Recently, I attended a three-day conference for public relations and communications professionals in New York City. The conference focused on one thing, which it seemed virtually all the attendees were eager—if not desperate—to learn more about: social media sites. You know the ones—Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and, of course, Twitter.
The gathering was not so much a “how-to” conference, learning how to set up a Facebook page or join LinkedIn and create a profile, for example. Rather, it was about getting more end customers familiar with our manufacturing clients and their products—and turning that familiarity into sales. Many of the conference’s seminars discussed how such companies as Southwest Airlines, Dell Computer, and Starbucks have put social media to work for them, including their many successes and failures. Ultimately, these companies believe Twitter, Facebook, and others have good marketing and sales promise today and hold much greater promise for the future.
For instance, one presenter discussed how Dell was excited about making US$1 million in a single day using Twitter to help liquidate an old computer model. It wasn’t the dollar amount that got the executives excited; after all, a multibillion-dollar company such as Dell is used to making this kind of money during sales promotions. What intrigued the executives was the medium used to generate those sales. This promotion made them realize there might be something to this social media stuff. First and foremost, it did not cost them one penny to announce the sale on Twitter, and second, using social media to generate sales was far more successful than they ever had anticipated.
In contrast, just a couple of years ago, the company would have placed advertisements in scores of newspapers around the country to announce the sale and liquidate the systems. Although, according to the presenter, the company might ultimately have sold far more computers in this way, it would have cost thousands of dollars for the advertisements, and several hours of staff and contracted time would have been spent on designing, planning, and placing the ads.
Social Outlook
I left that conference excited about social media marketing and was quick to share with my clients what I had heard and learned about the marketing and sales possibilities these tools had to offer. Additionally, I was happy that my profession—public relations and communications—was so central to this new technology. After all, the bulk of social media involves the use of words, and I’m in the word business.
Now that a few months have passed, and I’ve had the chance to take some more classes and seminars on social media marketing, I’ve been able to reflect a bit more on the medium’s possibilities, especially for the jansan industry. Below are some conclusions I have reached.
- The use of social media Web sites will grow, but that growth will likely be slower in our industry and for business-to-business (B2B) companies in general compared to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies.
- Jansan manufacturers and distributors should get involved with social media marketing now to avoid being left behind by more astute and technologically savvy competitors that will already have experience with the medium as it gathers steam.
- Expecting overnight results and sales success is unrealistic. It will likely take time for social media sites to catch on and be effective in bringing in sales and profits in the jansan industry, and some early attempts at utilizing the medium may fail.
- Building service contractors (BSCs), carpet cleaners, and other cleaning professionals, which can most often be categorized as B2C companies, may actually have more success, sooner, with social media than jansan manufacturers and distributors, at least initially.
This last item deserves some explanation before we go forward. For the most part, BSCs and carpet cleaners are working with consumers, whether the cleaning is performed in their homes, offices, or schools, and millions of consumers frequent social media Web sites. Studies now indicate that the fastest growing and very often the majority of the users of social media sites are in the 45 year to 60 year age group— a key market for cleaning professionals. These consumers make many of their buying decisions by doing research online, and increasingly, they are doing this research by visiting social media Web sites.
A Little History
Although there has been a lot of “buzz” about social media in the past year, the first sites date back to the mid-1990s when widespread use of the Internet itself was still relatively new. These early sites were often referred to as “online communities.” Such sites as Classmates.com (1995) and Geocities (1994) were among the first on the scene and some of the first to use message boards—still found on some trade publication sites in our industry—which grew into the blogs we have today. Early users of these sites found them a good way to share information and ideas, keep up with friends, and get in touch with peers in their professions.
For the most part, the developers of Facebook and MySpace, which were both launched in 2004, and Twitter (2006) believed that the largest group of users would likely be young people in high school and college. And most of the early users did fall into this age group. However, as mentioned earlier, within the past couple of years, older people have become the bulk of the users, and other sites, such as LinkedIn, actually cater to the business world.
Some suggest that the 2006 congressional and 2008 presidential elections may have had something to do with this shift, as more adults wanted to learn about and write about those running for office. In fact, some people attribute U.S. President Obama’s success at using these sites as a major contributor to his election and fundraising success.
Today, in many public relations and journalism classes, Twitter is being taught as a news and crisis management tool. De Paul University in Chicago, IL, for example, now offers a class titled, “Digital News: From Breaking News to Tweets,” discussing techniques and the potential power of this new medium.
Meanwhile, marketing classes are using Facebook to discuss a variety of new marketing tactics not even thought of a couple of years ago. And it is estimated that 80 percent of U.S. companies now use LinkedIn when looking for and hiring new employees.)
The Green Cleaning Lesson
In 2000, I worked for a start-up company that planned to build e-commerce Web sites for jansan distributors. I met with several distributors to try to get them involved with our online project, but overall, our company success was marginal. After one meeting, I realized the likely problem when a distributor told me he had just purchased his first fax machine, and the last thing he wanted to do was learn about yet another new technology.
It’s a fact that some industries—entertainment, computers, healthcare, lifestyle, for example—are quick to adopt new technologies, such as the Internet and e-commerce. This could be because the advantages are clear, the technologies are easily applied, or the nature of the industry depends on them doing so to compete and survive. For some industries, however, the benefits of new technologies are less obvious or results from them more difficult to obtain. The jansan industry is one of those, which is why it is just getting its feet wet when it comes to social media.
If that is the case, what’s the rush in ramping up exposure on such sites? I hope the following anecdote on green cleaning will help illustrate the danger of waiting to jump on the social media bandwagon.
Just a few years ago, some jansan distributors told me they were quick to get involved with green cleaning. Along with its benefits to health and the environment, green cleaning, they believed, presented a marketing opportunity that could set them apart from their competitors. They took classes, attended seminars, and read articles on environmentally preferable cleaning practices and products, all with the goal of becoming green cleaning experts in their communities. Meanwhile, many of their competitors had little interest in green cleaning and believed only a small segment of their customer base would ever be interested.
When local school, city, state, federal, and other facility managers first began inquiring about green cleaning products, the distributors with the related training were prepared. They knew the products, understood how green cleaning works, and were eager to educate these prospects and customers—along with helping them select green cleaning products. This knowledge has helped them retain and gain customers. However, those competitors who had balked at learning about green cleaning practices paid a steep price—losing customers who were interested in incorporating green cleaning systems into their facilities but couldn’t rely on their distributor to help them through the process.
In a similar way, those companies that refuse to embrace social media marketing may be left behind when the technology becomes commonplace and sought after.
Where Do We Go from Here?
The first step jansan manufacturers, distributors, and cleaning professionals must take is to become familiar with the different social media tools. Each site has a different focus, but it is relatively easy to join and participate in any or all of them.
A blog on any social media site can be an effective way of presenting a company’s point of view on industry-specific issues. Many consumer-focused companies are using Facebook to great success as a second company Web site, where they can feature certain products and equipment. The same is true on LinkedIn which as we mentioned tends to attract more of the professional users. Product demonstrations and promotional videos posted on YouTube and similar sites can be effective marketing tools as well.
Whatever social media site(s) you choose, the key to increasing your jansan company’s chances of success is to begin using the medium now. It’s possible that some social media ventures may not pan out as well as expected, but it is better to go through this trial and error now before the medium takes off in the industry and you are left behind. Plus, don’t’ forget, participation in these sites is free!
One presenter at the New York conference mentioned earlier said you have to “make mistakes quickly.” By this he meant that companies should try different things, experiment, stick with your test it for a reasonable amount of time, and then take stock of what is—and is not—getting results. Discard what does not seem to be working and put more emphasis on what appears to have potential. This way, your company will be poised for success when social media marketing hits its stride in the jansan industry.
A former building service contractor, Robert Kravitz is president of AlturaSolutions Communications, a Chicago, IL-based firm that provides corporate communication services to organizations in the jansan and building maintenance industries. He can be reached at info@alturasolutions.com.
