by Fronetics | Jan 2, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
It’s time to cast your vote for the top blog in the supply chain and logistics industries!
Fronetics is conducting its 3rd annual survey to uncover the top industry blog of 2017. Help us by voting for your favorite blog. Responses will be collected through January 25, 2017. Vote now so your voice will be heard!
All responses are confidential and will be reported in aggregate. No identifiable information (individual or company) will be attached or included. Please contact [email protected] with any questions.
Interested in who won in 2015 and 2016?
by Fronetics | Dec 15, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Here are our 10 most-read social media posts of 2016.
Social media is no longer optional. Today, B2B and B2C companies need to be active on social media. Companies that aren’t are making a strategic mistake that will impact their bottom line.
At Fronetics we work with companies to create and execute social media strategies. Moreover, we serve as an educational resource for companies within the logistics and supply chain industry.
Here are the 10 most-read posts about social media from our blog in 2016.
A question we often get here at Fronetics is: How often should my business tweet? We explore this question and give you an answer. Read more.
Facebook Live offers businesses a new, creative platform for engaging customers — here’s how to use it. Read more.
When it excels at social media, a company’s opportunity for growth is as vast as the web itself. Today, even small businesses can compete shoulder to shoulder with their biggest competitors if leveraging social media properly. These four supply chain companies constantly post fresh, quality content to their social media accounts. Read more.
Social media facts collected from various studies, offer insight into how people and businesses are using social networking today. Read more.
Censorship is always a hot-button issue, and, when combined with social media, things can heat up even more. The topic is debated in law school classrooms, at dinner parties, and in courtrooms. What should be shared and written on social media? Should companies censor what their employees post? Read more.
One of the top social media sites for B2B marketers, Twitter can help businesses spread brand awareness and communicate with customers. Read more.
A cross-departmental social media team will improve your company’s social presence. Read more.
This is a guest post written by Tania Seary, founder of Procurious, the world’s first online social network for supply chain and procurement professionals. In the post Seary shares how Procurious has used social media to build Procurious. Read more.
When you are posting on social media could be as important as what you’re posting. Read more.
If your company is not participating in social media, you are at a disadvantage. Your customers, your employees, and your competitors are taking advantage of these technologies to conduct business in new, more efficient ways. Read more.
by Fronetics | Dec 13, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Get the tools you need to create and implement a content marketing strategy that drives profitable customer action for your business.
Content marketing can be an incredibly effective tool for attracting customers and growing a business. But it ain’t easy. In fact, logistics and supply chain companies report creating and executing an effective content marketing strategy as one of their top challenges.
That’s why Fronetics created its Guide to Content Marketing for the Logistics & Supply Chain Industries. Newly updated to include even more helpful tips, tricks, and ideas, the guide offers step-by-step instructions for getting an effective content marketing program up and running.
If you are a DIY kind of person or are just looking to learn more about how to develop a modern-day marketing strategy for your business, this guide is a good place to start. Templates, lists, calendars, and more will walk you through the process of developing a strategy that aligns with your business goals.
Included in this guide is information regarding:
- Buyer personas
- Keyword development
- Content creation and distribution
- Social media participation
- Lead-nurturing workflows
- And more
Click the button below to download the new and improved guide and to get started creating a content marketing strategy that works for your business.
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by Fronetics | Dec 8, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
How 2 new developments have changed the world of marketing
The year 2017 is about to dawn, and with it marks a decade anniversary of the birth of two seismic changes in how people view the world around them. No doubt you’ve incorporated both of these changes into your daily life, but have you fully absorbed them into the way you conduct your business?
In supply chain and logistics businesses, the general answer is “no.” That’s a significant problem for a company’s long-term success, but it can be remedied.
Let’s look at the two world-changing phenomena, how rapidly they’ve reshaped the world, why they are crucial to your company, and steps you can take to fuse them into your business.
A new website is launched
It was just 10 years ago that a new website poked its head up on the internet, offering to the general public an online social network so people could keep in contact with friends and family. Originally designed as a private forum for college and high school students to connect online, but its founders thought perhaps it might catch on with the public, too.
In late 2006, when Facebook opened its website to anyone who wanted to sign on, it saw its users soar by 33%, to 8 million. But that was barely a blip compared to the social and business marketing revolution it has created worldwide. Now over 1.8 billion people use Facebook, and hundreds of millions more use other social media channels that have sprung up in its wake — Twitter, LinkedIn, Snap, Instagram, and many others.
For businesses, social media has opened up an entirely new way to find and interact with customers. It’s changed the traditional ground rules of marketing and advertising. And it’s created a completely new and sophisticated tool — big data — that provides unprecedented amounts of information about customers and potential customers. That information is valuable.
A new phone dials in
The second revolution is now literally in the hands of one quarter of the world’s population.
Around the time Facebook launched, Apple came out with its first foray into the emerging field of cellular phones. The iPhone was an instant hit, selling a little over 1 million phones in its debut year, 2007. It combined the functions of a smart cellphone with intuitive ways to connect to the internet. Rival technologies quickly followed suit. Today, an estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide use a smartphone.
Mobile communication, via smartphones, is now the dominant way that people access the internet. About 55% of people use their phones to surf the web. And while a decade ago they spent less than 30 minutes per day using their phone’s functions, now it’s around 3 hours per day. Here’s another thing to consider — most people have their cellphones on their person during all their waking hours, and they check it over 100 times a day.
For businesses, having a mobile phone strategy and a well-managed mobile presence is absolutely essential. When it’s working at full throttle, it’s populating the social media apps that people are checking dozens of times per day. It’s providing compelling content that they want to read; it’s building up name-brand recognition; and it’s growing brand loyalty.
Looking toward 2017
Every year the boundaries of social media and internet marketing get pushed. It is hard to find a consensus on what the dominant trend will be. Will Twitter dwindle and other social media platforms take its place? Some think that companies will need to be faster and smarter about creating content linked to whatever the hot topic of the day is. Others don’t see a dominate change on the horizon; instead incremental changes to what’s already online.
For supply chain and logistics companies that want to establish a foothold or build on an existing beachhead, the solutions lie in the new evolution of customer interaction, called content marketing.
The landscape changes ahead are hard to predict, but there are some reliable existing strategies to follow. Fronetics has put together a guide on how supply chain and logistics companies can formulate tactics to take advantage of the opportunities that a content marketing plan and a robust social media presence can create. Click below to download the guide.
Who knows what social innovations the next decade will spawn. If the past decade is any guide, another revolution is coming. Are you keeping pace?
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by Fronetics | Nov 30, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Companies within the logistics and supply chain industries are increasing customer engagement, market and business intelligence, leads, and more by participating in social media.
Results from a previous Fronetics survey tell us that 100% of responding companies in the logistics and supply chain industries consider social media a strategic tool. So how are they using these platforms, and what benefits are they getting from participating?
Below, find some highlights from that survey.
By the way, if you’re interested in how companies in these industries are using social media, take our latest survey so that we can provide you with the latest results and trends. It takes about 3 minutes, and we’ll send you the new report once it’s completed.
Social media networks popular with the supply chain
According to the survey, the most popular networks are as follows.
- Twitter (94%)
- LinkedIn (86%)
- Facebook (77%)
YouTube (50%) and Google+ (45%) are networks which are also commonly used within the supply chain and logistics industries.
Reasons for using social media
Companies reported participating in social media for the following reasons.
- Increasing the visibility of their company (95%)
- Brand image (90%)
- Establishing the company as a thought leader (86%)
- Attracting new leads and customers (82%)
Top benefits realized from social media participation
Companies reported the following benefits.
- Customer engagement: 80% of respondents reported that they agree or strongly agree that by participating in social media, their company has realized an increase in customer engagement.
- Market intelligence: 80% of respondents also reported that they agree or strongly agree that their company has realized an increase in market intelligence.
- Business intelligence: 73% responded that they agree or strongly agree that their company has realized increased business intelligence through participation in social media.
Other top benefits included increased leads and increased demand for products and services.
You can download the full report below for more information on how your industry peers are using social media. And don’t forget to participate in our new survey so that we can send you the latest information.
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by Fronetics | Nov 28, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
Supply chain companies can use influencers in their prospects’ network as a strategic tool to gain new business.
The term “influencer marketing” often brings to mind celebrities endorsing their favorite brand of bottled water or jeans — not an image that is particularly useful for B2B businesses. However, B2B marketers should be taking this powerful trend in content marketing seriously.
While your supply chain may not benefit from an endorsement by Jennifer Aniston, you likely have brand influencers at your fingertips, which you may not even realize. Effectively leveraging these endorsements is a strategic tool for gaining new business.
Developing an influencer marketing strategy
Once you’ve identified your natural influencers, here are three important steps for building an influencer marketing strategy for your company.
1) Know your target buyer.
Rather than a scatter-shot approach, making the effort on the front end to identify your target buyer personas allows you to strategically target your customers. Understanding their needs, challenges, and purchasing structures is the key foundation to any content marketing effort, and influencer marketing is no exception.
2) Identify your industry influencers.
Industry influencers aren’t just the big names, though those people are certainly influential. It comes down to how your buyers make their purchasing decisions. The 2016 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report found that nearly half of B2B buyers use peers and colleagues as a major information resource when choosing a vendor.
Who are those peers and colleagues whom your target buyers turn to? Use every resource at your disposal to determine how they get their information. Connecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks is a great way to do this.
3) Use the right tools for your business.
Any effective content marketing strategy depends on using the most effective tools. In a post for CMS Connected, Leah Kinthaert makes a strong pitch for Twitter. She cites the ease of plugging in a hashtag or keyword in giving you “volumes of information — from who the influencers are in that industry to what today’s breaking news is on the topic.” Furthermore, clicking on a hashtag shows you what your competition is doing as well.
The bottom line is that influencer marketing can be an extremely effective aspect of a B2B business’ content marketing strategy. Knowing your buyers, finding your influencers, and effectively leveraging this information will help boost your social credibility, as well as generating new business.
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