It may be a surprise to manufacturers that social media advertising can be a strong driver of growing prospects or even conversions. But the rich data in social media is a fertile testing ground for custom audiences. The Industrial Marketer podcast explains.
It may be a surprise to manufacturers that social media advertising can be a strong driver of growing prospects or even conversions. But the rich data in social media is a fertile testing ground for custom audiences. The Industrial Marketer podcast explains.
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of the industrial Marketer Podcast, your place for the tips, tech trends and tactics for industrials who care about driving leads and revenue to their businesses. This is exciting. I love being back with you guys. As as always, I'm one of your hosts the ever thankful Joey, the industrial marketer, and I'm here, wishing my counterpart a happy Nellsgiving Hello, hello Nels. How are you?
Nels Jensen:Joey? I'm doing fine. How about yourself? Can you seem like you're in a pretty jolly mood here for the time of year?
Joey Strawn:I am you know, it is this episode we'll be releasing either you're right around Thanksgiving. And we're here talking about sort of a topic that has been reached to us a handful of different times, especially with all the news recently about social media and who's owning what social media is, and what's doing happening with all the social medias. And though this, we wanted to really make this a big good episode. So I am excited. I'm happy to one always be here with you now my co industrial marketer in crime, talking about these things that other people aren't really talking about to the makers and shakers and decision makers out in the world of industrial marketing. I think it's a good time and a good place to be where we're doing and doing what we're doing. So yeah, I'm very jolly, I hope that you're feeling the good festive mood, I hope you're ready to talk about advertising and get into some esoteric idiosyncrasies.
Nels Jensen:Absolutely, let's, let's get into it. It's, it's, uh, hey, it all can work. It's just a matter of figuring out which, which rods you go on and how you execute. Right?
Joey Strawn:Exactly. You know what, and I think that's probably a very, very good place to start. We have a fantastic guest in this is going to be joining us for the second half of this episode, Dan, Dan, the media man, we've had him on he was on the episode, he was on the show last season. And he is here to specifically talk about industrial advertising on social media. But we want to set the stage a little bit beforehand. So like, what are we talking about when we talk about social media advertising. And just to set the stage and the easiest way possible, the easiest way I know how is what we're talking about here is spending money on social media channels to have your content be in front of them. You know, a lot of the different ones have different methods, whether it's gonna be a carousel ad, or a video placement or a pop up or an in feed, or we can go down that road and we will with dad, but at the very base of this now is what we're talking about today is the types of things that people spend money on in social media to get in front of their audiences eyeballs.
Nels Jensen:So we're talking about visibility, are we talking about general audiences and out of sight out of mind? Are we talking about custom audiences and targeted audience and trying to get, you know, people a little farther down the funnel? I mean, it's a big broad social media advertising is only growing in scope and applications, right?
Joey Strawn:You You couldn't you couldn't be more correct. I mean, if you look at a map now of like, well, here are all social media networks that exists. And here's all the different ways that you can spend money using them. It's, it's a bit daunting. So like, you know, the channels that that people think of, to your point. Now, some of them like Facebook, are like ubiquitous, like almost everybody in the entire world, it seems as on Facebook. And so it's like, well, if we're going to use Facebook, that's basically saying, Well, we're just going to use the internet. So targeting becomes extremely important, you know, in a channel like that, but, you know, there's other things like, you know, like, like LinkedIn is a bit more focused around the business world. Obviously, targeting is needed there too. But it really does depend on like, Well, are we doing video stuff? Or is Tik Tok in the picture? You know, where? Where does? Where does it fit in? And what are the channels that people think of? So I think that you're asking the right questions. Now. It's right off the bat. I mean, what do you think of when someone says to us like, Oh, we're gonna we need to launch some social media. Yeah.
Nels Jensen:I think of myself as being an old school. Dinosaur, right. You know, I grew up in like daily newspaper world and pre internet. But you know, I guess dinosaurs are kind of Hypno right. What Mastodon you know, I mean, exactly. Oh, man.
Joey Strawn:Like now they're a great race.
Nels Jensen:It's back into the ice ages, you know? Yeah. So I'm not answering your question, but I think that's one of the one of the most challenging things about marketing, you know, is obviously, you know, selecting, how do you narrow down your choices, right. How do you go about Deciding that yes, social media advertising is a brand, a big, big, huge world and then just sort of some of the decisions and figuring out where you're going to go and how you're going to do it.
Joey Strawn:I am very happy. You said that now, because one of the things that I think of and especially in the world of b2b advertising, especially even more in the niche world of industrial b2b advertising, you mentioned yourself as a dinosaur, which come on, not nonsense. But the world that we live in industrial marketing is made up of people across the entire age spectrum, there is no one size fits all. And to be quite frank, there is going to be a go or no go decision that's even needed on social media advertising, I am not going to sit here and say that every industrial marketer into every ad b2b firm or E commerce company out there has to have money in social media. Because the reality is, is you may not, you know, some of the you really need to go into it with the Go versus no go mentality, thinking of well, what are some questions that I can ask ahead of time? To make sure that I'm approaching this the correct way? A big one? Are your audiences on social media? The biggest question to ask is, will you be reaching the people you want? If you advertise in those channels? You know, we've mentioned that Facebook is sort of ubiquitous, like LinkedIn is getting to be that way, as well, as you can almost say, Well, definitely, I can definitely find an audience.
Nels Jensen:I was gonna say the answers the answers. Yes. I think it's more aware. I mean, even Yeah, you know, even dinosaurs, like me are on social media all the time. Right. So exactly. And again, but I think that's part of your evaluation. Yes. You know, the Go versus no, go. You know, how? How well, can you figure out that match that that those concentric circles? How do they line up? Because, you know, and in many cases, it's like, it's not just LinkedIn and Facebook, right? We're talking about manufacturers, makers, creative people, you know, there's don't underestimate the power of Pinterest or Instagram, you know, or, you know, certainly even tick tock
Joey Strawn:That's what I've already mentioned. Now, as, especially in the makers, community, tick tock is a huge one, the advertising channels are becoming more open. And so you know, as of this recording, they're limited but opening in the future, that won't be an issue, you know, it will be there will be some level of advertising that will be allowed on it. The other part of this go no go decision is, well, what if all of our audience is on Reddit? And Reddit doesn't allow for advertising? Well, maybe. So maybe it's more of an engagement play on that one? Maybe there's not money set aside, but it's personnel or time, part of the no go decision will be? Can we administer it? Do we have the personnel or the time or the bandwidth as a company, to be engaged and active and to be lots of authentic media
Nels Jensen:To be authentic on that channel? Right?
Joey Strawn:Yeah. And so if all of those questions are like, yes, and you're stepping into that, then there's a lot of value it can bring, you know, there are there pros and cons to every approach and every strategy, of course, but, you know, if, if you're dedicated to making it work, and you can narrow down to where your audience lives within the social spheres, then do you have a very good chance of using that money wisely? If you're thinking about it strategically?
Nels Jensen:Sure. And I think a couple of those other questions to ask yourself could certainly, obviously include what are you trying to accomplish? Right, like, let's write Let's link this to the current the initiative that this spend might be related to maybe it's a campaign, maybe it's a annual goal or objective for the company, you know, so obviously, you want to, obviously have to be aligned with the bigger picture. You know, and then it's, you know, there's, there's lots of other ways to slice and dice it after that. But is this also aligning with your other tactics? You know, the right deal, don't underestimate the keyword strategy. You know, it's important in your content, it's important in your search, it's important in your paid social as well, you know, well,
Joey Strawn:To that, to that end, you know, we talk about SEO a lot on the show content, I mean, you know, sure a constant guy and I'm an inbound guy and so, you know, we live in those worlds of how are things phrased and how are things written? And the reality is is you look at it YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. So the titles of your your ads, the titles of the, the videos that your ads are on, will matter in the in the things that your advertising and in the content that you're putting in front of people, all of those things need to be thought through in the journey or the ecosystem that they're going to be viewed
Nels Jensen:It depending upon whom you're trying to reach your audience, Tik Tok may be the largest search. It's amazing analytically that that's transpired.
Joey Strawn:Right? That one and honestly and a again, I have to say as of this recording, because it's that's one of those, it's, you know, the government's coming after, and advertisers are trying to get the foothold in. So honestly, in three weeks time, it could be a lot different world on what you can and can't do in the world of advertising and tick tock, so I don't want to step in it too early.
Nels Jensen:But you're but you're talking about stupidity, right. But you're also talking really, it's not just the value of social media advertising, but it's also your values and how they fit into social media. Because as we've seen with the, you know, at this particular time of this recording, let's just say Twitter is in a bit of a transition of some kind,
Joey Strawn:May not want to put a whole lot of money there right now.
Nels Jensen:Right. And, and but then, in terms of your values, too, is that, you know, we've we've heard, we've seen lots of advertisers flee from that platform. Maybe it's long term, maybe it's not, but they're just not sure. They don't want to take a risk of being next to being adjacent to certain types of content. So yeah, you know, it's not just like, we can talk a little bit about the values of social media advertising, let's do that. But just also keep in mind, your values, and do they fit in with the platform? Right?
Joey Strawn:Well, and that's and that really is it becomes to where you can find value in social media. We said it early on it it's kind of ubiquitous part of our life and our culture. Now, it's not like it was 510 years ago, when Oh, this is a channel that can be ignored because of whatever reason X y&z Sure, you don't live that way anymore.
Nels Jensen:Clearly, the value social media has, is awareness, it's like, you know, you're you're putting yourself in front of your prospects and your customers. So they're, you know, you're reducing the likelihood of out of sight out of mind. But it's, it can be much more than awareness, right? I mean, if I'm, I may be at home surfing, social media while I'm watching a ballgame. But that doesn't mean that it's I'm going to consider it obtrusive, if I see something from that buyer that I've been researching, you know, during my work hours,
Joey Strawn:You're exactly right. And that's where the some of the value of social media comes in as our as a user, our input equation to social media. Now, that is one of the things that has been missing from the advertiser consumer relationship for decades is that we, as advertisers have, you know, focus groups and studies and surveys, and all sorts of data points that try and tell us what our users like. And oh, the buyers of our product are 42%, female, and this age group, or whatever, and it's all very kind of sciency. Nowadays, we are vehemently throwing information at the I like this, and I like this, and I follow this, and I am shopping for these things and doing these things, these are the bands I follow, these are the shows that I watch. And we're telling the social networks, all of that very, very willingly. So now on the back end us as advertisers, we have the ability to very heavily target very heavily segment, and know that the messages that we're trying to get in front of people will actually matter to those people, honestly, the vet some of the value in social media advertising is for who you're advertising to, because let's be honest, not everyone may need your supply chain management software. But the people who do might very much find it beneficial. That's like, Oh, that's a thing that could solve a problem I'm having and they need to know about it. And it's nice to know that you can now target them by their job title at a company and their revenue base. You know, it's it's good to know that we're giving that information willingly so that we can better craft messages for people.
Nels Jensen:And it's my my sample size is small, right? I'm not basing this on studies are based on you know, any kind of great discovery but I think social media, more advertisers using social media, get it in terms of being authentic and in crafting, I'm just gonna say a less cringe worthy message. You know, I still occasionally see I still occasionally see television ads, ads on TV, you know, or streaming whatever you want to call it nowadays. That I just like, roll my eyes and I'm just like that On, and I see less of that as social Is that Is that a fair observation? Do you think?
Joey Strawn:I do. And I think part of that is because of the agility of social media because, and I'll give you a couple examples, like if you're thinking about it in the sense of, well, a television commercial has to be thought of written, casted run through legal, videotaped pre produced post produced set, usually, it's held for a time because it's gonna have a distribution date that launches with campaign, etc, etc. So there's months, and there's a lot that you can't really go back and change what's in that commercial Pepsi Cola would have loved to do that a handful of years ago. But what you can do on social media is you can launch something, see its reaction and then change it within that afternoon, like social allows you to have a very quick agility. So we're learning faster and more on the fly. So in a sense, that is happening. Now it's this the same way that Wikipedia, you'll see be more accurate than published encyclopedias. Because there's more people catching the errors faster, and with the ability to change it. And so in a sense that yeah, that's one of the values is being able to be connected to it in an agile way to to see those trends and adjust accordingly. Now, a negative of that is that a lot of people react too quickly, or will focus on like vanity metrics is like, Oh, my goodness, we got a lot of followers, that is the one that's not really the metric that you need to be paying attention to, or, you know, whatever it may be. So a lot of distraction in social media.
Nels Jensen:So what are the other cautionary tales considerations? When you're making this go, no go decision what what should marketing manufacturing manufacturing marketers make sure to account for as a potential downside for social
Joey Strawn:A potential downside is it is one of the flip coin flip. And we'll have Dan talk about this a little bit more when we get into his section next, but you know, there is a chance to spend too little, and there's a spent chance to spend way too much in social media. And that goes back to that old adage, I forget who said it, but you know, I waste 50% of my marketing spend, the problem is, I don't know which 50% I'm wasting. And in social media, you can kind of get that as you can be scared to spend a lot. And so you don't spend much at all, and therefore it doesn't work. And you're like, ah, social media advertising is stupid and doesn't work. Or you can spend way too much incorrectly, at a quick pace, because you just get excited. And then then nothing happens. And you can be like, Oh, look how much money I spent. It's a waste of money. When really there is probably a very, especially for b2b and industrial manufacturers and marketers. There is a middle ground of I need to spend a reasonable amount to reach my audience. But I need to know so much where my audience is and what they're engaging with before I even spend that money to make it worth it. And that's where I think narrowing in on the how do we make it worth it? Yes. Why would I want to bring Dan on.
Nels Jensen:So and because of the nature of social and we'll get to Dan, let me just throw one last thought out there too, is, you know, have to be willing to change up your creative to it's not, you know, you're not you're not very few companies spend, you know, so much money on television advertising, that you're sick and tired of seeing the same commercial after three months, it happens when you go on the same shows all the time, and you see the same. But it's not like that's not ubiquitous with television advertising, or big what I'll call the big spend advertising. But just because social might not cost as much people see it a lot people are on some of these channels multiple times per day. So that's another thing to do social media advertising correctly. You do have to you do have to know your metrics really well. And you do have to be willing to change up and keep it fresh, and, you know, keep your readers engaged. So that's just another factor. Right?
Joey Strawn:One final thing on that, that you made me think of that. It's It is interesting how it's one of those everything always changes and everything always stays the same. Because you hear growing up and you hear with the marketing messages seven times, someone's got to see a message seven times to remember it. So that's why you wanted to have at least one billboard and one magazine article and one newspaper ad and one you know radio ads like so they would hear it seven times. Well now we have the ability for all of those seven interactions to happen in the palm of their hand without them leaving in front of you and those seven interactions can happen in a seamless way. It so it's the same mindset, we're trying to get to the same ends of them remembering who we are in a sea of noise. But it's just we would if we had had the ability to oh my goodness, I realized from the morning rush hour to Friday rush hour that people did not like our billboard. And we had the ability to change it over that. Oh, yeah. How many advertisers would have loved that? Well, we have that now. And that's what that's what social gives us the ability to do. I, I'm excited to get Dan on here and get on the shop floor and really dive into how do we narrow the benefit for a decimal?
Nels Jensen:Yeah. And I'd love to quiz Dan on how long does it take for your messaging to have an impact? Because I heard seven times a long time ago, I heard 1618. I just read the other day. It's like about 45 days, like the bar keeps the bar keeps moving. So anyway, we can we can quiz Dan and see what he has to say on that.
Joey Strawn:I think that's perfect. Let's head on down to the shop floor and see what Dan has to say, and see what sort of benefits we can we can eke out to him. All right, we're down on the shop floor. Now we have made it. And I am so thrilled to be joined once again by Dan Dan, the media man, Dan, you joined us last season and we couldn't wait to have you back and talk more media and social media advertising for industrials. How are you
Dan Fitzpatrick:Doing great, how about yourself?
Joey Strawn:Now, I mean, you know, Nelson is just out here, talking about trends and talking about things that are going to benefit industrial marketers and people live in, in this space. And we're thankful to be doing it this time of year. So again, thank you for joining us, and we're gonna we're gonna restrict ourselves this conversation. It's not like advertising in general, I know you're the media expert, but we're going to focus on social media advertising this time, Dan, because, you know, we we hear a lot and we see a lot of social media activity. And we hear about, you know, industrial companies, manufacturers, specifically thinking about getting into social media advertising, like, how do you feel that conversation needs to get started for companies? Like where do they need to start when thinking about getting into it and setting aside budget for it?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, well, great question. Really, what it comes down to is, when you're when you're doing that pre planning, you have to ask yourself, Well, where is my audience? That then oftentimes, the answer is are going to be on social media? Does that mean they're in by now mode? On social? Potentially? Likely, also? Likely not. But they're still there, and they're present. And there's opportunity to really start to either engage with them, or, you know, generate some impressions and awareness with that community?
Joey Strawn:And that's what it's funny that you say that Dan Nelson, now we're talking at the beginning of this is that there always needs to be some version of a go versus no go decision. And usually involved in that is the question of is my audience or who I'm trying to talk to, even in this ecosystem? Now, like you said, most of the time nowadays is yes, but you still need to be asking it, you know?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Absolutely. And, you know, during the pre planning phase, we'll be doing audience research within each of the platforms, and making sure that the audiences within those platforms match up with the audiences we want to reach. And sometimes they're not in both platforms from a targeting standpoint, or in a multitude of, or I should say, sometimes they're not always, in all of the platforms, sometimes they're in maybe just one or two. But really, what it comes down to is, you know, during your research, if they're there, it's a great opportunity to get in front of
Nels Jensen:them. Yeah, Dan, are you talking about just targeting? Are you talking about custom audiences? And I know, we're going to talk a lot more about custom audiences, but, you know, the people are so, you know, social media is so, um, the present? You know, the, the answer is usually, yes, people are on social, it's just a matter of, you know, when and where.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Totally. So, you know, when you're asking about, okay, how do we differentiate between, you know, the built in baked in targeting, so we understand our persona, versus a custom audience where, hey, let's say we have an ABM approach. Let's say we have, you know, an approach with a specific job title, or people who have an affinity towards who have an affinity towards, let's say, those are those are definitely two distinct audiences, but they they can run in parallel. And the great thing about social and the way we use from a b2b standpoint, is that we're always learning from it because we have access to just very rich amounts of analytics. So I talked about, yeah, so So something I've talked about kind of frequently, and I know, it might annoy some people at some point is I like to talk about the customer of tomorrow. Right? So we know who the customer is today. But what can we do from a testing and learning standpoint, to figure out who the customer might be tomorrow? What markets might be available tomorrow? And social is a really strong place to start running those experiments.
Joey Strawn:I agree.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, what I was gonna say, Joe's gonna jump back to the question about basic questions to begin with. So Dan, you're also talking about the need to really set goals because, you know, awareness, you want to be maybe I'm not in buying mode now, in the industrial sector, but I will be, you know, in a few months from now. So, the beauty of social, of course, you can always do the awareness. As I like to say, you know, you never want to be out of sight out of mind, it's one thing to say, we just want the low hanging fruit, we just want the leads of people who are about to buy, you know, no, that doesn't work that way, you know, you need to be in front of people, before they decide to buy, so help us, you know, goals, goal setting, obviously, anything you're doing when with, with the, you know, a campaign with the spend, you're aligning with goals. So how do you help set goals around paid social?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, well, well, that's exactly it in the sense that when we're doing a social strategy, we're trying to reach people at different points in the funnel with different content, creative messaging, and mediums. So, you know, from if we know that, you know, their pre buying research phase might take six months, and it might start with, you know, queries around, let's say, government regulations, that's really good awareness based content, where we can start bringing people into the top of the funnel, so that as they do that research, you know, we can help, we can help our clients kind of guide them to when they become a more qualified, middle of the funnel candidate. But we're catching them really early in this instance. But let's say somebody's more in the middle of the funnel. And for them, it's, instead of research about regulatory changes to regulatory practices that your client can really address. It's more about, you know, low volume fabrication, tooling opportunities. So, you know, we might have specific content that is, you know, gated and more speaks more to that answer in the moment. And that could be considered more the low hanging fruit, you know, somebody's more towards the middle or lower part of the funnel. Really, the point here is that on social, we're able to target so many different kinds of people within and where they fall in the funnel is will be different.
Joey Strawn:Well, and, Dan, I'm, I was happy to hear you say that, because one of the things I wanted to ask you about today, and I know, you know, some listeners will be thinking about is, you know, what do I need to put in the ads, and you kind of touched on that, right? There's it's not just one answer to like, oh, well, we have to have some grand 20% off promotion, or we have to be launching a new iPhone to be worthy of having an ad, like you mentioned right there just going through a couple examples of some content pieces that would be valuable, or possibly, like a video that someone may already have, or you know, a promotion, but like, what should be in the ads like it, it sounds like it kind of whatever is going to benefit them most at that stage in the funnel, honestly.
Dan Fitzpatrick:That's exactly it. Yeah. And you know, when we launch a campaign, ideally, we'd be testing different types of creative as to how to, as to how to speak with with these people. And you know, pretty early on, we'll be able to get some good learnings about that. And then we kind of throttle what what's working there versus what isn't.
Joey Strawn:Now, so you and I talked about that earlier about the agility of social being one of its biggest values. I mean, Dan, we were using the example of saying like, Well, if 25 years ago, think of the value of someone who's placing a billboard, to say, well, by the by early, like Rush Hour and late afternoon rush hour, we learned that most people don't like your ad. So we were able to change it at lunchtime for the five o'clock rush or like, how beneficial would that have been, you know, 2030 years ago? But we have that ability. Now. Just you said there's so much you can learn within, within like immediately after launch.
Dan Fitzpatrick:That's exactly it. And you know, when we talk about sort of the billboard, television even approach, you know, that's, that's kind of more shotgun versus with. With social we can get a little more targeted we can we can use a right yeah, so to speak.
Joey Strawn:And that's let's talk about that, like, let's talk about how targeted you can get you know, Nelson, I touched a little bit on that being a power of social is that we give social platforms so much information about ourselves that it makes it easier for people like you to get us the right message. So like, how important is customization, whether it be in system tools or pulling like a third party ABM list like you mentioned?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, so especially with those lists, it's just so important, because a good example, with these lists. And what we like to do is, so we have an ABM list. That's okay, companies, and let's say it's five different job titles, because, again, you know, a lot of our b2b clients, they won, there isn't just one decision makers sort of a team coming together to make that decision. I want to really Yeah, yeah, committee. So we want to reach sort of a diversity of folks within there. But we have an ABM list. And you know, we're paying for that list too. So it is, you know, it's valuable in that regard. But it's not inclusive of everybody that could be part of these committees elsewhere. So what we would do is we'd load this list in, we'd get a pretty good hit rate. But then we build a look alike audience off of this as well. And we'd start testing the same messaging to the look alike audience. And then within that look alike audience, let's say that's, that audience is engaging more with our content. So we can actually start to break out and take an examine, well, what's different between the lookalike audience and our original audience, we know that they have like a 90% affinity. But honey does the look alike audience like Sprite more. Whereas the original audience likes coke. That's a really valuable learning, because now we can say to our ourselves and our clients, look, we're starting to see a shift. And we're starting to see this kind of new market opportunity open up here, this audience that happens to like Sprite, actually really likes your product, too. Whereas it's not just the audience that likes Coca Cola.
Joey Strawn:Wow, the Yeah, that's I mean, that's, that's always what we talk about when I think we talk about the power of social media is being able to seek not not only see those trends, but see them quickly, and then be able to react to them. You know, it's a, it's it's a very agile market, as I think we said that a little bit ago, but what you just described right there, it's really exciting to be able to say like, Okay, we know, these people are important to us. And because of technology, we can take these people, we can build another list that acts the same way as these people that we know are valuable to us to get in front of new eyeballs. And then based off learnings from that new set of eyeballs, we're gonna customize the original audience to make it even stronger, is just in it's that cycle of continued learning, you know, that Kaizen mentality that we all have in the manufacturing space, of always looking for those minut adjustments to make the program work better. And it sounds like that's how you and your team work. When you're setting up these media plans. And especially going into social, you have to I would imagine, you have to pretty be be pretty on the ball. When it comes to social advertising, considering people, you know, people are mad at us Superbowl commercials, they just yell obscenities at their screen. People are mad at your ad, then they can type obscenities on your ad for other people to see. So it's a little bit of a different world.
Dan Fitzpatrick:For sure, for sure. You got to keep your eye gotta keep your eye on things. Otherwise, you know, stuff can get a little messy. kind of quick, kind of quick if you don't, but no,
Nels Jensen:But isn't. Isn't that that agility is you can kind of play offense and defense at the same time, you can stop doing things as well as you can double down on the things that are working. And one of the things we were talking about to you in terms of the planning, so what how about integrating your paid social with your other messaging? What are what are what should manufacturing marketers think about in terms of the alignment with other messaging?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, so great question. And really it comes down to well, what is the audience's expectations on each platform? Right? So like an audience expectation on LinkedIn might be different than an audience expectation on Instagram, as to how they want to consume a specific type of content, but even brought in a broadening and out beyond social you know, what is your audience expectation in like a trade magazine, you know, in print publication even, it's going to be way different than than just kind of doing their day to day, sort of existence within social. So, you know, you really have to be cognizant of the fact that the audience will have expectations as to what kind of messaging and content that they react to, based on Channel. Right.
Joey Strawn:And that makes sense. I mean, you know, crafting the message for the audience has always been something that we talked about, but understanding that even within a universe, crafting the message for each channel, can really make a difference. I mean, we talked earlier in the segment that YouTube is one of the fastest growing search engines on the planet. So if you're being you know, using a method of getting ads into that social sphere, knowing what ads and which makers in which titles, the videos that your, that your ads are showing up on can also be very important, just because of the universe, this, you'll be then existing. And so, you know, I, as we wrap up here, I know that, you know, people have questions and fears and concerns. And, and we always say there's no one size fits all solution for anything in industrial manufacturing. But when it comes to social media advertising, is there any scenario in which a company just shouldn't use it at all?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, and I think we actually just kind of addressed that in a roundabout way, which is the expectations. So one, if your audience isn't there, and if your audience not only is not there, but their expectations don't align with you know, what you can provide them in that moment, then it doesn't, sometimes it just doesn't, you know, it doesn't have to, it doesn't always make sense to move forward with that. So, you know, you do have to kind of pick your spots for sure. But that's far between, because at the end of the day, once we have these custom audience lists, it doesn't cost anything to upload them. And to test whether or not what kind of match rate we get. And if we're getting a strong match rate? Well, we know that that audience exists on social. So you know, they're there. Can we meet them with the appropriate content and the right expectation? And if the answer is yes, to that, proceed? If the answer is no, which sometimes it is, you know, maybe find different mediums,
Joey Strawn:Right. And that's actually really, really good advice. I one of the hack that we had used in the past, or that I will give the audience here. And Dad, you can slap my hand if this is no longer correct. But we used to even approach it in LinkedIn advertising, because you can put in feed ads for click, cost per click, so you only get charged when people click on it, but they still show up. So we used to call those just like billboard ads, like we'll put them in the feed, people will see them when they scroll drive by, but unless they tap on them, you're not getting charged for anything. It's like you're still getting those eyeballs, but you're not technically paying for them, but their placements there to get those clicks. As like, you know, there's they're a little ways like that, that you can take advantage and actually get in front of the people. If awareness. Going back to the thing we said at the beginning, if awareness is one of those goals, then there are ways to use social media where it's not a burden. And it doesn't have to be, you know, detrimental to your to your bottom line either. Now, Dan, we always like to end with giving people you know, on the shop floor, like real life advice, I think we've talked a lot about real scenario so far with you. But if someone's just not sure how to get benefit from social ads, or how to start using that money, what what's a piece of advice that you would give them?
Dan Fitzpatrick:I would probably ask them, you know, what was the? What I would do is I'd probably start by asking them, Hey, do you have Instagram yourself? Do you have like, Have you been on YouTube? When was the last time you were there? And you know, let's just pretend the answer was I was watching a video this morning. Okay. Do you remember any of the ads? Actually? Yeah, I do. It was an ad for, you know, a big pen or something. That's okay. Why do you think you saw that? I don't know. It just seemed, you know, whatever the answer may be. The point is that that advertisement, even if it was a relevant was something that was seen and resonated in some capacity. So if you can get past the barrier of I don't believe in this because it's not the way we've done business in the past. If you can get past that barrier with folks, by having them understand, hey, you actually see these all the time and they do have a lasting impact on you. Maybe the targeting maybe you weren't the right audience. Well, that's why we're in this conversation because we'll help you find the right audience. And we'll dial it in. And once that occurs, then we'll you know, we'll start to see that meaningful lift. You know, it's just kind of allowing people to see what's, you know, what's been what's worked on them. While I might not have even realized
Joey Strawn:I like that quite a bit because we as industrial marketers tend to go into thinking about this, trying to encapsulate the whole and trying to be like, well, industrial marketers as a whole writ large don't like XY and Z. But the reality is, is all of us working in these fields are industrials are industrial marketers. And Dan, to your point, the best advice probably is personalize it a little bit more than they think, than they think they should like. As an industrial, what social networks are you on? Why are you there? What have you seen that resonated that you remembered? And why? And if you can answer those questions for you, then you can think about ways to apply those same answers to your advertising and and use your advertising to answer those questions for other people. I like bingo. That's a really good way to think about that.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, you're but you're basically talking about the recipe for authenticity. You know, you Joey just reworded you know, what Dan was talking about appropriate content and, you know, appropriate flip platform with appropriate expectations. You know, that's why so many, you know, visuals work on Instagram, you know, tick tock, whatever. The manufacturers ultimately are making things, they're creating things. And, you know, those are great platforms for people who are creative bakers, you know, because it worked on you because it was authentic, it was authentic for your place and your time, right, the channel you were on, and your expectations. So yeah, it's a, I guess what I'm hearing, Dan, is the importance of authenticity.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Absolutely. I mean, you know, it's, I think that's a good lesson for any part of someone's life and advertising journey.
Joey Strawn:Especially with social media like that is the core of why it exists. in Reno I we used to say, if you're not willing to be social didn't Don't be on social media. And so that is the core of and, Dan, to your point earlier. And I'll wrap this up in a nice little bow here is it all comes back to that context, is the context that needs to be presented, because the channel is inherently social is one of authenticity, and that message, whatever that is, for your brand, for your company, for your promotion, and what you're putting out there, it needs to feel that way and resonate that way within the advertising. And I think I like that. And Dan, I think that is something to be thankful for, at this time of year. So thank you for being here and for and for bestowing your wisdom upon us and letting us barrage you with questions, then we're gonna have you back on the show, as always, but thanks for coming on today.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, totally. You know, this is the second time the first time we talked about workforce recruitment. And that's still a big issue.
Joey Strawn:So if you haven't heard that episode, go back in our archives and listen to it, because trust us, it's still very relevant.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Joey Strawn:Thank you very much, and listeners as always from nows and myself, thank you so much for listening. This is a community effort and we as industrial marketers are trying to get better together. If you have thoughts of how you've seen social media advertising be used in a successful way. Email us those stories. You can email us your questions to those stories or any comments, you have an email at podcast at industrial marketer.com If you aren't already following us on social media, please do industrial marketer you could find us anywhere social medias are sold. And then also go to our website, industrial marketer.com and subscribe. There's a lot of very, very sophisticated and professional and well written blogs on a lot of topics that we as industrial marketers care about. So reach out, connect. Let's come together this time of year. And until next time, thank you for listening, and we will talk to you on the flipside.