As social media evolves at the speed of light, we’re witnessing its transformative impact on the manufacturing industry, revealing unprecedented opportunities for engagement, customer support, and expansive marketing reach. While chasing every fleeting fad isn’t the most strategic approach, there are some social media trends worth adopting. This consideration holds as much importance for manufacturers as for any other industry, even with the unique opportunities and challenges social media presents within this sector.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss ten emergent trends that warrant attention and present case studies of manufacturers who are using social media successfully, demonstrating its profound impact on the manufacturing industry.
Top 10 Social Media Trends for Manufacturers
Let’s delve into the heart of our discussion on social media trends transforming manufacturing. These evolving trends are changing how manufacturers connect with their audience, handle customer outreach, and showcase their offerings. These are the top ten trends influencing this transformation:
1. Video Content
Visuals are indispensable, particularly when illustrating complex manufacturing processes. Video content ranks among the top social media trends, captivating viewers and effectively showcasing products, operations, and behind-the-scenes glimpses. Utilizing videos for demonstrations, manufacturing process walkthroughs, and customer testimonials can significantly enhance your manufacturing social media strategy.
2. Employee Advocacy
Your employees can be your most influential brand ambassadors. The social media trend of employee advocacy is ideal for manufacturers, bolstering your brand’s reach by tapping into your employees’ networks, broadening your audience, and stimulating organic engagement. Developing programs to motivate your team to interact with your social media content can amplify performance and improve morale.
3. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has pervaded the manufacturing industry, emerging as another transformative social media trend. Collaboration with industry influencers can elevate your brand’s credibility, enhance its image, and introduce it to novel, relevant audiences.
4. Virtual Events and Webinars
Virtual events and webinars are gaining momentum in the manufacturing sector. These platforms facilitate discussion on pertinent industry topics, allowing you to showcase your expertise and foster new relationships. Promoting such events on your social media channels can amplify event participation and engagement on your channel.
5. Customer Support
Customer support via social media is an essential tool for manufacturers, offering a real-time communication channel to address customer queries. It enhances the customer experience by providing swift, efficient responses and personalized interactions, which can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. In an era where consumers expect immediate and seamless communication, using social media for customer support can help you build stronger customer relationships. This increases customer retention and ultimately drives growth.
6. Voice Search Optimization
With the rise of smart speakers and voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, voice search optimization (VSO) is more crucial than ever. Including relevant keywords and phrases in your company’s social media channels can improve visibility and reach, putting you in front of more users searching for your expertise.
7. Local Targeting
Devoting a segment of your social media strategy to local targeting is a trend that offers substantial benefits for the manufacturing industry. By optimizing platforms like Google My Business and incorporating local hashtags on social media, you can significantly improve your visibility among local audiences. This approach connects you with local clientele more effectively and creates a distinct competitive advantage by enhancing your local digital presence.
8. Social Listening
Social media extends beyond mere content posting – it involves fostering engagement and actively listening to your audience. Social listening emerges as a critical social media trend for manufacturers, enabling you to track and analyze conversations, mentions, and discussions across social platforms concerning your industry, products, or company. This practice empowers you to collect invaluable feedback, pinpoint opportunities, address customer queries, and make data-informed decisions to optimize marketing strategies and customer experiences.
Additionally, social listening facilitates competitive analysis, the recognition of key influencers, and effective crisis management, helping you maintain a competitive edge and sustain strong customer relationships.
9. Data Privacy and Security
As concerns about data privacy escalate, users are gravitating toward brands that can confidently showcase their commitment to data protection. Consequently, data privacy and security have surfaced as significant social media trends transforming the manufacturing industry. This shift calls on manufacturers to underscore data protection measures and openly articulate these policies on their social media channels, bolstering trust and engagement among their audience.
10. Corporate Social Responsibility
Lastly, broadcasting your company’s commitment to sustainability, such as eco-friendly initiatives, energy efficiency measures, and waste reduction strategies can enhance your brand image on social media. This potent social media trend is worth embracing, allowing manufacturers to showcase their dedication to societal and environmental well-being.
Trends to Watch in 2023 & Beyond
As with any digital marketing tactic, the social media landscape is ever-evolving. Here are some up-and-coming trends to watch as we further explore the impact of social media on manufacturing.
- Surge of Video: The domination of video content will persist, bolstered by the growing popularity of live streaming and virtual events.
- Authenticity and Valuable Content: Today’s audiences demand brand authenticity and transparency. This trend invites manufacturers to move away from generic holiday posts and offer valuable social media content that enhances your brand’s image and enriches your followers’ interactions.
- User-Generated Content: The influence of user-generated content (UGC) on manufacturers continues to grow. Get ahead of this trend by encouraging your customers to share their experiences online to foster a robust community around your brand.
- Social Commerce: Integrating social commerce can unlock an additional revenue stream for manufacturers engaged in ecommerce.
- Personalized and Targeted Advertising: As AI technology advances, personalized and targeted paid social ads become increasingly sophisticated. Being an early adopter of these technologies can give your manufacturing business a competitive edge.
- Augmented Reality and the Metaverse: The advent of Web 3.0 is presenting new avenues for customer engagement. Prepare to incorporate augmented reality (AR) experiences into your social media campaigns to offer customers an immersive way to visualize and interact with your products.
- Stories and Ephemeral Content: The Stories format, initially introduced by Snapchat and later popularized by Instagram, has been embraced by numerous social media platforms. This ephemeral content—material that disappears after 24 hours—offers a more spontaneous and authentic avenue to engage your audience on social media.
The world of social media is constantly in flux, unveiling fresh ways to interact with audiences and promote your products and services. Manufacturers who stay attuned to these shifts and integrate them into their social media strategy stand to reap substantial benefits. These benefits include boosting brand visibility, enriching customer engagement, and significantly enhancing business performance.
Are you looking for more tips for manufacturers on using social media? Head to our blog to discover how to diversify your platform usage beyond LinkedIn.
Manufacturers Who Are Using Social Media Successfully
To see some of these emerging trends in action, we’ve hand-picked this selection of manufacturers who are using social media successfully as part of a well-rounded digital marketing strategy.
B&G Manufacturing
B&G Manufacturing enhanced its brand’s social media presence by using LinkedIn for thought leadership and lead generation, Facebook for engagement and relationship building, and Google My Business for local updates. These strategies boosted their brand presence and lead generation.
Hushcore
Hushcore, an acoustic design and manufacturing firm, used a combination of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google My Business for audience engagement, job promotion, and search engine visibility. This multi-platform strategy, supplemented by email marketing and SEO, increased engagement and referral traffic, enhancing their overall digital marketing success.
Amacoil
Amacoil, a provider of linear motion solutions, employed a diverse strategy involving SEO best practices and Google My Business for enhanced search visibility. This strategy increased search visibility, website traffic, and session duration, improving their online performance.
Manufacturing-Minded Marketing Solutions
Explore our tailored digital marketing solutions for the manufacturing industry to bolster your brand awareness, accelerate lead generation, drive sales growth, and establish thought leadership. Contact our manufacturing-minded marketing team to get started.
