With the increasing use and prevalence of social media, it is no surprise that the 2013 Social Media Summit for Construction was the greatest attended event in CMA webcast history. Panelists included Carrie Halle, former marketing director for Knaack/Weather Guard, and Brian Stokoe, social media strategist for Caterpillar Inc. CMA Chairman Neil Brown moderated the panel.
The 2013 Social Media Summit was packed with useful content, tips and examples for using social media to build awareness, and drive sales leads for construction companies. In addition to social media marketing case studies, Brown presented survey results, he key benefits of social media, along with an overview of the BIG 6 Networks (Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram), and an introduction to Houzz.
The results of CMA’s 2013 national social media survey were presented. You can view the full results here: Social Media For Construction – 2013 Survey Results.
Following is a summary of the webcast including 7 reasons to consider social media and highlights from each panelists presentation.
7 Reasons to Consider Social Media
- Growing body of evidence/examples of success, beyond early adopters to all types and sizes of business and construction brands
- Social networks have analytics, dashboards; often more measurable than traditional marketing
- When integrated properly, social media significantly impacts search authority
- Social networks are adding business-friendly features, applications and tools that support marketing and measurement
- Social media is relatively low cost in comparison to traditional marketing, a level playing field
- Social media can reach niche targets that are too fragmented or cost-prohibitive to reach
- Social media can support critical business functions: customer services, recruitment, publicity
Key Takeaways From Carrie Halle
Create opportunities with social media icons everywhere.
Making it easy for people to find you will increase the likelihood of them following you. Leverage on all marketing materials.
Drive social media engagement by addressing followers needs, speaking their language, and don’t be afraid to make it fun.
Be patient – results will come. Followers become brand managers.
Key Takeaways From Brian Stokoe
What are real achievable activities that can be done in the construction industry that will actually impact my business? Reputation management, branding, and extended reach/relationships.
Reputation Management – Leverage free tools like Google alerts, socialmention, and Twitter to find out who is talking about you and what they are saying. Salesforce, radian6, and sysomos are some paid options. Social media is a great tool as well.
Branded Social Media
Cat Products’ social story territories are built from the priorities of the brand: These are key message the brand wants to deliver through social.
Territories are mean to be focusing more than limiting for content and conversations created through Cat Products’ social presences.
Two cool social media tools include Social Wally and Spredfast.
Social Wally – the ultimate social media screen. Show your social media on a screen on a wall.
Spredfast – an enterprise social media software that allows users to:
- Access & copy content from other accounts
- Review social analytics
- Tag content for reporting
- Role based social media editorial calendars and publishing capabilities
Thanks to all those who attended and participated in our survey. We are looking forward to next year!