While many wood products companies are still just dipping their toes in the water when it comes to social media, many are active participants. One trend that sticks out is the positive network effect of more companies getting involved.
Ultimately, a larger network can more powerfully create, share and amplify key industry messages. The Pallet Enterprise reached out internationally to hear how four companies: C.J. Sheeran, HWP – Herwood Inc., Northwest Hardwoods and Valley Box are navigating the social media opportunity.
C.J. Sheeran Is Boosting Its Digital Presence
C.J. Sheeran (http://www.cjs.ie/) is a leading, diversified Irish timber pallet and packaging producer. The company offers standardized and specialized wood pallets and packaging, farm and garden timber products, wood waste recycling, corrugated packaging, and more.
Fergal Moran, general manager of C.J. Sheeran, commented that coincidentally to Pallet Enterprise inquiring about social media, the company is getting ready to embark on a digital marketing project. The company plans to launch a new website and a monthly customer bulletin while increasing its presence on Facebook and Twitter. “Hopefully in the next months we will have a different story to tell,” said Moran.
To this point in time, the company or staff members have had varying degrees of presence on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Some senior employees have accounts on LinkedIn. They find it useful to stay connected to some customers as well as other people relevant to the industry. It can also be beneficial for mining sales leads. “We understand that we could increase our profile significantly though through adding content, which is something we have plans for,” suggested Moran.
C.J. Sheeran has had a Facebook page for several years, mainly to support its Garden Gate brand that sells farm and garden products including gates, decking, fencing and animal bedding. He reported that its Facebook activity trailed off as Garden Gate sales fell during the recession. He noted, however, that when they were keeping it active, he felt Facebook increased their profile and was keeping them at the front of customers’ minds. As part of the new project, Sheeran plans to reinvigorate its Facebook efforts.
The company does not have a Twitter account, although Moran tweets himself. He finds it useful to “see what competitors are up to.” The firm is also planning to boost its Twitter presence in conjunction with its new initiative.
“The overriding challenge for us over the past few years is resourcing this part of the business,” Fergal said. “We have grown significantly over the past 4-5 years without any major assistance from any of the above (social) platforms – in fact most of our customers come from cold calling or word of mouth. So there’s lots of opportunities that we are not exploiting. Our focus has been on managing that growth, and not in promoting the business on social media.” That emphasis is starting to change as the company is ready for growth and wants to tap into social media over the coming months.
HWP Herwood Inc. – The Younger Generations Are Much More Into It
HWP Herwood Inc. (http://www.hwppallets.com/) is a leading Quebec-based producer of wooden pallets and crates. It has been active in social media for over five years, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The pallet company also generates articles on its website. “Our goals are similar for Facebook and Twitter,” explained Jason Wheeler, president of Herwood. “We post articles and announcements concerning the industry and our company. As for LinkedIn, we use it only as individuals to communicate with people on a direct basis.
Unlike companies that struggle to find the time to get involved socially, Herwood made the decision to outsource most of its social media content to the company that handles its website. “Our new vice president of business development has the role to help this company generate the content,” Wheeler said.
“My involvement with the Canadian Wooden Pallet & Container Association (currently Wheeler is president of the association) has shown me just how difficult it is for an association or even a small/mid-size business to stay active on social media. All companies and associations have limited staff and nobody has the time to generate the content to keep social media active.”
And while it is difficult to determine if social media has played a role in generating sales, Wheeler still feels that it is worthwhile. “I think it is important, though, for our social recognition and establishing connections today with the youth who will become the future leaders and decision makers.”
“The biggest place social media seems to pay off for us is when we post job opportunities,” Wheeler said, when asked how social media is helping. “It is unbelievable the volume of people and how rapid these posts get viewed and responses. It is the fastest way to get people to bring in applications.”
No matter what difficulties exist today, Wheeler none the less believes social media and online marketing will be the way of the future. “The younger generations are much more into it and are better at it than my generation. My youngest son is 18 years old and works part-time in our family business as he continues his studies; he has already contributed more to our social media platform in the last year than I have.”
Northwest Hardwoods: Greater Industry Participation Will Help
Having grown from its beginning in the Pacific Northwest, today Northwest Hardwoods’ operations span 30 hardwood facilities across North America (www.northwesthardwoods.com). The company only began its social media program in January 2017, and is currently active on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It is also considering getting involved with Instagram, but still hasn’t launched on that platform as it puts together the content necessary to keep it going. “It’s tough to get the right images from all of our plants,” explained Jacob Schriner, marketing specialist with Northwest. “We don’t want to get into something and not be able to sustain it. You see so many people posting two or three times a day, and then three months later, they’re gone,” he said, speaking to the importance of a sustained social media effort.
The company’s following has been growing on all three platforms, with the most engagement coming from Twitter. Twitter followers are not necessarily customers. They are more likely to be individual woodworkers or outdoors enthusiasts. “Twitter is really good at reaching indirect consumers and getting people from outside the industry a little more involved with it,” Schriner said, noting that Facebook is similar.
In terms of engaging potential buyers, he finds that Facebook is more effective than the other platforms in connecting with buyers from overseas, especially Asia.
Schriner usually spends two to two and a half hours per day keeping the company’s social media program active. He posts twice per day on each of Facebook and Twitter, and once every day or two on LinkedIn.
One early success has related to recruiting through social media. After Northwest Hardwoods had been using its regular channels to recruit a difficult-to-fill position with no success over a substantial time period, it posted on social media. It connected with a highly qualified candidate in just a few hours.
“Everything is growing well,” Schriner summarized. “As the industry picks up on the social side, it will help everyone out, and everyone will be sharing content. It should boost the industry’s presence as a whole and get people really engaged with hardwoods.”
Valley Box: Sophisticated Approach to Social Media
When it comes to social media, San Diego-based Valley Box (www.valleybox.com/) is a serious player. It is active across seven social platforms, including YouTube (2007), Twitter (2010), Facebook (2011), LinkedIn (2011), Flickr (2011), Google+ (2013), and Instagram (2017).
“Although each platform offers its own unique audience and interaction, as a B2B company our primary conversion goal is quote requests,” explained Alicia Guillette, vice president of Valley Box. “In other words, we want each social platform to encourage visits to our website and ultimately a request for quote, although, not all the social platforms deliver on this goal. LinkedIn is by far our most successful social channel! However, by staying active on the other social networks we can help our website’s organic rankings in search engines.”
Guillette stated her biggest challenge is to stay ahead of scheduled posts. “I have an exhaustive social media calendar that I coordinate with subcontractors to execute the postings,” she said. “The ideas and topics are generated by myself and typically involve keyword researching, competitor analysis and common questions and concerns from customers communicated to me by my sales team at weekly meetings.”
“It’s common practice for me to go back and update blog posts to re-optimize them or make them more relevant by today’s standards. Then I have an assistant who will send a draft of the teaser for the platform of which I edit and approve. She then will schedule the posts to go out.”
Guillette stated that Valley Box evaluates its publishing calendar annually to assess the efficacy of posting day, time and click through action. While creating content and sharing socially is demanding in of itself, another area that takes time and resources is photography. “Sourcing images that represent your brand can also be time consuming, especially if you’re not a photographer or familiar with (Adobe) Photoshop or Lightroom,” Guillette said. She recently hired a company to take photos of their manufacturing facility as part of a “Made In America” story she is developing for their Instagram account and blog posts.
Valley Box also likes to make its social posts fun. One example, its “Crate Design Cheat Sheet” blog post uses an “Office Space” meme and has had “huge success” in generating traffic and converting visitors to contacts.
Valley Box keeps a close watch on its social media metrics. During 2016, the company’s social platforms drove 5% of all website traffic, compared to 12% of visitors from organic search terms. Of that traffic, website visitors are converted into contacts by filling out a form to download content or request quotes. Of all such conversions, 29% originated from LinkedIn and 55% resulted from organic searches on Google. If you are interested in tracking your sources for website traffic, a good place to start is to use Google Analytics.
Pallet Repair Services, Inc. has put a focus in the last few years on its LinkedIn and Youtube accounts. Rick Story, president of Pallet Repair Services, explained, “The main reason for our social media focus was to introduce PRS to our customers and brokers throughout the country in order to show them a visual presentation of our pallet company.”
Story added, “Over the last several years, more and more of the larger corporations are making it a practice to physically visit plants to observe the source of their product. Their expectations go beyond simple pricing and service. They come in an audit their vendors on processes, safety, cleanliness and organization.”
Story said, “We decided to use social media and specifically paid channels to increase our brand presence and improve the number of leads we get each day via customers.”
So far, so good as the company has had success in acquiring customers using Google's Adwords platform. Story explained, “We get metrics every day on phone calls and visits to our site. So far, our spend on Adwords has shown a solid return on investment.”
Another part of the strategy is to use LinkedIn and Youtube to demonstrate the quality of the company’s operations via videos to improve the brand in the mind of customers.
Key Lessons
In connecting with these companies, several basics of social media techniques were emphasized:
· A regular social media presence requires resources whether performed internally or outsourced. Three of the four companies used outside help.
· Don’t overextend. It will make sense to do one or two social platforms well than several of them sporadically.
· Not all social platforms connect with the same type of audience.
· As you get more involved, attention to metrics can help you make your program more effective.
· Sharing gets easier as more industry members get involved. There is a positive network effect for the industry.
· Finally, think about having some fun with social. It not only makes the work more enjoyable, but there is also evidence that it resonates with followers.
