Social Media: How Can Manufacturers Get the Most Out of It?

by | Jul 8, 2010

In our day-to-day marketing for manufacturers, we focus on selling the products or services they offer. We talk about the features and benefits and how we can solve their problems. A good and sometimes a one-way conversation centered around us.

Then we jump into social media and expect the same tactics to apply. Unfortunately, they don’t. Social is about building relationships and thought leadership, not trying to sell the features and benefits of a certain product.

According to an article in eMarketer.com, a recent study by LeadForce1 suggests that visitors to B-to-B websites directed from social media are generally uninterested in product or contact pages.

They go there to find out more about us, read our blogs (thought leadership) or check out our management team.

Visitors to B2B Sites from Facebook, by Site Pages of Interest*,  June 2010 (% of total)

Similar results are found when being referred by Twitter.

Visitors to B2B Sites from Twitter, by Site Pages of Interest*,  June 2010 (% of total)

The study suggests that social network users are willing to follow the company to check out content, but unlikely to make the jump to the product or sales side of the site.

What are your thoughts on this?

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