Twitter adoption rates appear to vary between various segments within the B2B categories, but if the GENERAL industrial sector is an indicator of adoption, then it is outpacing the general population’s adoption much more quickly than other sectors.

Way back on March 21, 2011 Twitter celebrated it’s 5th birthday: “200 million users and 1 billion tweets per week”. Had it hit the mainstream audience and what was the adoption rate in the industrial sector? In November 2010 Pew Internet & American Life Project surveyed more than 2,200 US adult web users and asked, “Do you use Twitter?” Their findings:  8% of all respondents said yes.  But quite a lot has changed since those days.
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However, it’s important within the context of what adoption rates really mean.  So let’s first explore that first and then review some of the historical data now that their is actually some historical data available.

At the same time that GlobalSpec was doing their niche surveys regarding industrial adoption, Pew continued to complete their more general adoption rate studies for Twitter as well. To review:

• 2010: 8% of Americans us Twitter
• 2011: 13% of online adults use the status update service
• 2012:: As of February 2012, some 15% of online adults use Twitter

At first glance this would seem to indicate that the industrial sector is adopting Twitter at a much more advanced rate than the general population: That may not be the case within certain vertical markets. First, there are some some obvious caveats with the last chart:

• Comparison between different population studies is always prone to error and we need to acknowledge that.
• Within the Industrial sector there are business “silos” (vertical markets) that include, not only the entire supply chain, but also the end user base of customers. The “industrial population” data from GobalSpec does not contain ‘refined data’ for these individual vertical silos.

They have “wired” their social media sites together. 
In all reality you can only be in one place at a time.  Different users will be using different channels at the same moment.  You notice that when you channel surf on TV that you see the same commercials sometimes?  It’s just like that. In order to maximize your exposure you “connect” the sites to each other so you don’t have to post the same thing over and over again.

Remember when I explained that Twitter was a “junction box”? This is how it “connects” Twitter
permits the sharing between sites better than most any other social media site.

Here are a couple of examples of dashboard app’s:

• Co-tweet
• Hootsuite
• MarketMeSuite
• Seesmic

They have Pre-programmed “Tweets” and announcements.
If you already do a newsletter email or product announcements electronically, you have content to use.

Two very good examples of how this can be done is to take a look at Criterion Machine Works or TechniksUSA Blog sites.  Once a blog is posted it is automatically tweeted, posted on their Facebook page and appears in a number of social media outlets.

...Automatically
The Blogs can be programmed to post at a given time and, once the switch is flipped on the timer, everything else happens seamlessly.

That however, is not where it ends.  Unlike just sending it out there and hoping people read it, now your customer can interact back with you.

Think of social media like your cell phone. You should check it a couple times a day with your dashboard application and see if you have messages, comments, or questions and then “engage” the customer in some “conversation.”

Just as there are a number of dashboard app’s there are an innumerable number of “analytics” to gage and measure success in real time.

In fact, some of the dashboard applications I mentioned earlier have the measurement tools built right into them. Measuring is actually pretty easy.

Without going into a tremendous amount of detail on measurement tools, be aware that the list of measurement tools practically exceeds the number of social media outlets that exist.  Just for Twitter there are sites like Analytic.ly, Twifficiency and Twitteranalyzer.

Facebook has built-in analysis tools for their Page.  Your ROI is really going to be determined by what you put into the effort.  

​Just like a salesperson, the more you engage, the more return.  If you sit in the office and just send out emails and don’t follow up to engage into the conversation not much is going to happen.  “Engaging” is the key to ROI and the analysis tool sets are all going to measure this kind of activity and report on it.

You already know that that is not realistic.  But that is the same kind of thinking that is taking place in Social Media.

“Hey, we can just set up a Twitter account in a few minutes”

Well, yes you can, but, just like the first time buyer of a machine tool, there’s still an awful lot to learn. The sooner you start learning, the farther in front of your competitors you’ll be.  This is a pro-active approach.  Too many b-to-b companies, particularly exhibitors at IMTS, took a reactive approach. They jumped in and created their “social media brand names” without first having personal accounts so they understood how it works.

So the best way to learn is to set up some social media personal accounts.

Facebook – “That’s for kids.” Step back from any preconceived notions and think about this from a business standpoint.  There is a war going on.  Two data collection monoliths, Facebook & Google, are each trying to outdo each other. 

In April 2010 Facebook announced at their annual “F8” conference the “Open Graph”: That’s why you are seeing the “LIKE” button appear everywhere. Here’s why that’s important:  If you recall the first time you got a day planner you learned that you should not only put your business appointments down but also soccer games, weddings and personal events.

Time management 101. Your life is 24 hours a day. Facebook at it’s core is personal. But your personal life affects your business and vice-versa. Facebook collects personal data and associates it with your interests. If your title is “CNC machinist,” it permits advertisers to target that.

Although Google has a massive database, they have not “aggregated” demographics as deep down as Facebook. They are both competing for ad space. If you were at IMTS in Chicago and logged into Facebook, you may have seen some ads running.  But you would have only seen them if you were with in 5 miles of McCormick Place, between 7pm -10pm, were male, between 35-55, and had some keyword in your profile indicating you were in our industry.

​The “pay-per-click” cost .60 cents each and had a cap on the amount spent by the advertiser. Yes, you can do that level of targeted advertising. Creating a Facebook Page is a way to become “engaged’ and be in front of your customer when they get home from work.  The busiest time on Facebook is Wednesday and Friday evening, but we’ll talk about that more later…

They are “IN” all for the above digital spaces and probably another 1,000 more.

Have you ever purchased something online?  Have you looked down at the product reviews and decided against the purchase of something because of the reviews?  Then, did you think  “Wow, I wonder why that manufacturer isn’t reading that and fixing it? They’re getting really bad press”  The problem is that the manufacturer may not even know about the comments to address them. But B-to-B  consumers ARE researching and engaging each other.
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There are a number of free products out there to use to search for who’s talking about what.  I would recommend going to Social Mention and type in your company name and brands and see what appears.  You will find that you can drill down and drill down more and then drill down even more into exactly who is talking about what where.

Start with a personal account on:

• Twitter –  Set up Twitter account and follow some people. You can follow @RPMconsultants where we tweet about social media or my personal Twitter account, @bernardtmartin where I tweet about Education, STEM, F1, Economics and Foreign Affairs. You can then check out who we follow, learn some basics, ask some questions.
• Facebook – Set up a personal account, be sure to set your account settings to “friends only” across all categories and then search for “International Manufacturing Technology Show” or “AMTDA” on Facebook.  Look at whom they have made favorites on their Company page.  Hit the “LIKE” button.

• DON”T go out and set up accounts in YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook for your company right this minute! That’s would be like a customer saying “I want to buy the CNC with the Green Paint, I like that color.”
• Set up your personal accounts and then go to “Knowem” Search for some available names.  I’ve talked to many machinery distributor owners and employees over the years and heard “Yea, our website name is WAY too long, but it’s what we’re stuck with.”

Unlike registering your web address, your URL, with a service that reports to one central agency for verification, called ICANN, there is no single service registration of your “Social Media Brand name”
Places like Knowem allow you to search for brand names.

You want to use the same Brand name in ALL of your social media spaces.

​There are several considerations in the selection of THAT name:

• Shorter is better. Remember Twitter on permits 140 characters in “tweets” You don’t want to eat up half of it with your company name and be limited on your message.
• Use the same name in all social media spaces. That bears worth repeating. Remember that long tail search discussion?

There’s a big difference between watching Golf and playing Golf at a professional level. Social Media is no different that other professional efforts: Once you become in engaged in it you learn that it’s probably not as simple as you first thought.
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In the course of talking to prospective clients I’ve found a mixed bag of comments that all go something like “I got plenty of people who are on Facebook all the time, you can create an account in 5 minutes”

Unlike when you registered your website with a registrar for your unique URL, which was all overseen via ICANN, there is NO singleplace that you can register all of your SOCIAL MEDIA brand name. The key to words there are “Brand NAME” and not “Brand NAMEs”.  You have to create a profile in each SM space you want to present your brand individually.
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As a marketer you already know the importance of using consistent images and names.  It becomes even more important in social media because you want people to find you when they use a search engine.  If you have a mixed bag of names your message may not reach the people you want to reach and, like two ships passing in the night, you will never engage in conversation. One very good service to use to begin the process is Knowem. However, Knowem doesn’t help you establish your brand in your industry specific niche forums.

I’ve talked to some very well-known major companies about their Social Media efforts.  When we sit and look at their SM spaces we discover that they’ve “jumped into” social media “Oh yea, we’re there!” But then we dig into it only to find that they have set up their company name as personal account and not created a COMPANY profile at all.  They at risk with not only with the loss of the SM account but also the loss of all of the conversations that they are engaged in already.
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Just like entering a new foreign market there are cultural “rules” that should be followed.  By not showing respect for the local culture, and taking the time to understand it in advance, you risk creating a negative brand image that could take years to recover from to get back to zero.  Don’t burn your bridges and not even realize that you’re doing it.  Social Media spaces have their own culture. You are entering a cyber world.  Be sure to have a good understanding of how things work before you make the trip.

Once you have selected a brand NAME in your various spaces, you will need to have a good understanding of how the various “Status Updates”, “Wall Posts”, “Tweets”, “Blog Posts”, etc all connect together.  The people you want to reach may be in one SM space while you’re posting, at that moment, in another. Determining which posts are shared and which are not becomes a very important decision.
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There’s quite bit more to think about that I’ve put into the slide show below. Take a peek at it:

The above slideshow presentation should give you an overview of how to start your social media efforts.  It outlines the reach and scope of social media (SM) for those new to the space.

Once you have gotten into the new cyber world to market your brand, stay acutely aware that the landscape in social media is changing.  I’ve compared it to the 1849 Gold Rush in San Francisco.  Everyone is new, Everyone is from somewhere else.  What was the “best place” last week is not the “best space” this week.  That’s led some to say “Let’s wait, and not be on the bleeding edge”  The Bleeding Edge was several years ago and it was yesterday. The onslaught of new users hourly entering the social media cyber world is beyond compare.

Here’s an example, when I started using Slideshare as an add-in app on my LinkedIn profile it was NOT a social network.  It was a place to put slideshows to pull up on customer & client computers.  NOW, it’s a social network…. and the added functionality is expanding weekly it seems.  Every social media site is doing the same.  As they grow, they are becoming more and more niche, more and more industry specific, more and more topic specific.  Getting IN is critical at this point so that you, and your company, can establish your brand as a thought leader and engage and develop relationships…. but, you MUST stay engaged and continue to drill down as the individual spaces evolve.

I recently had a conversation with a client about YouTube and how it has evolved.  I showed them Don Fitchett‘s YouTube Channel Business Industrial Network. Don has been in that space (and many many others) for some time. He has over 430,000 upload views, has 1500 subscribers staying current with his latest news and he has over 5,000 friends.  That didn’t happen overnight.  Don is continuously engaged with his clients and potential clients.  Now ask yourself two questions:
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• If I wait for the dust to settle how many customers might my competitors pick up and I won’t know about it?
• If I jump into the space and don’t understand the culture, or have a plan, what will it cost me?

The conclusion that should be drawn after reviewing this is that developing a structured Social Media Strategy and Tactical implementation plan is crucial to your company’s success.

Without a plan you may find yourself creating a negative brand image within the space and end up spending more money trying to undo what you created and start over.

I look forward to your comments and questions.
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Special Thanks to @RonDavies for blogging about “Knowem”

I've been asked a lot of late "How can we start to sell our stuff on Social Media?"  Well, the first thing you're going to need to do is let people source and buy FROM Social Media!

If your network is locked down and there are different permissions for different people, you're going to have problems.  If your marketing people post something and get a technical question that they cannot answer they won't be able to kick it over to an engineer, because she WON'T BE ABLE TO SEE IT if your network is locked down.

Step 1: Open your network. Remove your firewall for your employees so that they can gain access to LinkedIn, Twitter & YouTube.  Some larger companies have some functions open and others closed.  As an example, if you can access LinkedIn, but not get into the groups, then there is not going to be ANY conversations. (remember, Conversations is one of the 4C’s discussed in What Are the 4 C's of Social Media?). Let your employees access Social Media!

Step 2: Appoint a Leader.  It’s going to be very important that someone take charge of the effort if it’s not going to be you.  Keep in mind you can make it a team effort and several people can be in charge of different efforts at different times. If you choose to go with the “Team” route be sure to set up a schedule for who’s doing what and when…. and stick to it.

Step 3: Create a Persona. There are several divergent schools of thought on whether or not Companies should have their logo as the profile picture, whether there should be a person’s name associated with the your social media sites, etc.  I suspect it really depends on the size of your company and what you hope to accomplish. ​

Give us a call and we'd be happy to set up a call to have that conversation!

If you recall from a previous blog post “What’s all this about Social Media and where do I start?” , Twitter is a free social networking (micro-blogging) service that allows users to send and read messages known as “Tweets.”  Tweets” are text based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the authors subscribers “Followers”

What do you get out of it?
“Twitter’s like snack food: it’s fun, it tastes good, but there’s no nutritional value” as it was explained to me not too long ago.  In some cases this is true.  It really all depends on how you use it and what you expect to get out of it.  If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a business owner or manager and are probably on my LinkedIn network… so I have a pretty good idea of what you’re thinking. ? So before we go into ANY details on what Twitter is and how you can use it let’s start off with some of the backstory.

I recently returned from the ISA Product Show & Conference and heard a wonderful speaker, Robert Wendover who heads up The Center for Generational Studies.  He spoke ​about:

"As business to business continues to evolve, suppliers are discovering that the entry of young professionals into customer firms is presenting a number of unforeseen challenges. Veteran salespeople struggle to meet the demands of young purchasing agents who communicate in a digital world. They are confounded by the expectations of emerging professionals who expect to obtain instant quotes with the click of a mouse."

As I listened intently to the presentation I recalled an article from Fast Company in 2006, “Geny Y v. Boomer: Generational Differences in Communication”:

"….The biggest one, however, has been the advent of technology and its offspring, email, IM and txt. Gen Y has grown up in and around this world of virtual communication. Unlike their parents, they have not had to spend nearly as much time socializing face-to-face. Their social interactions have been conducted while sitting alone in front of a computer, IM-ing with several people at once. Therefore they did not gain much experience reading the nonverbal cues inherent in face-to-face or even voice-to-voice communication, aka, the telephone. This dependence on remote forms of communication has left many younger workers bereft of interpersonal skills that Boomers value such as deference and respect.
The Boomers, on the other hand, have had technology thrust upon them, and although most have learned what they had to in order to get by and stay current, they have largely left the “technological heavy lifting” to others. Boomers have stuck to many of the old ways of doing business that their parents taught them, calling on clients in person, networking at business meetings, showing respect and deference to those who are more senior or with whom they would like to do business."

During the course of the wonderful presentation discussing Gen Y’s “work to live” vs. Boomer’s “live to work” I posited a thought about what I believe was a critical element missing from the presentation.  I suggested that Gen Y’s actually work 24/7 because of their adoption of technology.  The morning after the presentation I reached into my files and found the following from a LexisNexis Technology Gap Survey, completed in July & August of 2008. Here’s some of the important parts, but if you’re like me and work in engineering you’ll want to click on the link for the real meat of the data.  It’s pretty insightful stuff.

Additionally, Gen Y workers multi-task at even higher levels than the other generations as evidenced by the amount of hours in each work day that they report accessing various devices and programs. And this is especially the case for programs and web sites that may not be strictly work-related.

• Gen Y workers report spending an average of 17.4 hours in a workday using a PC, a PDA and a mobile phone, whereas, Boomers report spending just 9.7 hours a work day using the same devices.
• Gen Y workers report spending an average of 20.5 hours a work day using e-mail programs, Internet browsers, instant messaging programs and Microsoft Office programs, while Boomers only report spending 11.9 work hours using the same programs.

When I arrived in the manufacturing industry almost 20 years ago as a management & sales consultant, I quickly realized that our sector lagged behind most others in adoption of marketing and technology.  I had a conversation with a young engineer this past weekend who said to me: “We work with some of the most technologically advanced equipment and deal with complex engineering issues but we’re pretty far behind the consumer goods industries.  We’re not “early adopters” by any stretch of the imagination”

Technically, me being in my mid 40’s a and the last year of Boomer’s (or first year of X’r as the first use of Gen X indicated back Forbes in 1989) I must admit that understanding how to manage and deal with younger generations is a learningexperience. So I, like you, needed to think hard about Twitter. In the end we set up a Twitter accounts for Highlander Toolbut only after about a year of watching and learning about twitter  with my personal twitter account before jumping in to the conversation.  Here’s the bottom line on WHY we did it:

1. Search Engine Optimiztion  – as I discussed in the previous blog post
2. Generational differences – As I explained above
3. Get in now while the technology still evolving – This Social Media Space is evolving.  It’s going to be “something” so it’s better to get in and understand the evolution and be part of it than wait for everyone else.

If you decide it’s right for you please feel free to jump in and give us a follow. @Highlander Tool and I have a personal Twitter account as well @bernardtmartin.

If you need some more reasons, then listen to what Jeff Hayzlett has to say about it.  Jeff is the Chief Marketing Officer at Eastman Kodak. You can follow him at @JeffreyHayzlett

Ok, now that you’ve decided that you may want to give Twitter a try, take a look at this slide show to learn the basics.  Once again, open a new window and just click through as you go through it step by step:

I connected with a great guy named Norman Wright on Twitter months back and I found some of his blog posts at “Wright-To-Know” to be so absolutely SPOT ON that we ended up connecting on LinkedIn, exchanging some emails and ideas, and discovered that we where actually both based in Pittsburgh.
I had to opportunity to to visit his company, DimensionX, a few Fridays ago.  I got there in the late afternoon and we ended up chatting until later evening.  

I can’t say enough good things about Norm and his blog.  As luck would have it, he just tweeted a new blog this afternoon after I had been working on this posting for quite a few days and was trying to list out some do’s and don’ts.  I saw his Tweet, picked up the phone and  said “Norm, I’m going to embed your blog in mine with your permission! It’s fantastic!”

ONCE you go into the Twitter space these are the MISTAKES YOU DO NOT WANT TO MAKE!  Thanks much Norm for finishing up my post for me!

​I reposted his blog post earlier, but here's a link so you can check it out: 10 Twitter Mistakes Made By Marketers In The Manufacturing Industry

A while back I received the following email:

"Very interested in hearing about how you are using these channels for work, how you got into it, and where you see it going. Do you see the shops or suppliers leading the way? What role do you see original content providers like … providing. How are you using it with your distributors…
What other leading thinkers have you identified in this space?
So many questions, so little time!"

Perhaps this posting is the best place to answer some of those questions.  Social Media is so so much about conversation and sharing and giving credit where credit is due.  As I’ve already mentioned, I met Norm Wright via Twitter, I found out about Jeff Hayzlett’s video from Jennifer (Kelly) Altimore @jlkelly60 (Who, in my opinion, is the person most out-in-front of Social Media in our whole industry! In fact, she’s one of the very first people I followed on my personal Twitter account) and numerous other people have assisted me on Twitter in everything from social media, Italian cars to engineering conundrums.  I think that the best way to learn is to give a listen and pay attention. I would encourage you to give it a try.
“The young people who come to me in the hope of hearing me utter a few memorable maxims are quite disappointed.  Aphorisms are not my forte, I say nothing but banalities…. I listen to them and they go away delighted.”  ~Andre Gide

 In reviewing the analytics it seems that many folks have spent some time reading through the material on Social Media.  I hope that you’re finding it useful as there really is quite a bit to digest. I really welcome your comments and questions and. ​

Written by: Norman Wright
 “Wright-To-Know”
This article reposted by permission. 

Twitter is one of the social media tools that can be used as a tool for your manufacturing company’s social media marketing strategy to generate online traffic and a pipeline for new business leads. It is the leading traffic generator to my Wright-To-Know blog.
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Here are ten mistakes marketers in the manufacturing industry should  avoid if they want to generate new business through Twitter:

1. Signing up then not participate. A tell-tale sign that Twitter is nothing more than a check-off on your social media check-list. When you rarely post to Twitter it will show.
2. Self Promotional Tweets. Marketers that sound more like cars salesmen, constantly using promotional Tweets to tout their company’s new hires, new business acquisitions, awards, etc.
3. Hiding behind the Company’s veil. Using your company’s  name as the Twitter account without revealing who is doing the Tweeting. Even Ford Motor Company gets this right, having allowing @ScottMonty to be their social media spokesperson under his own Twitter name rather than through the company’s name. It’s awkward to try and engage with a company. Social media is about people. A lot of the same principals of face-to-face networking applies to social media networks such as Twitter.
4. Auto Responses. These drive not only me but will drive your prospects crazy. They are impersonal, and usually contain no value other than to clog up your Direct Message box forcing you to scan through dozens and dozens to reach those who have sent you a personal one.
5. Little if any value to your Tweets. 80 to 90% of my tweets are resources for my audience to help them with their new business challenges. They are a combination of posts from my blog and other resources that I usually find and pass on in my morning ritual of reading my RSS feeds in Google Reader. I use a tool called bit.ly to post an article, along with a shortened URL to Twitter.
6. Fail to generate Twitter traffic ‘to anything”. I have recommended to manufacturers that they should have a blog that becomes the “gateway” to company and generate traffic to the blog through tools such as Twitter. The blog serves as the central component to your social media strategy.
7. Failing to use 3rd party Twitter tools. These tools can help you identify your best target audience and build your Twitter account’s data base of followers within the ratios mandated by Twitter. Your company’s blog content can stay fresh with new postings but older posts have a very long shelf life from not only SEO but also through repurposing posts to Twitter using some third party Twitter Tools. At our firm we have a process in which we syndicate our clients content over and over again… very much like a traditional media schedule. It’s naive  to think if you have written a post and everyone has read it.
8. Using the reply function when you should use a direct message. Not every reply needs to be share with your entire Twitter audience. Almost all replies should probably be sent by Direct Message to the person.
9. Failing to engage in the conversation. It amazes me that most marketers in the manufacturing industry have reservations about engaging with their prospective client audience.  Social media and tools such as Twitter, provide the most efficient means of creating personal network with your agencies best prospects. I have thousands of followers on Twitter alone and it is easy to stay engaged and be part of the conversations without it requiring an undue amount of time. I probably spend no more than 15 minutes a day responding through Twitter.
10. Allowing the early adopters of Twitter to mandate how your company should use it. Face it, Twitter has superseded anything envisioned by its creators or early adopters “way back in 2006.”  It’s amazing that it was the celebrities, not ad agencies, that first figured out the value and potential of Twitter.

Where do your customers LAND somewhere when they search the Internet?
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The Common Actions Desired of Your Company Landing Page:

• Get a visitor to click (to go to another page, on your site or someone else’s.
• Get a visitor to buy.
• Get a visitor to give permission for you to follow up by email or phone.
• Get a visitor to register for a newsletter or updates.
• Get a visitor to tell a friend.
• Get a visitor to learn something, which could even include posting a comment or giving you some sort of feedback.

Ok, Now let’s take a look at your options to drive traffic to your website:

Facebook
It started in 2004 and was originally limited to Harvard students.  In 2006 anyone over the age of 13 could join. In 2007 Facebook created an area called Pages that enabled companies to create profiles for themselves. And in 2009 they introduced a LIKE button for users to click on and let people and companies know what they liked.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is fast becoming THE business tool of social networking. Rather than summarize why just click this link to find the 33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business

At a minimum create a company profile page for your company.

You can take a look at the company profile we created for Highlander Tool Company here. It’s pretty simple to create. One thing you will notice is that we have taken our brand message very seriously. The message we set up is to communicate what we do and who we are. …and we’ve used essentially the same message for every social media profile. (So once you create ONE you can cut and paste, albiet with some editing, for all of your Social Media sites.

YouTube
Creating a YouTube channel was really driven out of necessity.

Below is an excerpt of an email I sent to everyone in our company when we launched our YouTube channel:

“I wanted to make you aware that this weekend I worked on finally getting a central place where you can show customer’s product videos from their computer while visiting their facility."

This presents some pretty big cross-selling opportunities!

So, How Do You Get Customers to Land Where You Want Them To?
Each one of the above social media website always you to let people who follow you about new products and to direct them back to the exact landing page you want.