Wow, hard to think that Twitter was created all the way back in March 2006. In 2006, I was finishing my last year in education and preparing to go into full time work. At the time, I never really heard of Twitter. But fast forward to August 2010, when my blog was starting to get it’s first visitors, I joined Twitter and what was a fledgling glazing community in social media. Since then, it has grown massively and I have built up a nice little collection of followers. I have made some great contacts and I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of them in person. However, 7 years on since it’s launch, and despite the obvious benefits Twitter can bring to business, I do believe that there are many fenestration businesses not making the most of this free and powerful tool.
The ones I do think are using it right are the installers. A lot of installers have been using their Twitter accounts to promote their services and products to a growing consumer audience, which is great. However, I do believe manufacturers are missing a massive opportunity to interact which a potentially massive and growing customer base.
What does every manufacturer/supplier have? A sales force. Most of these sales forces will be equipped with smartphones capable of a fairly decent 3G or 4G signal, and can connect to pretty much any Wi-Fi hotspot in the UK. So why isn’t social media, especially Twitter, now a serious part of the overall marketing and interaction strategy?
For example, say you’re a medium to large manufacturer of various product within the double glazing industry. If you produce between 1000-2000 frames per week, you may have a sales force of around ten, give or take a couple. A clear simple strategy would be to have each of the sales force to set up a company orientated personal account and follow as many people in the industry as possible. It is important to make as many connections online as possible.
A full sales force online can be a powerful advertising tool for the company, as well as being a very quick and efficient way to be in touch with existing customers, as well as reaching out to new ones. It’s very simple really, yet I am surprised that I still haven’t seen a coordinated effort from the bigger companies to get their senior employees on the social media platform.
So, hopefully as few out there will read this and think on about how our industry is going to communicate in the future. Best of all, it’s free!
Good points Jason. I think they’re catching on but I must admit that I’m one of few tweeting live at many industry conferences.
I have to say that I am very confused as to what benefit it has. I can see the benefit for manufacturers to tweet to reach fitters but not for retail.
Am I wrong?
I think retail has a way to go in terms of benefits. Twitter continues to grow, so in time the benefits will slowly grow for installers. But if you’re a manufacturer, and therefore B2B, a sales force all on Twitter, communicating to hundreds of new and existing customers, can and will be a powerful tool in sales I believe.
Maybe its a generation thing, I think you yourself did an article saying there was not enough young blood in the Industry. If your sales force has been in the industry for 20 plus years they are not the best at adapting. Look how many people still go round knocking on doors (retail level)
“The ones I do think are using it right are the installers. A lot of installers have been using their Twitter accounts to promote their services and products to a growing consumer audience, which is great. However, I do believe manufacturers are missing a massive opportunity to interact which a potentially massive and growing customer base.” I agree with you. We’ve been using Twitter for over a year and we follow a lot of manufacturers and installers. The most active Tweeters are definitely installers – they are always posting pictures of completed jobs, jobs that not going right etc. Manufacturers… Read more »
Maybe I missed a trick with this tweet malarky , do you think I should get an account and start tweeting the GGF about what I believe to be their scam of a WER system they have :) and how they are misleading the customers in the entire domestic market, would that get a bit of attention , I have no idea how the thing works really.
It’s easy Kevin! Create your own username, say @kahern for example, create a password and then you’re set. Just need to start following people you like, hate or people you want to wind up ;-)
Kevin get onit! Loads of double glazing people on twitter.Plenty from the glass talk days ! Plus GGF ….I`ll let you say what you want, about the solar gain con ;-)
OK we’re on, @ka11ern I don’t know whats next but a direct route to GGF central would be good :) , I feel some proper sh1t stirring due , though I might have to hang on til I resolve a small issue with FENSA . Nothing massive , just an installation that we would not certify , customer complains and we fail. Down to lintels we hadn’t seen were needed at survey and a customer who won’t pay for them, even though we have offered to go halves . An interesting thought for a post DGB, what happens in these… Read more »
I think you should do a follow up article about handling complaints via Twitter. This guy (@danh1881 ) is given @Ultraframe1 some right stick