I felt your social presence

It’s becoming harder to find a company without a social media presence than a company with one. Even in the electronics space where adoption of new channels is traditionally slower, social media is now an important channel for many companies. But why? We recently hosted a round-table discussion to talk about the opportunities and challenges in connecting with engineers and those in the electronics industry, with a particular focus on social media. Within our group of industry experts, including customers, suppliers and the media, discussions focused around whether social media is a genuinely useful resource and how this now coexists with websites and publications as a source of information for engineers.

For many companies in the electronics space, social media has been seen as a distraction or a channel that mainly benefits consumer-facing companies. Yet communicating with engineers has evolved considerably from the days of posted letters or calling up a customer service rep. Companies have more options than ever before and our panel are all seeing that customers are now much more inclined to engage directly with them. Engineers can head to manufacturers’ websites to browse data-sheets, visit forums to find others with the same problem, or engage with brands directly across a number of contact methods. While some remain resistant, it’s clear that social media is becoming more and more important.

The term ‘Social media’ means different things for different people. Some will instantly think of Twitter and a sea of distractions, whereas it also covers online communities or instructional videos on YouTube. The verdict from the experts was that companies need find out what channels their target audiences are using and what content they are consuming. Rather than trying to cover any base, companies targeting engineers should focus on quality over quantity at first. Selecting the right channels is crucial to reaching the right audience. For example, Facebook is a channel that for those in the UK is very separate to business, yet across Europe it’s much more popular than LinkedIn for work discussions. Furthermore, Google+ is an area where we see a lot of engineers and enthusiasts.

Twitter is certainly a medium that attracts a lot of preconceptions; people will either find it incredibly useful or struggle to see the value. In the consumer world it has become a popular customer service platform and this is something that is now starting to appear in electronics. Many of our suppliers will get technical questions or product requests sent to them via Twitter and it’s important that they respond. The challenge for companies is making sure they have the resource to deal with requests and questions and not signing up before they’re prepared.

A significant trend, one that is certainly not exclusive to engineers, is that people will increasingly head online to find a solution for problems before they contact the relevant company. Whether that’s putting the question into Google, looking on social networks or posting a question to an online community, tapping into the knowledge of others is often the quickest way to solve problems. The success of the element14 Community is proof of this. With over 250,000 members, we see many problems being discussed and solved long before our suppliers need to get involved.

What was clear was that social media is an increasingly important communications medium for both engineers and companies across the electronics industry. For engineers it opens up the knowledge of others and gives a much more direct route to companies. For the companies looking to connect with their customers, the challenge is in delivering the right content and having the resource to support it. While it’s certainly not easy, getting it right can deliver infinitely better results than any direct mail campaign ever could.