Social media marketing is a useful tactic for virtually any company, regardless of industry.
This is as true for consumer tech brands as it is for any other business, and major electronics companies have leveraged Facebook in particular to great effect. The platform is one of the best places for marketers to reach a wide range of audiences, and partnering with a Facebook advertising specialist (full disclosure: we’re one) is a great way to leverage the platform to its fullest potential.
The following examples demonstrate just some of the ways leading consumer tech brands have taken advantage of the popular social media platform. By understanding what worked for a company similar to your own, your marketing team is more likely to develop an effective and successful Facebook campaign.
Sony brings the experience to customers
As the name implies, experiential marketing involves providing customers with a branded experience they can participate in. While the benefits of this approach are easy to imagine, there are also limiting factors. It’s difficult to organize an experience that numerous customers can participate in if it requires being in a particular physical location. Unfortunately, only so many people can attend an event.
Sony used Facebook to get around this limitation. As part of a 2015 campaign to promote its new Cyber-shot RX100MR camera, Sony hosted an event on a tram in Hong Kong. Pointing out sites along the way, a host encouraged participants to slow down and take pictures of the world around them. The main goal of the campaign was to promote a product feature that allowed users to take slow-motion video with the camera.
Sony brought the experience to customers who couldn’t participate directly by streaming it live on Facebook. Simois Ng, head of marketing communications for Sony Corporation of Hong Kong, explained that leveraging Facebook in this way “enabled [an] unlimited number of viewers to take part in the event regardless of the tram’s limited capacity.”
Sony has identified a simple way of using platforms like Facebook to market its products: letting real people participate and share their experiences while using the devices. This is key to successful Facebook marketing. The channel gives brands the opportunity to offer an interactive experience to customers, through which they can demonstrate the value of your products on their own. Sony is simply one example of a company doing so to great effect.
Samsung spreads positive vibes
A consumer tech brand needs a strong customer support department, as people often have questions about how to use their devices. Answering them promptly can boost your overall marketing efforts by ensuring your brand makes the right impression on customers.
That’s why part of Samsung’s Facebook strategy has been to maintain a dedicated customer support account on the platform. This example is worth pointing out because it illustrates how tech companies can use social media in unique ways that you may not have considered. Your social presence is inherently tied to marketing because it facilitates interactions between your brand and potential customers. Using Facebook to offer reliable support to them is a smart tactic to consider.
Microsoft makes an emotional connection
Forging an emotional bond with customers is important for any brand. However, this can be difficult for consumer electronics companies, as the technical nature of the products they sell can create an emotional barrier.
Microsoft got around that by focusing on visual content in its Facebook marketing efforts. Rather than promoting an individual product, the company shares posts that relate more to the kind of idealized lifestyle the Microsoft customer could have.
For instance, Microsoft used the hashtag #5to9 to share visuals of the kinds of activities customers participate in when they aren’t at work. Because the productivity products a company like Microsoft offers are often associated with work, visually expressing how they can actually relate to an overall lifestyle is a strong way to generate that all-important emotional bond.
Points to consider
These examples make one thing clear: there is no one way to launch a Facebook marketing campaign. Samsung maintains a separate account for customer support, Microsoft uses hashtags to boost the effectiveness of a general strategy, and Sony organizes events that customers can participate in via Facebook.
You need to think of your social media strategy in both macro and micro terms. In the long run, your entire Facebook presence should be coordinated and well-planned to serve a specific purpose, whether that’s forging an emotional connection or offering customer support.
That said, smaller campaigns within your overall strategy are also essential for sharing key information about specific products. These brands show how you can develop and implement both.
