Social media marketing for manufacturing companies is not always intuitive. Fortunately, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for B2B media due to its level of specificity. Manufacturing is an incredibly niche industry that must be tailored to the correct audience when it comes to marketing. However, LinkedIn boasts over 600 million users and 30 million companies, and these companies and individuals can be targeted with great precision. In fact, 65% of engineers and technical professionals use LinkedIn as their primary research tool when it comes to company purchases (Grant Marketing).
Below are some recommendations for how manufacturing companies can leverage LinkedIn in order to achieve the best marketing and sales results possible.
- Optimize Your Business Profile
- What Type of Content is Best for LinkedIn
- Ways to Stay Active on LinkedIn
- Advertising on LinkedIn
Optimize Your Business Profile
In order to optimize your business profile on LinkedIn, you should consider including an updated profile photo as well as header photo. In addition, you should fill out as many fields as you can, including an about section that is concise but includes keywords. Adding URLs to posts can also increase engagement up to 45% (Hootsuite). Adding a career page is also a fantastic way to get potential customers more engaged. This page can include photos and videos to highlight your company culture as well as job postings, both of which can lead to increased engagement.
What type of Content is Best for LinkedIn
LinkedIn offers a number of options when publishing content. Content is exceptionally important for manufacturing companies. In addition, LinkedIn content affects SEO positively in a similar way to landing pages and blog posts, giving your company the potential to rank higher in Google search results. LinkedIn is the most widely used platform for B2B client acquisition (WebitMD). Therefore, increasing organic traffic via LinkedIn is of utmost importance.
Videos and Photos
Company photos and videos can be tremendously useful for creating a high quality page that engages users and is informative and personal. Information should be clear and concise. The showcase page on LinkedIn is also a new feature that can highlight products. In terms of the ad content itself, videos garner up to three times more engagement than static ads (LinkedIn). Product launches, statistics, milestones, and eBooks are other well-performing ideas for advertisements.
Ways to Stay Active on LinkedIn
The hottest manufacturing companies on LinkedIn update their pages upward of 11 times per week (Ashworth Creative). Posting at least 2x per week leads to more engagement with your company’s content, as opposed to posts by companies that are less active on LinkedIn.
Employee Involvement
Employee involvement such as commenting on, liking, and reposting company content can be instrumental in spreading company awareness while emphasizing a positive work atmosphere. Make sure that your employees follow your page and encourage them to engage and share posts. Maybe even send out a notice when new posts are posted.
(LinkedIn)
Joining Groups
Although a company itself cannot join groups, if employees from your company join groups on LinkedIn that are relevant to your industry, this is a great way to spread awareness and get your company’s name out in relevant channels organically. In addition, joining groups can help you stay abreast of trends in your industry.
Advertising on LinkedIn
Aside from organic content, paid advertising on LinkedIn can allow companies to target professionals who fit certain geographic areas, companies, job titles, and more. Although ads do have a cost, they can be useful for ensuring your company is shown to the people for whom they have the most relevance. This includes the ability to target members of a certain company or job title, which is a unique feature that most other advertising channels do not have. In addition, LinkedIn tends to have higher conversion rates than other platforms, which can give you better value for your ad spend.
In summation, LinkedIn is a powerful tool that can be leveraged in many different ways for B2B marketing, particularly in a niche manufacturing industry. Snyder Group Inc. can help you learn more about optimizing your manufacturing company’s LinkedIn presence.