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MANAGEMENT Social skills Social media now plays a huge role in how farm equipment manufacturers get their marketing message out, and how they hear back from customers By Scott Garvey, CG Machinery Editor t’s time for our photo game #AGCO fans,” reads the latest tweet to pop up on my Twitter feed. It was tweeted by someone in AGCO’s marketing department. “What tractor do you think this picture comes from?” it goes on to ask. Included is a link to an online digital image of the inside of one of the company’s tractor cabs — one of Massey Ferguson’s new 5600 Series models, I suspect. It was an invitation to all of AGCO’s Twitter followers to submit their guesses, a friendly game prompting two-way interaction between the brand and its enthusiasts, keeping them engaged. A few minutes later, another tweet arrives from John Deere with a link to an online video on its YouTube page offering tips on how to organize precision planting data. These tweets are typical of what social media managers at all the major equipment brands are throwing out to their Twitter followers. Anyone who “follows” the major brands will have received hundreds like these over the span of a year. It’s a clear indication that the importance of social media hasn’t been lost on the major manufacturers. It now plays a major role in how farm equipment manufacturers get their word out. But what’s even more profound is the way social media are actually changing what these companies want to achieve, which is a far cry from advertising in its more traditional form. Instead, like any other Facebook “friend” or Twitter “follower” the brands want to develop a new kind of interactive relationship with farmers. In the end, however, the motivation is still to sell machines. “It’s changed the way companies think about how they do business,” says Subbu Sivaramakrishnan, associate professor at the Asper School of Business in Winnipeg’s University of Manitoba. “Back in the olden days, there was traditional marketing. Most of the communication was through mass media. It had what you would consider a push orientation, where companies basically pushed their products on to the consumer and hoped they would MARCH 29, 2013 buy. What social media has done is, it’s created a very collective way of thinking and doing business.” By exploiting social media, the hard-sell, one-way push has been replaced by two-way conversation designed to engage potential buyers in an entirely new way. “There’s one main difference,” Sivaramakrishnan continues. “Think of it this way: it’s not that companies are screaming out what they want people to hear. Now, it’s like being in a big room. Everyone chooses to enter and become part of a discussion. The company doesn’t have to push things on you anymore, because you chose to become part of the discussion.” And in any discussion, information flows both ways. Taking advantage of that fact gives companies another reason to engage with consumers. Social media offers a return pipeline loaded with consumer opinion. Scanning an online chat site that focuses on machinery or sifting through Twitter messages lets any company executive tap into the thoughts and opinions of those farmers who use or have looked at his brand’s machinery. “We use it to evaluate what the market thinks of us,” said Mark Harrington, vice-president of Trimble, who formed part of a manufacturers’ discussion panel at Ag Connect Expo in Kansas City in January. Social media was one of the topics covered. “There’s a harsh reality out there. We use it (social media) to see what the market really thinks of us. It’s like an early warning device.” But just as social media can play a role in identifying problems, it can also be part of finding solutions to them. While companies still organize focus groups and Continued on page 40 country-guide.ca 39 MANAGEMENT Continued from page 39 conduct consumer surveys, social media use accelerates the rate at which feedback flows in, and it greatly expands the number of sources that provide it. The digital discussions aren’t colour blind, either. By monitoring comments about competitors’ equipment, it’s as if executives at one brand get to tap into their competition’s marketing surveys and find out how they are faring when it comes to customer satisfaction. It also enables them to see what features on other products are getting high marks for desirability, making for a quick way to do some self-evaluation and rate their own company’s performance. That opportunity to engage a lot of producers in a very short time with very little expense is unprecedented. Sivaramakrishnan notes the latest estimates are that up to 90 per cent of young farmers are online and engaged in social media. Brands only need to find a way to engage them, hence strategies like that guess-the-cab Twitter game. That’s part of how the traditional push of products Sivaramakrishnan describes changes to a pull. “If I’m a machinery manufacturer, I can get people involved in the discussion,” he explains. “I can get literally thousands of people involved in something like product development, and every step of the way I can involve my consumers. And human thinking is this: if I’m involved in the development of something, I’m more likely to patronize it.” Farmer input is something the brands have repeatedly said they embrace when it comes to product design and evaluation, with or without social media. “It’s that constant customer interaction that keeps us alive,” said Gary MacDonald, executive vice-president of MacDon Industries, who was part of that manufacturers’ discussion panel. “Interaction with the enduser is how we improve our products.” It also means the time when companies could rely only on occasional surveys or focus groups to keep up with buyer expectations is quickly passing into history. Many consumers are coming to expect AnOThEr Stellar tM PerforMance. 40 country-guide.ca 19459-05 DAS_Stellar_15.125X6.5.indd 1 MARCH 29, 2013 MANAGEMENT to be able to join in a digital discussion with manufacturers of all types. “It’s at a point right now where if a company is not doing social media marketing, it’s actually considered a dinosaur,” says Sivaramakrishnan. “Nowadays, companies are on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on.” While the digital world is creating new opportunities for marketing and research, it’s also creating new challenges. Executives at all the major equipment brands have recognized the need to be socially active — in a digital sense. But the learning curve for many of them has been a steep one. “There’s a lot of data out there,” said Jim Walker, Case IH’s vice-president of North American ag business, as he spoke on the manufacturers’ panel. “We had to bring in someone from Harley Davidson to help us with our social media.” Only a couple of years ago, some of the tweets coming from the major brands were invitations to people with experience in social media marketing to apply for newly created jobs. “There are many companies that have social media marketing departments and social media officers and managers,” notes Sivaramakrishnan. “There are all kinds of new positions being created within companies.” However, the social media trend isn’t all good news. Along with opportunity comes risk. “The challenge is it also kills Only StellarTM provides higher-performance annual broadleaf weed control in wheat, barley and oats. Cleavers, chickweed, hempnettle, kochia, more. Plus three active ingredients and two modes of action for superior Multi-Mode of Action resistance management. Elevate your performance. With Stellar. Call our Solutions Center at 1.800.667.3852 or visit www.dowagro.ca. bad companies and bad products pretty quickly,” says Sivaramakrishnan. “The moment someone has a problem, all he has to do is go to social media and blast the company. That spreads like wildfire. It makes companies stay on their toes; the bad ones get punished pretty quickly.” So what is the future of social media marketing? “That’s a good question,” says Sivaramakrishnan. “If you’d have asked me (about marketing) 10 years ago, I’m not sure I would have even mentioned social media. Things are changing that quickly. Now the sky’s the limit. It’s not going to go away, but the way we see social media today might seem old-fashioned 10 years from now.” CG Download your 2013 Field Guide App now. FREE from the iPhone app Store or BlackBerry app World. Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) or an affiliated company of Dow. * registered trade-mark of the Canadian Football League. 0213-19459-05 ® TM Proud partner of the CFL*. march 29, 2013 country-guide.ca 41 2/25/13 7:21 AM