This is the first installment in our on-going series on Social Media for Manufacturing.  This is an extension of a recent seminar Web Marketing Manager Carmen Fontana gave on the topic for the Cleveland manufacturing association, WIRE-net. While geared towards industrial companies, many of the principles can be applied to businesses of all types.

What is Social Media?

The words “Social Media” are often intimidating to manufacturers. There are a lot of fancy (and sometimes conflicting) definitions out there.  So let’s strip away the marketing speak and see what the dictionary says:

“Forms of electronic communication (such as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)” - Meriam Webster

So simply speaking, Social Media is nothing more than communication that just happens to be on the web.  There’s nothing mystical about that!

Why Social Media?

• Communication: Social Media gives you a forum tolet your constituents know what you are doing and why.
• Brand Development: An extension of your tradional marketing, Social Mediais another medium to share your message about what your company stands for.
• Relationship Building: Manufacturers tend to be more national and international than other businesses.  Social Media allows you to connect to people around the globe you may not have an opportunity to otherwise.
• Thought Leadership:  Know one knows your product (or marketspace) better than you.  Leverage Social Media to share what you know.
• Knowledge Gathering: What’s happening in your industry?  What’s happening with your competitors?  What are people saying about your products?  Social Media allows you to listen in to these conversations.
• Search Engine Optimization: Social Media signals are now being used to influence traditional SEO.  Expect for Social Media’s influence on Google and Bing’s rankings to continue to grow.

Next installment: An overview of the most common Social Media platforms for manufacturers

Now that we know the functional differences between pay-per-click advertising on Google/Bing, LinkedIn and Facebook  (And if you don’t, go back and read Part 1: Which pay-per-click advertising is right for you?), let’s talk about how to determine where to spend your money.

Even in a perfect world where you have unlimited time and money, you probably would not want to advertise on all three.  Why?  Because they have different objectives and target audiences.
Which leads to the main question you want to ask before you spend a single dime – Who am I trying to target?

If you answer the question with:

•  “Anyone looking to buy red shoes”, then go for Google and/or Bing.  Their pay-per-click advertising targets search phrases.  Advertise on phrases such as “red shoe stores” and “where to buy red shoes in Iowa”.
• “Women who like fashion”, then go for Facebook.  Their ppc is based on demographics.  You can not target people specifically interested in red shoes, but you can choose women 25-34 who live in Iowa and like to watch “Project Runway.”
• “Companies that make shoes,” then go for LinkedIn.  Like Facebook, their ppc is based on demographics.  However, they target someone’s professional interests instead of personal.  So you can show your advertisements for anyone who works at “Nike” or within the “Consumer Goods/Apparel & Fashion” industry.

While you may never have the need to advertise on them all, you may want to consider advertising on one search (Google or Bing) and one demographic (Facebook or Linked).

For example, if you manufacture agitation equipment for the chemicals industry you may want to:

• Google & Bing: Run ads on search terms such as “Agitation equipment for chemical processing”
• LinkedIn: Run ads targeting people working in the Chemical Manufacturing industry

Next installment, we will discuss hints and tips for PPC.

As more and more manufacturing is done overseas, US based industrial and manufacturing companies need to think more globally in their web marketing efforts.  Language, cultural and time zone factors are all important considerations when developing your industrial internet marketing strategy.

Here are a few things to consider:

1.  Have your homepage professionally translated.  Identify the countries you want to target and what language(s) they speak.  Have a professional translation done for each language and create multiple versions of your homepage.  Allow visitors to pick the appropriate version from your English homepage.  If you can’t afford professional translation, try out Google’s Translate tool.  Keep in mind, however, that computer based translations tend to perform poorly on technical words and phrases.

2. Translate your Google AdWords too!  While you are at it, translate your pay-per-click campaigns.  I wrote about this some time ago (Go Global with your Pay-per-click Ads) but the principles remain the same.

3. Include a contact form.  I’m not a big fan of contact forms in general.  People tend to ignore them, opting for email or phone instead.  However, I do like them in cases where a website might have a lot of non-English speaking traffic.  With time differences, making contact via phone call is not always feasible.  And if someone is not very fluent in English, typing out an email can be daunting.  Thus, a simple form can eliminate availability issues and provide an easy way for foreign language speakers to contact you.

4. A picture (and video) is worth a thousand words.  On that same note, include pictures and videos to illustrate your product.  Images are universal – no language barriers to contend with.

5. List your manufacturer’s reps and/or foreign offices.  Do you have a rep in Europe?  An office in China?  A plant in India?  Wherever they are, you should list these locations prominently on your site.  It demonstrates your global presence and gives foreign customers additional contacts in their native language and/or time zone.

One of my absolute favorite attributes of pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns is that you can geographically limit your audience.  Sure, there are more sophisticated features that Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter serve up with their respective marketing tools.  However, geographic targeting is definitely one of the most functional.

Geographic targeting allows you to pick the cities, states and countries you want to see your ad.  For example if you own a pizza store in Akron, Ohio you can choose to only show your ad to people searching for “pizza” in Akron, Ohio.  If someone in West Palm Beach, Florida searches for “pizza” they won’t see your ad. (There’s no way you could deliver that pizza in 30 minutes or less!)

Pretty simple.

I have clients who use geo targeting in many different ways:

-          An online retailer who ships only to the lower 48 states excludes Hawaii and Canada from their geo targets.

-          A marketing firm wants to expand from Cleveland, Ohio to New York City and Chicago.  They target these regions and nothing else.

-          A manufacturing firm with a global presence targets North America and Western Europe but excludes less profitable continents.

 If you are an international company, or aspire to be one, geographic targeting by country is important.  You can take it one step further by offering native language ads to searchers.  For example, if you sell your product to both the US and France, you could target those countries and run both English and French ads.  Google can detect that (a) someone is in France (b) is using a French version of their search tool.  Then, Google will display the French language version instead of the English.

Obviously, not everyone speaks English so native language ads are going to definitely help increase click-throughs for that reason.  Less obvious, native language ads show that your business is committed to serving that region or culture (which also increases click-throughs).  I’ve also seen that native language ads tend to be less competitive and much less expensive than their US/English counterparts.

There’s a couple different ways to implement native language ads:

First, you can use Google’s Translator Toolkit.  While quick and easy, there’s the risk of misinterpretation of your keywords and ad copy when using this computer assisted brute force method.

Second, you could hire a native language PPC specialist.  This is probably the optimal solution but not really realistic from a budget and logistic standpoint.  Even if you were to find an experienced Solvenian speaking PPC specialist (good luck!), you’ll pay an arm and a leg.

Third, you can hire a translator to translate your ads and keywords.  That’s what I’ve done in the past with success. 

 It’s not as hard as it seems:

1.       Get an eLance account.

2.       Create a new job opportunity indicating which languages you are requesting.

3.       Upload your existing keywords and ads.

4.       A bunch of off-shore translation (and maybe even a few US ones) companies will bid on your project at super cheap rates.

5.       Pick one with both cheap rates and good ratings.

6.       They do the work.

7.       You pay them.

8.       Create a new Google campaign targeting your regions and languages and upload your freshly translated keywords and ads.

9.       Get lots of click-throughs.

 One thing to keep in mind – there’s line length limitations for ads.  I learned the hard way that Swedish words are really, really, really long.  Make sure you tell the translator up front how many characters they have to work with. 

If you are an international company, you definitely should consider native language ads and geographic targeting.  And even if your company sticks to the good ‘ole USA, geographic targeting can be beneficial to your business.