When we speak with manufacturing companies, they often don’t believe that social media marketing is something that would benefit their business. They tend to believe social media is only something that people do with friends or that it’s something that other industries can use effectively.
Well, we know this not to be the case.
In fact, social media can and should be a strong component of any company’s marketing strategy, especially manufacturers. It is during these conversations with manufacturing teams that we talk about instances where we have helped similar companies succeed using social media, and offer them information from studies like the ones found here and here.
And one of the best social media platforms for manufacturing companies to be on is LinkedIn.
Top 3 LinkedIn Strategies for Manufacturers
With some careful planning and commitment, companies can use their LinkedIn profiles to deliver leads, website traffic, portray the company as experts in the industry and much more. To help guide you down the right path with LinkedIn, here are three strategies in addition to our LinkedIn best practices that we have seen manufacturing companies use to help achieve their overall business goals:
1.Use your Company page to drive prospects into your conversion funnel
Making sure that your LinkedIn company page has all the appropriate fields filled out is a must. If nothing else, it will provide visitors who land there a little bit more information about your company. But don’t go for just populating each field. Think carefully about how you can use each element to help deepen the engagement between your company and the visitor.
What can you use as a banner image to quickly capture someone’s attention? Can you hint that you have prized white papers that they would love to read? Is there a special announcement that someone would be apt to sign up for? Is news about an upcoming product launch important? Free advice?
People will get bored reading your business overview. What can you do to stand out in one or two sentences? How can you state your value in a fun and engaging way? Write something that gets people wanting to read more and open the description or scroll down to the description to see your website link.
By expressing your value proposition through the different areas of your LinkedIn page, you are more likely to get visitors to click on the link to your website to get them deeper into your conversion funnel.
2.Use LinkedIn as a tool to connect to the right people
Whether you are looking for some quality customer leads or the right candidate for an open position, LinkedIn can help.
There are a number of ways that LinkedIn can be used to fill an open position at your company. You can post openings that will appear under the Jobs tab on your business page. They will also be shown to targeted candidates on LinkedIn. In addition to posting, you can utilize your network to look for potential candidates and use your connections to facilitate introductions.
To use LinkedIn to generate leads, you can use your network to find people who are in the right positions at targeted companies (whether they are buyers, decision makers or managers). By pinpointing who you need to reach, you can target your tactics towards those people.
Another way you can leverage LinkedIn to reach your audience is to do paid advertising. You can develop ads to direct people to your LinkedIn profile or your website, and truly segment who sees the ads. Ads allow your to reach people on LinkedIn and develop an audience based on location, company they work at, education, job title and a number of other attributes.
3. Become an Expert
Designate someone within your company to become the expert in a topic related to your industry. The employee will then become responsible for posting, connecting and engaging on LinkedIn. That person should write articles that reinforce their knowledge and expertise. Articles should be posted to both their personal profile and the company page. These articles can help increase the visibility of the company, and people will continue to view the company as a leader in the industry.
In addition, the selected employee should find one or two LinkedIn Groups to participate in. It’s best to find ones that have more engagement than to join dormant ones. Once a few Groups are selected, the employee should become active posting in the Group as well as responding to other Group member questions and comments. By continuing to engage, provide expert advice and share knowledge, others in the industry (thought leaders, potential customers, ) will take note of what a leader your company is.
Grow Your Manufacturing Business’s Presence on LinkedIn & Increase Your Leads
By following these three simple LinkedIn marketing strategies, you can turn your manufacturing business’s presence on LinkedIn around and incorporate it as an integral part of your digital marketing strategy.
Do you think you can improve on how your company uses LinkedIn? Ultimately, if you’re unhappy with the success of your LinkedIn business page, it’s probably time to invest in LinkedIn Marketing.
Not sure where to start? Please give Mannix Marketing a call at 518-743-9424 or schedule a free consultation with one of our social media experts.
