Getting a guided tour of a new press, cutter or binder used to mean visiting a vendor at its site or at a trade show, or at the least being sent a DVD or video in the post. But now buyers can see a machine in action on their mobile phones, computers or tablets. As well as showing off their wares, manufacturers and suppliers are using YouTube videos to demonstrate their installation and use.
This method of marketing is particularly good for small and medium-sized firms, which are able to put themselves on an equal footing with the biggest names in the industry.
Picon executive director Tim Webb says his members, particularly those in the consumables and digital areas, increasingly find social media useful, with LinkedIn particularly popular among younger members.
Exporters, though, seem to be finding it most useful of all.
Derby-based finishing manufacturer Autobond has sold machines to new clients in Ghana, Peru and the US, all of whom viewed and chose their purchases on YouTube and connected through LinkedIn.
Oran Gilmore, vice-president of Autobond Inc, the company’s US operation, set up the company’s LinkedIn site last year and now has 300 connections. While it was time- consuming to set up, his network has now "become self-perpetuating" and requires minimal maintenance.
"They are all decision-makers in printing companies that I never would have connected with if it hadn’t been for social media," he says.
So far he has found the site’s product pages most useful and says that joining industry groups was beneficial, but warned against trying to sell within them, as he says that can provoke a backlash against your brand.
Founded 10 years ago, US-based LinkedIn has more than 200m members worldwide, with 11m in the UK, and is the largest online professional networking site. Its revenue soared by 86% to $972.3m (£637m)in 2012.
It is free to join but charges users for advanced accounts that allow them to access more data about other members and to connect to those outside their network.
According to LinkedIn research in 2012, more than a million UK members are small business professionals. A search of company pages on the site found 1,532 UK companies registered in the ‘Printing’ category, 524 of which have 50 employees or fewer.
But while companies can set up shop on LinkedIn and YouTube, Twitter and Facebook for free, the cost of labour involved to use social media successfully is another matter, and this is hard to quantify.
Worthwhile investment
Gilmore estimates it took him between one and two weeks to complete Autobond’s LinkedIn site, the content of which features detailed product information, photographs and video links.
His brother Connor, a film and television production graduate, now spends all his time making and sharing videos, each of which take him at least a day.
Other companies choose to contract out this work, and there is a well-developed sector of marketing professionals who list social media and video as essential skills.
Andy Cook, managing director at pre-press and software developer FFEI, said his company had grown its followers on the site from 190 in November 2012 to 276 and from five Twitter followers one year ago to 185 after deciding at Drupa last year to invest in social media.
FFEI pays a specialist consultant around £1,500 per month for six days social media marketing work, but Cook says he is pleased with the results. "It is good for brand awareness and monitoring the growth in your market. It is a lot more targeted than traditional media, which has more of a scattergun approach."
FFEI used social media as the primary way of drawing visitors to its stand at Packaging Innovations at the Birmingham NEC last month.
"I think it’s really important for businesses to have a social media strategy. In terms of ROI, it’s hard to pin down, but there is also the cost of not being present. People don’t go straight to company websites anymore, they come through social media," Cook adds.
He advises posting regular "relevant and interesting" content to keep the network engaged.
Sheffield bespoke finishing equipment manufacturer Rollem, which joined YouTube in 2009, grew its exports by more than 300% between 2007 and 2012. It now exports 85% of production, and since joining YouTube, 90% of exports are sold through the site, according to sales and marketing manager Jackie Corks.
"Videos are so useful. It’s so much cheaper than shipping merchandise all over the world to demonstrate it," she says.
And not all of its new customers are printers either; Rollem has sold perforators to a Greek garden pot company and a French firm that manufactures communion wafers.
Corks warns that successful social media "uses a fair amount of resources" as hosters need to generate and regularly update content. But increasingly this is the kind of investment that companies will find they cannot do without.
According to Nigel Bond, managing director of Domino Printing Sciences, the cost is "orders of magnitude" cheaper than using traditional methods and had led to "a huge percentage of customer contact."
He added: "Social media is a huge step forward for our company."
COMMENT
It’s essential that suppliers take social media seriously
Quen Baum, managing Director, Morgana Systems The Morgana Systems Twitter feed has been running for around 18 months now, and we are gradually expanding our use of it. It’s a space where we and other supply-focused businesses need to be.
The faint-hearted have to realise, firstly, that it is not just for posting silly, irrelevant facts like ‘I’ve just had a cup of coffee’. That thinking has to be thrown out of the window straight away. New users also have to understand quickly that while a tweet might consist of just 140 characters, the most important 20 of those make up the link that you include – a link that effectively makes the tweet endless: there are no limits.
Importantly, this opens up the information to other media. Links can connect the reader to product videos on a company’s YouTube channel – ours was set up in 2008. Not only does this give an immediate product demonstration to the social media visitor, but they can also help to cross language barriers swiftly. Such links also work across other social media channels of course, and we utilise the services of LinkedIn as well as Twitter.
Product videos have been a huge benefit for us in international markets. Our dealers are invited to take the visual elements and add their own soundtrack to make the film relevant to their own territories. You can also see how many people are viewing your videos. Some of our more popular videos have already racked up several thousand views.
Digital printers, our core customer base, are by their nature digitally focused businesses. The sector uses and understands social media. Manufacturers need to be in that same arena to have credibility as a supplier.
In reality we have grown to appreciate its benefits. We have already found a positive reaction by using regular tweets in the run-up to an openhouse or roadshow event, for example. The amount of traffic in Twitter dictates regular posting of the same information to get a reasonable response, but it does work for us. Okay, it’s not a scientific test, but we do notice the increased number of people coming through the door of an event that we have tweeted about, compared to one that we have not.
The potential audience of LinkedIn’s business social media is perhaps harder to define but it is huge – over 200m. It is best approached via the user groups that are a feature of the site. Here you can communicate with anyone who is a member of the Digital Finishing group, for example, or the Digital Printing group. While results can vary, we have had specific enquiries that have come out of this channel. Due to the multinational make-up of the groups, it can be a useful resource when seeking new partners in specific territories.
While we have sent details of special offers via both Twitter and LinkedIn, I am not convinced that response to this compares favourably with a direct mail piece or a magazine advertisement, but it is something that we are looking to test in the near future, and will be interested to see the latest results. Right now, I am convinced that print rules in this area, but things do change.
READER REACTION
Gary Peeling, managing director, Precision Printing"Social media is useful. We use YouTube quite a lot when we’re assessing our equipment. That’s where we do the majority of our research before we go near a showroom. We have been buying this way for the past three or four years, but in the past two years the amount of content that is available has grown. It’s a great resource to see how machines work and also to read reviews. This is another factor which is affecting some of the trade shows – there is less need now to be stood next to a machine."
Mark Barlow, Association of Printing and Communication Managers (APCOM)"There are a lot more people using LinkedIn for connections now. I’m getting lots and lots and requests from people in the sector, particularly over the past 12–18 months. I had about 12 requests to connect this morning alone. I don’t think Facebook is used as much, it is seen as more personal. We do a lot of business through social media although the problem with local government is that a lot of them have firewalls, it is very difficult for some members of APCOM to do business this way."
Claire Knox, marketing manager, ProCo"We haven’t developed our social media as much as we could do. We don’t sell our services over social media, we use it more as an engagement tool and for awareness. People responsible for buying decisions here do use it; you want to find out as much as possible about the brand. Social media can’t replace big-purchase items. If we are having conversations with customers and suppliers as well on Twitter, it makes for a more relevant view of the business. It’s another way of choosing who you do business with."
