For Manufacturers, a Reason to Tweet

President Obama may not be Twitter-savvy, but some industry observers think industrial manufacturers should be.

In a recent blog post titled, “Twitter for Manufacturing,” the folks at Marketects write that although Twitter is “arguably the last major social media frontier for industrial businesses … if you’re able to find customers and prospects on Twitter, you have an incredible opportunity to build brand awareness and credibility.”

Thinking of Twitter as primarily a sales development tool, however, is the wrong approach, according to the post. Instead, manufacturers should focus on some of the softer benefits, like building a name in the marketplace, extending customer contact and support outside of their traditional boundaries, finding new employees and business partners, and gaining awareness of industry trends and thought leaders.

And a piece of advice: Keep the “look at me” broadcasting to a minimum. “Tweeting ‘on brand’ does not mean blasting out self promotion 5 times a day,” according to Marketects. “It means tweeting about things that are important to your customers and industry in such a way that you are perceived to be an expert or authority.”

It’s unlikely that industrial manufacturers will luck into a mother lode of sales on Twitter, but maybe they’ll land a few accounts they wouldn’t have before and, in the process, build a reputation as a leader and innovator. In some categories of business activity, best-in-class is defined by the slimmest of margins.