Industrial Manufacturing Twitter: Don’t Tweet “All About Us”

If you’re an industrial service or manufacturing business considering using Twitter as part of an overall social media marketing strategy, there are a few things you should consider.  Since all of my background has been in this marketing arena, I know firsthand that much of the online content put out by businesses selling to other businesses is “all about us.”  You know: WE make the greatest widget; OUR people are the best; here’s OUR latest news; look at OUR accomplishments; here’s where WE’RE going to be.

This type of content can be helpful in branding a business, but the truth of the matter is:  most people just don’t care much about how great your company, products, or accomplishments are.  That’s because everyone is too busy making their own company and products great, and creating their own news and list of accomplishments.

One reason why Twitter is attractive to many people – whether they’re using it from a business perspective or personal – is that in their overworked and overbooked lives, they can communicate with someone in 140 characters or less.  Twitter takes up much less of their most precious commodity, which is their time.  For the same reason, people get annoyed when they are constantly tweeted by companies who only self-promote. (In fact, this is a good way to lose followers.)

Industrial companies and actually, many B2B firms in general have dismissed Twitter.  Since they can’t see beyond their “all about us” marketing mentality, Twitter doesn’t have any impact on their business.  They’re either pushing the day’s “all about us” information or tweeting about what they had for lunch. Either way, the results are going to be disappointing.

I haven’t been on Twitter since the beginning; I admit, I was one of those who were slow to jump on the Twitter train.  However, in the time I have been tweeting and researching what others have said about doing business on Twitter, I’ve learned one important fact.  To build a presence on Twitter, you need to tweet about things that are important to your target audience.  I’m not suggesting that you never post items about your company, products, or accomplishments; but that type of post should be occasional as opposed to a steady stream. Insert a company plug once or twice a week, and be consistent with other information the rest of the time.  If your followers see you as someone who provides value to their Twitter experience 80-90% of the time, they’ll be more willing to read those tweets that are “all about us.”

What type of information IS important to people in industrial service and manufacturing companies?  I’ve come up with some suggestions.

If your target audience is primarily in one city or region, post  news items that have an effect on that area’s businesses. For instance, I do business in Houston.  Every summer we deal with the threat of hurricanes coming ashore near our area of southeast TX and causing havoc in the local business community.  If I heard something or saw a news item related to the hurricane season or an impending hurricane event, I’d probably tweet about it.  Other ideas for local information: special business events or conferences being held in your city; seminars or classes offered at local businesses or colleges; business networking functions. Tweet about any local news you think your prospective customers would be interested in.  It’s easy enough to find this type of information in your local online newspaper – or from other tweets!

Even if you don’t attend them, know what conferences and technical symposiums your target audience is likely to attend or exhibit at and become the person “in the know” regarding those events. You can post items before, during and after.  If a company exhibits, they’re interested in who else is exhibiting and who will be attending. What new products are going to be introduced? What are some of the scheduled workshops or key speakers’ topics at the symposium? What papers will be presented?  All of this information can be found by doing a little digging on the official show site or in the trade magazines that cover that particular show. If you attend the show, you can tweet about the golf tournament you attended or the big cocktail bash the night before. The point is to be “relevant.”

Follow the political events both local and national that affect your target audience and post related news items or comments. There aren’t many businesses today that aren’t somehow being impacted by our current economy and federal administration’s legislative goals.  For some, the effect is minimal, for others the implications are ominous. Try to understand how the economy and current political situation are affecting your customers’ and prospects’ businesses and industries.  If there is a threat to their business, it will be relevant and important to them.  Many of my clients sell product or services to refineries, chemical and gas processing plants, and other plants that would be greatly impacted by the “cap and trade” legislation currently under review in the Senate.  I occasionally post news items related to “cap and trade.”  A word of caution, however:  The wealth of information available and the range in opinion is staggering, so be careful what you post!  It’s OK to tweet a link to an  interesting opinion article rather than straight news, but stay away from extremes on either end of the spectrum.  If you want to use Twitter as a platform to brand your business, this is not the place to be a radical!

If you have insight, opinion or other relevant information about companies in your target industries, tweet about that. Most marketing professionals I work with are interested in what’s being said about their company, their industry, their customers, and their competition. Be careful not to state anything that presents a person or company in a negative light.  You have to name names or your tweet has no credibility, so remember what Mom said:  “if you don’t have something nice to say, say nothing at all.”  Unless you’re in the entertainment business, gossip isn’t really appropriate for businesses on Twitter!

Talk about your own company if you can tweet about an actual situation where you saved a customer money or helped them solve a problem that is relevant to others in your target audience. Engineers in particular love case studies that include  concrete data / results from using a product or service. Simply stating benefits in abstract terms is not Twitter-worthy.  Tweet about saving a company 30% or reducing down-time by 50% and you’ve got their attention.  Emphasize the company and industry you serve rather than your product or service.

If your target audience is influenced by a certain branch of scientific research, tweet news items related to advancements or break throughs in technology. I can see where this would be especially relevant in the medical industry.  I have several clients who sell to medical device OEM’s. In working with the trade publications that serve this market, I see there is much more R&D activity than occurs in many of the more mature industries.  Trade publication web sites are a great source of information for this type of “news.”  Select one or two that seem to be the most informative and check out their site occasionally.  Your customers and prospects may receive the publication, but not have time to read it.   

I’m sure there are many other types of content that would be of interest to your target audience.  The key is to think from the customer’s point of view. If they’re on Twitter, they’re probably  searching for ideas and news about their industry, how the world around them is affecting their business, how to be more productive, how to solve problems, how to reduce costs, and how to be more profitable.  Position yourself (ie, your company) as one that is helpful, insightful, interesting, and informed so that when they do search for a new vendor and see your name they’ll recognize you as someone who has provided value to their virtual conversations – not just someone who was always selling to them.

What other ways can you think of to tweet twitterifically?