By now most everyone knows that video is where it’s at. If you want to grab attention on social media, in your e-newsletter or in a press release–make sure it contains a video!
Video is a powerful communication tool that provides a more personal feel to your message. You will be far more likely to connect on an emotional level with your audience if you use video versus another content type. And, when it comes to social media marketing, video is a great way to engage with your audience.
But there are different types of video, some more appropriate and effective than others depending on what your marketing goals are. Joe Forte recently broke down the types of video in his recent post for Content Marketing Institute, “5 Types of Video to Add to Your Social Media Marketing.”
Live Video – Best for when your brand has a significant following, Facebook Live, YouTube Live, and other streaming services make it easy to connect with your audience. Livestreaming allows you to talk with your followers and are most effective for announcements, behind-the-scenes looks, and product information videos.
Tutorial Videos – Among the most frequently shared on social media, tutorial videos have mass appeal by relating to your products and services. Or, they can be broader topics that relate to your audience and industry. Tutorial videos need to be clear, educational and entertaining. They need to be long enough to show every step and short enough to be engaging.
Informational Videos – Informational videos can cover any topic. Build your content archive with videos on a variety of relevant topics. Make them unique, clever or insightful. When adding video to your social media, concentrate on content likely to be shared, something valuable to make it worth the viewer’s time.
Behind-the-Scenes Video – Behind-the-scenes videos are a great way to make your company and your team more personable by highlighting day-to-day operations, your offices, your manufacturing processes, and more. Designed to build trust and brand identity, this type of video really gives the opportunity to dig down into what makes a brand exceptional.
User-Generated Video – UGC is quickly becoming a fantastic and easier way to engage an audience. You can encourage your followers to create videos and ask them to incorporate your hashtags into the upload. User-generated content is a brilliant way to grow an audience because users are more inclined to share content they create. Viewing the user-generated content also is an excellent way to get a feel for your audience’s personalities and what they’re interested in.
Which type works the best for your brand? It’s a great idea to experiment with these and see which generates the most interest and engagement. Read the complete post for more information, examples and tips on producing each of these valuable types of video content.
Read more on the importance of video in marketing:
It’s no secret that we are immersed in the “Age of Visual” culture, with cameras in everyone’s back pocket and with more than 2.5 billion camera phones in use, photos are becoming the “universal language.” If you’ve been paying attention to marketing and social media trends over the past several years, you know that the entire internet is becoming more visual. In fact, a picture might be worth far more than a thousand words now.
Shifts in the social media world are putting bigger emphasis on using high-quality photos in content. It should also be no surprise that the fastest growing social media networks are Instagram and Facebook.
Thinking about your own news browsing habits, you have to admit that you are more likely to click on an article that has an intriguing image.
Jeff shared some interesting stats, including:
Articles with images get 94% more total views
Including photos or videos with press releases increases views by more than 45%
Facebook engagement rates for photos are 37% higher than plain text
In an ecommerce site, 67% of consumers say the quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing a product
In an online store, customers think that the quality of a product’s image is more important than product-specific information (63%), a long description (54%) and ratings and reviews (53%)
Read the rest of his blog post for some tips on integrating photos into your content.
It’s been a while since we talked about one of our hot buttons: the ongoing skills gap in manufacturing and the trades. It’s good to see that the topic is very much alive and getting continual, positive coverage in the media. Are we slowly experiencing a shift to bring young people back into skilled traded positions? Is the stigma for blue collar positions slowly lifting?
Plenty of industry leaders are doing their part to help bring awareness.
Lincoln Electric recognizes this issue and is leading the challenge to change the perception of manufacturing jobs, which as CEO Christopher Mapes points out, “When people think about welding, they typically don’t think high-tech. Instead, they picture workers with their heads enveloped in welding helmets. That’s not what welding is today…Welding is robotics. It’s metallurgy. It’s software engineering.” Read more about Lincoln’s initiatives for tackling the skill gap here.
Skilled trade’s biggest proponent, Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe, who recently published, “The Way I Heard It,” believes, “The skills gap today, in my opinion, is a result of the removal of shop class and the repeated message that the best path for most people happens to be the most expensive path.”
While 40 years ago we needed more people to get into higher education, the pendulum swung so far in the direction of promoting higher education, that it has alienated an entire section of the workforce, skilled trades. With 7.3 million skilled jobs unfilled in our country (and 1.6 trillion in debt from higher education), we desperately need the pendulum to swing back.
It seems the messaging is starting to get through.
This recent article articulates how trade schools are now touting how blue-collar professionals such as plumbers, electricians and mechanics make more money than workers whose roles require a college degree.
Perhaps the trend against four-year-college degrees has begun. Many of the fastest-growing professions do not require a bachelor’s degree, and some do not even require a high-school diploma. Could the new six-figure job be trade work?
Let’s hope that more and more of our young people (or people considering a career change) look at skilled trade positions as a viable option for their career path.
If you found this post interesting, check out these additional posts on the topic:
Recently, you’ve been hearing a lot about “Influencer Marketing” or “Influencer Relations.” But what exactly is it, how does it work and is it right for your company’s marketing strategy?
Sometimes referred to as the “new media,” a comprehensive marketing communications strategy often will include influencer relations as a tactic for expanding a brand’s awareness.
What is an influencer?
An influencer is someone that has a large social media following and actively engages with its audience to “influence” them on his or her opinions. While “influencer” might conjure up ideas of Kim Kardashian touting the latest waterproof eyeliner or designer handbag, there are influencers in the industrial, manufacturing and contractor space, as well. While some of these influencers might not boast the same Instagram audience numbers as Kardashian’s 149+ million followers, their audiences can be very significant for the market they are in.
A large social media following can be relative. Nano influencers, with 1K to 10K followers, have small, niche and highly engaged audiences. Micro influencers, the next tier up, with 10K to 50K followers, are often the most informed opinion leaders in their niches and typically have a very engaged community of followers who rely on (and trust) their content.
If you are a nano/micro influencer in a niche market such as woodworking, developing relationships with companies that are promoting the tools or supplies you use can be mutually beneficial for both parties. For the influencer, it provides the opportunity to be the first to experience innovative products and share their experiences and opinions with their followers, providing appealing content that keeps their followers enthralled and looking for more. For the brand marketing products, it provides an authentic, engaging opportunity to get your products or services endorsed by an opinion leader and visibility in front of your target audience. Plus, repurposing influencer content is a great way to showcase the influencer and also add credibility to the brand.
According to research, consumers are much more likely to trust peer recommendations than advertisements. By finding the right influencers in your target audience, brands can build credibility by using a trusted source in the community and, thus, increasing sales. Even for the B2B niche, influencer marketing is about partnering with industry experts to add credibility, distribution and engagement to great brand content.
Questions to answer before launching an influencer program
Before jumping into an influencer relations program, evaluate your company and its offerings and decide if it is a good fit for a program. Does your brand have an e-commerce presence? The idea is for influencers to drive awareness (and ultimately sales), so if there is not an easy, online process in place to purchase your products, now might not be the time to launch such a program.
Do you have an active presence on social media? If not, your effort will be wasted or certainly not amplified to the level that would move the needle for your brand.
Finally, are your products or services ready and ample? No point in engaging an influencer who creates intense interest amongst his or her followers, only to frustrate the followers when the product is unavailable or on back order.
Once you’ve decided that an influencer program is a fit for your brand, you’ll want to develop a strategy and set some goals and objectives and create a process. You’ll also want to track and measure your results.
Influencer relations vs. media relations
Influencer relations, as mentioned earlier, have been likened to media relations. Build and nurture relationships with influencers in a similar fashion as you do with the media. Influencers are interested in trying products they care about and many are looking for the next big thing to show their followers, in the same way a trade media editor may be looking to write about the next industry trend. But they are different, too. People tend to engage more with influencers than they do with traditional media. While someone may read a story and not necessarily share it online, they would be more inclined to share a post or image from an influencer.
Another difference is that the collaboration between brand and influencer is typically done for a monetary fee, free products or a combination of both. If your product doesn’t lend itself to being sent out to influencers, consider planning an influencer event where you bring influencers together at a trade show or industry event to experience your products and engage with their peers, as well as the brand.
Getting started with influencer relations
You may want to consider a trial run program, especially if upper management is skeptical, to see what type of success you can expect. Remember, like anything, curb expectations and allow the program to grow and gain momentum naturally.
Influencer marketing is here to stay and is growing to be an increasingly popular tactic for reaching target audiences and gaining market share. Getting influencers to persuade your audience can drastically work in your favor when executed properly.
Have questions about whether an influencer relations program is right for your brand? Or need help strategizing or implementing your influencer program? Contact rascherl@sonnhalter.com.
Stay tuned for our next post on influencer marketing, “Tips for Implementing a Successful Influencer Relations Program.”
By Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard, PR Foreman, Sonnhalter
We’re in the midst of back-to-school season–which prompted us to update our vocational education database. And with the ongoing concern about our nation’s skills gap, the option for choosing an education to pursue a vocational career is certainly an attractive one. With plentiful skilled labor jobs to fill, trade jobs pay very well (sometimes better than four-year college degrees) and don’t saddle students with hefty student loans.
We originally released our extensive vocational education database in 2015 after conducting extensive research on thousands of vo-ed programs across the country. When we updated the list in 2017, we added about 1,000 new programs, separating them out by state tabs and standardizing the descriptions to make it even easier to search, sort and use.
Our most recent update features nearly 980 schools across the country, not including satellite or branch locations of each. There are almost 4,700 programs, offering different types of degrees or certifications. The types of programs include construction, electrician, robotics, welding, HVAC, plumbing, machine tool technology, among others. A separate tab for national programs and resources is also included.
Why would a marketing communications firm take the time to create and update such a resource? We hope our tool helps to bridge the gap between manufacturers and educational programs. The database serves as a useful tool for companies looking to implement more grassroots campaigns to recruit the next generation of professional tradesmen.
There are numerous ways to take advantage of a tool like our database. Here are a few suggestions of how to make our work, work for you. (more…)
An influencer is someone that has a large social media following and actively engages with its audience to “influence” them on his or her opinions. While “influencer” might conjure up ideas of Kim Kardashian touting the latest waterproof eyeliner or designer handbag, there are influencers in the industrial, manufacturing and contractor space, as well. While some of these influencers might not boast the same Instagram audience numbers as Kardashian’s 149+ million followers, their audiences can be very significant for the market they are in.
