Building Business

Turning Social Media Into Action For Building Products Marketers

If your building products company is like 70 percent of businesses, it’s operating under a formalized social media strategy. But are you doing social media because the business down the street is, or are you looking to accomplish specific goals? If the latter applies to you, Brian Solis’ newest article for Mashable, How Social Media Marketers Can Convert Attention Into Action, is a must-read. Solis urges marketers to practice “conversion science” – the art of converting online impressions into action and engagement. To accomplish this, Solis recommends marketers to create definitive goals at the onset of any program, become comfortable with adapting on the fly and embracing data to locate leaks in the online funnel. 

@NeilAndrewJames

33% Share Opinions About Companies and Products Via Twitter

Word of mouth is a common enough marketing tactic. From hummus to home loans, we listen to one another, organize our options and then take the route we think will end in the best result. This systematic processing of information not only experiences a second life in the digital medium, but thrives. And as John Sonnhalter notes in his article, Use Twitter to Talk Up Your Brand to Tradesmen, social media is simply an extension of word of mouth. In fact, in at ROI Research survey, it was discovered that 33 percent of Twitter users share opinions about companies and products at least once a week. This means that hurting build-design firms may have the opportunity to take advantage of a digital market waiting to be tapped.

@KyleGWilson

“The Media is the Message” According to IL Building Products Distributor

Why did Scott Thomas, marketing director for Parksite, a building products distributor, consider it important to incorporate digital as a major component of his company’s marketing mix? Carla Waldemar explores the answer in her article for Building Products Digest, Honing Your (Social) Media Skills (pp. 15-16). Thomas discusses with Waldemar how today’s building products customers have access to information from far more sources than just print and television ads, and increasing amounts have thoroughly researched online before they enter the store. Parksite is using Twitter, YouTube and blogs to relay information on its products to researching consumers. Furthermore, digital marketing has helped Thomas craft better headlines for press releases and newsletters as well as maintain relationships with architects, builders and other potential customers.

@NeilAndewJames

Building Social Media Into Your Marketing Plan

Social media isn’t just for the kids anymore. According to a recent Tradesmens Insights blog, Industrial Marketers Focus on Social Media, John Sonnhalter notes how social media is multi-faceted, and that if you are discouraged by one outlet, simply move on to the next. Easier said that done maybe, as social media requires one to invest, at least minimally, in an ongoing conversation about your products, services and company as a whole. But, as Sonnhalter displays, social-media sites can be cooperative for you rather than competitive with one another. Consider teasing a product in a Twitter post, providing background information on Facebook and promoting conversation on a building forum. Compounding social-media services can dually increase your business.

@KyleGWilson

Four Easy Steps to Successful Social Media for Building Products Marketers

Social media and building may not immediately seem like complimenting cohorts. After all, the discipline lends itself more to building the literal future than it does to building a blog. And yet, as cited in a Marketing Home Products article, Social Media Success in Marketing Home Products, building marketers are finding social media a useful avenue for disseminating their services, informing consumers about products and drumming up business. For those building marketers looking to take the leap into social marketing, then, four helpful hints are suggested when undertaking your social-media venture:

1)      Set firm objectives
2)      Listen and learn
3)      Put a strategy in place
4)      Measure and analyze

And if you think the digital age might not be right for your company, consider slowly investing in #2. Because if trends don’t make you listen, maybe results will.

@KyleGWilson

Image Credit - Meetings Podcast

What Building Product Marketers Should Use Instead of Facebook and Twitter

Facebook and Twitter are two social-media giants vying for, what would seem like, unlimited attention. However, according to a recent Building Products Marketing blog post, 5 Essential Social Media Tools for Manufacturers, neither of these two is critical in promoting useful content for building product manufacturers and reps. In fact, simpler sites with easier functionality seem to embody the most useful facets of social media. In this case: photo and video sharing, blogging, an e-newsletter, even a Wikipedia page. The aforementioned building users aren’t looking to connect with high school friends or tweet their mood. Instead, they utilize social media appropriately for their end goal: information and business.

@KyleGWilson

Why You Should Replace Your Building Products Website With a Blog

What are the benefits of choosing to promote a blog over a website? This is the question posed in an article by John Sonnhalter, Replace Your Web Site With a Blog and Interact More With Tradesman. In terms of business promotion, a blog can do something that a website has difficulty selling: return visits. While a website provides direct information in an orderly fashion, blogs promote interaction and reaction. If people have a vested interest in your products or services, they will return to your blog for updates and insights on the latest trends, niche markets or, even, news. It’s like being a kid again, with two tin cans as telephones and a string attaching each … only this time, there’s money on the other end of that line.

@KyleGWilson

Six Blogging Tips For Construction and Building Products Marketers

Blogs are easy to create, but hard to maintain. In a world of social networking and advanced communication, it is easy to get left in the proverbial dust. Because of this, a recent Construction Marketing Ideas post, Some essential tips for blogging success, assists those testing the waters when approaching the blogger world. By suggesting six considerations when beginning – consistency, content, personality, respect, rules and sharing – the above blog discusses the ups and downs of maintaining a healthy blog, and thereby a healthy representation, for yourself and your company. While these tips are the foundation of success, it shouldn’t be forgotten that you need to be realistic about your blogging goals and your ability to create worthwhile material. And if you feel like the writing's on the wall, erase it. Give blogging a shot. It couldn’t hurt.

@KyleGWilson

Searching For the Green Social Web? Start Here

During the 2008 presidential election, Americans were still reeling, positively or negatively, within the immediate surge of a green movement. Promises of green jobs and environmental solutions abounded throughout, all overshadowed by a backdrop of change. Change like Lorni Li talks about in her article, 10 Best Green Social Networks. Now that there is mass appeal and passion out there for green initiatives, the next step is connecting the right people with the right task force. And what better way to do that then through the most incredible modern linking tool: the Internet. While Li cites 10 green networks, there are easily thousands. It’s just finding the right mouse click that leads you (and us) to greener … pastures …

@KyleGWilson

After the Crash, a Cabinet Distributor Rebuilds

In a profession pushed to the edge of financial ruin by the recession, Mark Seigle attempts to thrive. A former player in the cabinet distribution business as president of Seigle Cabinet Center LLC, he sold his company in 2005 to a, now, bankrupt Stock Building Company. In his article, Reopening Doors That He Had Closed, Mark Sullivan notes how Seigle is approaching this opportunity as not just “business as usual.” With a social-media approach and the knowledge that he had saved several former colleagues from the death of Stock Building Company, Seigle has big aspirations for his five lines of cabinetry. And with $100,000 worth of inventory, it’s not just him that hopes the worst is behind us.

Have you or someone you know been affected by the financial downturn in the building business? What role do you think social media is/will play in promoting not only the business but products as well? Give us your comments!

@KyleGWilson