How General Electric Uses Social Media to Demystify Giant Machines

When considering companies that have built a successful social media presence, several familiar consumer brands come to mind: Red Bull, Airbnb, Nike, Coca-Cola, GoPro….

But 100+ year-old manufacturing giant General Electric? There’s a company that doesn’t scream “social.” Yet remarkably, GE has taken social media to new heights by publishing high quality content on multiple channels. And, the plot thickens. In mid 2016, GE sold its consumer appliance division (Hudspeth, 2016). So now it concentrates its marketing resources fully on industrial manufacturing, not the most dazzling subject matter. Or is it?

Household products like washing machines, refrigerators, ranges, etc. are out of the picture. Taking center stage are power plants, turbines, aviation engines, locomotives, healthcare equipment, generators, and other products/systems in the company’s vast business-to-business portfolio.

Yes, GE’s product line is a bit atypical for social media.

What social media platforms does the mega B2B corporation use? 
General Electric is currently most active on:

Facebook – 1.7 million followers

LinkedIn – 1.3 million followers

Twitter – 428,000 followers

Instagram – 256,000 followers

YouTube – 97,000 subscribers

Pinterest – 27,000 followers

Periscope – 6,500 followers

An Example. In August, a General Electric team entered an active Nicaraguan volcano, live on social media. The team proceeded to install sensors to monitor volcanic activity. GE set up an early-warning system for the surrounding area. Videos of the descent into the volcano were stitched together via Instagram Stories and promoted on Snapchat (Heine, 2016).

What might be behind GE’s choices of channels and activity? 
With 2015 sales topping $117 billion in 2015, an increase of 21% over the prior year, GE dominates industrial manufacturing worldwide (Hudspeth, 2016).

(Image: Hoovers)

It makes sense that a company at the top of its game would want to lead in marketing, too. GE’s mix of social channels enable it to reach businesses and consumers with a diverse assortment of copy, images, videos, music, sounds, animations, etc. A lagging ROI on a few other social media platforms – Google+, Vine, Tapestry – may have caused GE to leave them behind.

Oh, the humanity. Web analytics authority, Avinash Kaushik’s, notes that B2B companies should resist seeing business audiences as monolithic, robotic decision makers. “As a B2B company, you are still trying to sell to other human beings” (Kaushik, 2010). GE actually does that pretty well. An enormous wind turbine is more than a spinning abstraction on the horizon; it is a sustainable, life-giving force in all its curving, glittering power.

Like any good conversationalist, GE wants to engage people meaningfully, and also be a good listener. GE’s Chief Marketing Officer, Beth Comstock, echoes Kaushik’s argument, saying, “Since when does B2B have to be boring-to-boring? Business people are people, too.” Ms. Comstock says that the company uses what she calls “micro-targeting” to share the wonders of science with customers (Neisser, 2015).

Conversing with Content. General Electric may gravitate towards a traditional “Content is King” model, reliably producing gorgeous, stimulating content. “Without content, there is not a whole lot to talk about,” proclaims loyalty-program marketer Michael Greenberg (2009). But, as Catherine Novak (2010) warns, “Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising.” GE’s content contains plenty of wows with the intention they be shared, but it walks the edge.

This tweet is impressive. GE’s advanced technology enables an airplane engine to be built from 11 printed parts, instead of usual 845. The tweet points to newsletter content.

You talking to me? General Electric’s social media posts target countless audience segments: governments, businesses, non-profit buyers; stockholders; current and future employees; research universities and their students; merger partners; strategic collaborators, etc. Seeing that GE makes more than half of its revenue by reaching across markets in 100 countries, being a good corporate citizen is important, too. The effective use of social media may help humanize GE in communities around the world and bolster good will (Hudspeth, 2016).

At a minimum, General Electric must maintain its authoritative presence on the same social channels as its primary competitor. Siemens, Europe’s largest industrial manufacturer, is on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. If anything, Siemens has a long way to go to catch GE on social media. Since Siemens’s content sticks to familiar conventions, GE stands out by comparison

Here’s a humanize-the-brand video Siemens published on YouTube.

And this is one of my favorite videos on GE’s YouTube account.

Affinities. I may have a special fondness for the GE video because several of the sounds were recorded at a GE site in Niskayuna/Schenectady, NY where I live. (Schenectady is the home of Thomas Edison, founder of General Electric.) Here are the audio files on GE’s SoundCloud account, if you are curious. And another video, Over 2 Million Containers, 2,000 Routes, is a memorable homage to GE’s transport equipment and logistics systems. This production is so strange, beautiful and assured, it veers into the realm of art.

If the target audience for these two GE videos is young adult males, the content may perform double duty: elevating GE as an innovative maker of cool things, and also acting as a talent-recruitment tool. Judging from a couple of the comments on the 2-Million video, it may have resonated as intended.

“…Amazing, critical thinking and imaginative ideas. GE=awesome.“

“That's what I want to do when I grow up”

A statement submitted by marketers with GE’s entry to the annual Shorty Awards competition contains clues about their social media approach (the bolds are mine).

“For GE, social media success isn’t measured in sales, but rather in awareness and affinity. As GE works to gain visibility as a connected and competitive technology leader with advanced research capabilities, the brand turns to both established and emerging social media channels to deliver its message.”

Here are a few other key points interpreted from the Shorty Awards statement (Shorty Awards, 2014).

Goal: Position GE as a “thought leader[s] in advanced technology” emphasizing humanity and relevance to consumers.

Rationale: A technology leader must leverage leading social technologies.

Marketing Strategy: Champion science and celebrate innovations.

Tactic: Distribute engaging, visually striking, sharable narratives on social media.

By embracing the challenge of presenting inaccessible industrial products in bold, captivating ways, GE is engineering something different: its own social-media genre. 

References

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing. MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/1020-content-social-marketing/

Heine, C. (2016, August 3). General Electric is using Instagram Stories to promote its Snapchat series about volcanoes. Adweek. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/general-electric-using-instagram-stories-promote-its-snapchat-series-about-volcanoes-172791

Hudspeth, C. General Electric Company: Financial Summary. Hoovers. Retrieved from http://subscriber.hoovers.com.www.libproxy.wvu.edu/H/company360/financialSummary.html?companyId=10634000000000&newsCompanyDuns=001367960

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.

Neisser, D. (2015, April 2). CMO of the Week: Beth Comstock, General Electric and Spinning Curiosity into B2B Marketing Gold. Social Media Today. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediatoday.com/special-columns/2015-04-02/cmo-week-beth-comstock-general-electric-and-spinning-curiosity-b2b

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Shorty Awards. (2014). The 6^th Annual Shorty Awards: GE on social. Retrieved from http://shortyawards.com/6th/ge-on-social#/