We often get credit at Marco for being among the best in our industry when it comes to social media. It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been almost five years and over 100 blogs since I made the commitment to help initiate our social media strategy. I have to say I’ve had a lot of fun writing these, getting feedback and seeing the impact.
We weren’t doing much with social media five years ago, but neither was anyone else in our industry. So I saw it as an opportunity for us to be early adopters.
The results have kept me motivated and kept the company investing. Soon after we launched a CTO Insider Blog written by our Chief Technology Officer, Steve Knutson. The blogs led to us revamping our website, executing an inbound lead generation strategy and training our employees on how to effectively use social media.
We’ve been pretty good at marketing over the years, but I think our execution on social media has been one of the most successful moves in our 40-year history. It pretty much changed everything about how we approach marketing and now is just a natural part of the mix.
Here’s a few of the social media practices that work well for us:
- Blogs: We intentionally developed blogs to reach specific target audiences. For example, this Leadership Culture blog has become a good method for me to regularly connect with thousands of leaders and influencers twice a month. Our CTO Insider blog is directed toward IT decision makers and highlights the latest industry information and trends. We now publish over 20 blogs a month, including blogs on general technology topics, tips and assessment tools written by our internal subject matter experts. Our readership continues to grow.
- Inbound marketing: Our blogs are part of a broader strategy designed to generate leads and sales for our company. Because the blogs produce frequently refreshed content on our website on topics of interest, they also significantly help improve Marco's presence and ranking on Internet searches. It was common for me to complain to our marketing department about Marco not showing up in my online search results. I’m happy to say I don’t need to do that anymore. Since August 2013, our inbound marketing strategy has generated over 250 leads producing more than $1 million in sales. It increasingly delivers bottom line results.
- Social squads: We started social squads to engage employees from all branch offices in our social media efforts. They now intentionally share happenings in their local communities on Marco’s Facebook and Twitter pages on a daily basis. During our monthly social squad meetings, we provide training and share ideas for posts and best practices. The results have been significant. They helped double our number of Facebook fans last year, and we consistently engage 2,000-3,000 Facebook users a week. (By the way, if you haven’t already, please take a minute to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter).
Obviously, social media will continue to be part of the future marketing mix. I got behind our social media strategy five years ago when I committed resources both personally and from a company standpoint. I appreciate you taking the time to read my blogs and for being an important part of our social media journey.
