Getting Social with the Industry : Function: Social Media Campaign Consulting
SITUATION
Successful public relations and communications are dependent upon a company’s ability to reach its target audience. As an agency that specializes in connecting building product manufacturers with the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, Function: sees connecting clients with their target audience as our most important task. Recently, we launched our “Socialize” campaign. “Socialize” allows us to use new and rapidly growing forms of technology to engage and connect with architects, manufacturers, contractors, engineers and more. The ultimate goal of these efforts was to fulfill their promise to clients: “we’re connected to the audience you need to reach.”
To better understand our audience, we began our “Socialize” campaign by conducting a study on the social media activity of architects (What sites do they use? How often? For what purposes?). Using this research, we began to connect to and build a following of AEC industry professionals on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and also created guidelines and schedules to ensure our consistent and active involvement on each of these sites.
With the foundation of relationships and guidelines of consistency, the second step of “Socialize” was creativity. Function: hosted a conference on Twitter (termed Function:140), webinars on social media and content management, which included participation from architects and members of the media and conducted a survey on the number of architects using social media. We also developed a “Meet Up” group, inviting architects from around the country to join us at AIA in order to tour manufacturer booths and provide first-hand advice on how building product manufacturers can improve their products and communications tactics.
RESULTS
“Socialize” has achieved tremendous results. Industry media and architects regularly approach Function: with questions about social media and its role in the industry, and have utilized our research in blogs and presentations, ultimately showing they value Function: as a resource and as expert thought-leaders In addition, we have seen an increase in client media placement as a result of the relationships we have formed through our “Socialize” campaign. Clients are also beginning to look at social media as a viable communications tool and calling on our expertise to develop strategic plans, content management services and internal guidelines.
