Social Networks and the In-plant

Are social networks the next great Internet marketing app? Or are they just time suckers?

Chances are you participate in social media to some extent if you use the Internet. By some estimates, blogging and social networking sites account for about one in every six minutes of the time spent on the Internet. One study found that 79 percent of the largest Fortune 500 companies use Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. Another study found that Americans spend 36 percent of their time communicating on social networks, blogs, personal e-mail and instant messaging.

Social networks are a great way to keep in touch with friends and followers, and they can be used as tools to spread information about your organization, both to your customers and to people working within the organization. They are increasingly being leveraged as powerful, low-cost tools to enhance customer interaction and brand recognition.

Several commercial printers have begun marketing on social sites. A quick search on YouTube for "commercial printers" yielded 494 hits from printing companies in locations like Jacksonville, Mt. Kisco and Mission Viejo, as well as suppliers trying to sell to commercial printers.

In-plant print shops do not seem to be as active on social media. Does social media marketing have a role in marketing an in-plant? Several college and university in-plant managers have set up Facebook profiles. The lessons from these early adopters may help other in-plant managers from all types of organizations decide whether social media marketing is right for them.

University of New Hampshire

Paul Roberts, director of the in-plant at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), and Julie Pardus-Oakes, who is responsible for prepress and copy production, started using Facebook back in January after their boss, David May, assistant vice president of Business Affairs, brought in a social media consultant. May saw the potential of using Facebook as a marketing tool for each of his individual business lines, including Print and Mail Services, but he also recognized that social media was an unfamiliar path, so he wanted to give them some help getting started.

"As a result of working with the consultant, we learned many of the 'tricks of the trade' and increased our presence on Facebook," says May.

Pardus-Oakes and Roberts saw a Facebook presence as a way to "stay in the minds of our customers." According to Roberts, "We want to use it to market to students. In that spirit we partnered with a group of senior marketing students to help."

Prior to partnering with the marketing students, Pardus-Oakes says that the in-plant's Facebook marketing strategy consisted of finding interesting things to post mixed with sales-type promotions. But, as Pardus-Oakes observes, "If we just used it to promote ourselves all of the time, people would not 'like' us as much, so I've been trying coupons and special offers to build traffic. People like free stuff, so I point them in the direction of tutorials, free fonts, etc."

For example, they created "Typography Thursday" to share type news and links to free fonts with the creative community at UNH. They also offered coupons to Facebook "friends" to promote special offers, like discounts on toner refills, free use of the photo kiosk, and discounts on posters and other items that students might want. Has the effort been successful? Pardus-Oakes says that they haven't seen a big increase in business yet, but "the real value is just reminding staff and students that we are here."

Brigham Young University

Thom Roylance, assistant director of Brigham Young University's Print and Mail Production Center (PMPC), says that Facebook is part of an enhanced marketing strategy.

"We hired a marketing manager in February because we just aren't very good at marketing our product(s)," Roylance observes. "In fact, the four little words we hear all too often are 'You can do that?' We needed to get the word out."

Paul Snyder now leads the in-plant's marketing efforts. His job is to build awareness about the shop's services across the entire campus.

"We've never gone after the student market until recently, seeing how departments are all busy getting their own equipment," Roylance adds. "Paul is helping us with marketing to both students and faculty/staff. It was his idea to create a Facebook page."

Roylance and Snyder see Facebook as part of a larger marketing strategy. They set up the Facebook site to facilitate communications with all campus groups, especially students. And they have seen some increase in student traffic caused, in part, by offering a special rate for printing pages from BlackBoard, the university's course management system, and promoting it on Facebook. Their goal is to provide additional special offers using social networking tools.

Messiah College

Dwayne Magee, director of Messiah College Press and Postal Services, saw Facebook as a natural way to promote his in-plant.

"Our office is not on [the] main campus, and we need a multifaceted approach to stay connected with the students and employees," he notes. "This form of social media is free and low maintenance. It was a no-brainer."

And while UNH and BYU used professionals with marketing savvy to manage their Facebook profiles, Magee had a different idea. In his view, "managing a Facebook page takes a different skill set. In particular, we need to remember that Facebook is social media. It would follow that the best Facebook users have excellent social skills—a receptionist for instance."

And that's exactly what he did: He assigned his receptionist responsibility for managing the Facebook page. While Facebook is a part of Magee's overall marketing strategy, it is admittedly a small one. Like most Facebook entrepreneurs, Magee and his team are considering ways to attract "friends," and he is looking into a couple of unique ideas. One is to create a mascot for the unit.

"Students in particular would probably be more apt to "friend" a cute and funny animal over something dull sounding like 'College Print Services,' " he notes. He says he got the idea from...Facebook.

Magee also plans to use the unit's site to reach out to graphics students and give them a link to real-world print production.

"They can check in via Facebook to see what might be happening at College Press that day," he explains. He is also planning to use the site for special offers.

Lessons to Take

We can take a couple of lessons from these early adopters. First, content is vital. One not only needs a steady stream of content, but there should be a mix of both marketing-related items and "fun" things. Remember that you are competing with a range of other sites for the attention of your "friends," so you have to find ways to catch their attention. If all you post is self-promotional content, there's a good chance your customers are tuning you out.

How many times should you post? Those who study such things recommend just two to four posts a week. And if your status updates get very few comments or "thumbs up" responses, then you might want to reevaluate your content.

The other lesson is the importance of attracting "friends" and getting people to "like" the page. Great content doesn't do much if no one sees it. All of the managers interviewed for this piece agreed: building a large group of "friends" is key.

Social media, as a marketing tool for in-plants, is in its infancy. Is there value in creating a social media presence? The answer is not clear, but these managers seem to think there is. Magee at Messiah sums it up nicely:

"You know, it's kind of like a billboard along the highway. Does it directly yield you more business? Not really; it just raises awareness and it builds a brand name. Only Facebook is much cheaper than a billboard." IPG