Social media is ever-changing and continues to evolve. It should also continue to be part of firms’ marketing strategies. Recently, I read a report produced by Social Media Examiner talking about what the trends have been for business-to-business (B2B) marketers. For years, I’ve been saying LinkedIn is the growing business-to-business social media platform, and this report proves just that. (You can find the report here.)
LinkedIn continues to grow in popularity for B2B, because there is still so much opportunity, especially for the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. This is less of a “social” platform — instead it focuses on business and building relationships relating to your career. Videos and paid advertising on LinkedIn are what most people want to learn more about and implement into their marketing strategies in the next twelve months. Our industry has barely scratched the surface as it pertains to social media, specifically LinkedIn. In the report, real estate was the closest industry that showed up in the report. Our industry was lumped into “Other.”
Instagram continues to grow as well, especially with stories and reels. The architecture, engineering, and construction world is SO visual. We have numerous opportunities to tell our stories through photography, and we don’t do it enough. The saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” is really pertinent to our industry. Instagram is a great social media platform to showcase projects and photography.
Video will also continue to grow, specifically as it relates to LinkedIn and YouTube for our industry. It’s becoming easier to produce high-quality videos with our phones and tablets. There are built-in editing capabilities that are free or cheap with social media platforms or phones. This is an easy way to enter the video market in the architecture, engineering, and construction world. You don’t have to spend $20,000 on a professional video (although sometimes this expense is necessary).
On the other hand, there are several platforms that have declined in popularity, including Facebook and Twitter. Although Facebook is still the giant, they have declined slightly in use. Twitter is declining more significantly and not being used as much anymore by businesses. There is still relevancy with sports and news content, but for the typical business, Twitter just hasn’t produced results like the other platforms.
There is such a gap between firms and their capabilities as it relates to social media marketing. Larger firms have a dedicated person who handles social media, while smaller and mid-sized firms have an office manager, administrator, or marketer (who handles many other tasks!) oversee social media. There MUST be a strategy behind social media.
Social media may be ever-changing, but one thing’s for sure — it is not going away. If you haven’t put together a social media strategy, start today. If you aren’t consistent with your posting schedule, start today. Nu marketing can help with your social media strategy and content creation.
