Guys Did That” – The Social Media Effect.

The Social media Effect in Construction

“We didn’t know you guys did that”, said the client’s client.

It became our job to make sure people did know.  This was a job for Social Media, in coordination with other marketing programs.

First, we needed a commitment to content.

No content? No social media.

When client “X” committed to a social media campaign, the first thing we did is make it clear what was necessary to do this right.  Construct Marketing believes that NO ONE can create content that speaks authentically to the brand and culture and capabilities of a company than its own people.  From the field personnel to the principals themselves, to do this right would take a perpetual team effort.  It would require a quarterback, which would be our role, to devine from the company spring the tweets, posts, and quotes that would, “Make sure they know what you do.”   That created buy-in.  As everyone is vested in the success of the company, everyone would own a little piece of the marketing burden.  In this case, the production and curation of content.   We just had to make sure it was disseminated regularly, spread across the scope of company capabilities, and spoke “on-brand”.

Furthermore, we were going to crawl before we walked.

Therefore, we got to know the company’s assets – its people.  Fortunately for us, we found some storytellers and some photographers.  That’s about 95% of the battle.  Next, we created a pipeline and started to churn the wheels of content creation. “Jim, what projects are running? What’s coming up”, “Pam, what equipment’s being used & where?”, “Juan, do you have any shots of the pile job in Queens?”, “Terry do you have a few lines and some video from the work you’re doing in Jersey City?”, “Hey Ms. CEO – What you got?”, etc. etc. repeat.  Where we had to, we would fill in with curated content, relevant, high-value content that was created elsewhere and was worth sharing.  Why?  Because the audience would have interest in it.

Rule: Bring content of value.

Second, with the pipeline full, we need to build up that audience.

All company collateral – add Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter logos to design.  All advertising – add Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter logos to design. add Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter logos to e-mail signatures. add Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter logos to the website. etc. etc. etc.

The company didn’t have a marketing database so… we built one.  E-mails to every department: Send us your data for an email blast!  Everyone in the company who has contacts, and will share them – please share them!  APB to all departments… “We need your data!”  Dear Ms. CEO, Please advise your company that we need their help!  Please advise that our efforts to build a database needs contacts!

E-mail blast everyone we can muster that we have social media pages! Like Them! Please!  Luckily, we had a few things coming out of the pipeline that we could include in the e-mail to invite them to visit the page to view. (And like us while you’re there!) Herein is a key to the audience build.  If you have high-value content, combined with a growing e-mail campaign, you can feed the audience to your pages through your e-mail campaign that provides news, stories, content of interest.

Employees! We need more help! If you have contacts you can e-mail directly, please do so and ask them to follow our new pages!  Please Post the new page to your own accounts (if willing) and invite people to follow!

Yeah, it’s a bit sloppy in the beginning, but until you get rolling, the audience build is a function of reaching “who you can, however you can”.  After that, it’s a bit more art and methodology, with content being the bait.  Provide high-quality content on your pages, backed up by other marketing and promotional support, and the audience will grow.

Rule: Building a social media audience is a process, not an event.

Today a healthy social media campaign delivers a regular stream of content and information into the phones and computers of the client’s client and the client’s potential client base.

Now they know.

 

Read: The Social Media Quarterback

Read: Social Medusa

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published.