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ISA Automation Week Portal: Highlights, Articles, News & Products
| Social media: Why do we care? How do we put it to work? |
October 19, 2011
Track: Human Asset Optimization
Telesian Technology’s Juliann Grant provided a great overview on Tuesday at ISA Automation Week on the growing importance of social media in an ISA Management Division presentation, “Social Media: Why Do We Care, How Do You Put it to Work?”
She opened by noting the increasing degree to which the customer is in control of what they want to know more about and what they want to buy—largely due to the ease with connecting with other customers through channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, YouTube, etc.
Social media is about producing, consuming, and exchanging information through online social interactions and platforms. These interactions, over time, form the basis of knowledge and trust. Search can get you to information, but connections with other people who have built thought leadership through their participation online gives you trusted information.
Grant noted ISA is a knowledge-rich resource with 134 sections representing 26,770 members in 14 districts and one region. Automation-related content is generated through 14 department board-level standing committees, five department board-level task forces, including a web task force and social media task force, three district board standing committees, and one district board task force. In addition, ISA offers a number of departments, including Automation and Technology divisions, Industries and Sciences divisions, image and membership, professional development, publications, standards and practices, and strategic planning. It is the social connections you make through your ISA membership that can help navigate what is important for you in all this content and activity.
Grant shared some ways your participation in social media can benefit your career. Through the ISA referral network and other business network sites such as LinkedIn, you can begin to tap into the referral network to help at a personal level and a business level. LinkedIn, a site focused around global business professionals, has over 60 million users. Facebook has over 700 million users, with the largest demographic being 35-54 years; 55 and older is the fastest growing segment. Twitter and YouTube are also widely used and growing.
The reason for this tremendous growth is people want to be with their peers. For businesses, it shifts the way they think about serving customers online by establishing a place for peer-to-peer relationships to happen and grow.
Some insights Grant shared are LinkedIn is the strongest social network for engineers. Facebook is mostly used for personal connections with family and friends. Twitter adoption among automation professionals is still relatively low because it requires more time to develop a network and techniques to participate. However, more brands are participating than ever before. Thirty-one percent of consumers follow between one and five brands on Twitter, and 47 percent follow a company on Twitter because it has interesting tweets.
ISA has increased it social presence in response to these communications dynamics. One example is the ISA Interchange blog, which provides a prominent view of the automation news and technical content from the ISA organization. Presentations are shared on Slideshare, discussions on the ISA page on Facebook, tweets on Twitter, groups in LinkedIn, pictures on Flickr, and videos on YouTube, and live in Livestream. The ISA Interchange blog helps tie this together and give members a place to interact with the content and people behind the content.
Grant shared with the audience how to develop a social media strategy and how to use the tools to improve listening and interacting with customers and prospective customers. For businesses, it is key to develop a content plan once the strategy and set, and it is time to roll up the sleeves and jump in.
For automation professionals, this move to online social communities means close interactions with other automation professionals and with the suppliers who develop the technologies and services required to efficiently run manufacturing operations.
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