Material Handling Distributors Take On Social Media
It’s been a busy week, gathering up the final materials for the October issue of The MHEDA Journal. One article that I think MHEDA members will find extremely interesting is an article about best practices distributors are using regarding social media. Loyal blog reader Josh Smith of AK Material Handling Systems put together a few things that are working for their company. Another distributor, Lori Cooney of Maybury Material Handling (East Longmeadow, MA), added a few notes about what her company has found successful on Twitter:
“We’ve decided to groom a team of five individuals who are comfortable with technology and the Internet and who also are ambassadors for the company. Each person has one day during the week when they are responsible for updating and monitoring our company Twitter account (@MayburyMaterial),” Cooney says. “It’s no one’s single job function—they’re managing multiple tasks in addition to Tweeting like accounting, billing, parts sales, and customer service.”
She has some other interesting strategies in the article as well, including how they come up with subject matter for their tweets, but I thought the team approach was interesting. A lot of small business owners are afraid to dive into social media because they don’t want to take their people away from revenue-producing tasks at the company. Frankly, it’s a legitimate concern. Especially in a down economy, people need to be focused on what they do best. But dividing the task among a committee, training people to be “ambassadors” for the company mitigates that concern, while also getting more employees familiar with the technology. Let’s face it, it’s not going away any time soon. So your employees may as well embrace it.
Tags: material handling, MHEDA media, social media
