World Cement Interview: Loesche - part one

Leading an online branding project for a traditional engineering firm has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences in my career. I have to thank the Corporate Marketing team at Loesche GmbH for their invaluable support and their complete devotion to making this project a reality, and the Management of Loesche GmbH for trusting us completely to represent and promote the Loesche brand worldwide on social channels.

Online branding requires a series of skills to foster the image of a brand in a professional manner while keeping the content relevant and interesting. In addition to having knowledge of the fundamental marketing concepts, I would highlight creativity, time management, decision-making, curiosity and fast learning to keep up with the constant updates on social networking user experiences, market knowledge, brand’s culture, products, and services knowledge, data interpretation, and SEO tactics, among the skills that I consider to be the most relevant for successfully developing online branding campaigns on social media platforms. These platforms are focused on delivering experiences to their users in a leisurely manner, so claiming a spot on each of these platforms is a demanding task that puts our creativity to the test day after day, in order to keep the followers engaged with the brand.

After four years as the in-house social media manager of Loesche GmbH, I had the possibility to open my own online branding agency in Madrid, Brieffin Consulting, and only one year after we are now able to offer an integration of online branding services within our portfolio, in collaboration with our team partners. As part of this amazing opportunity, we continued to manage the social media activities for the Loesche brand as external consultants, and eventually we were able to work with other companies from the industrial market such as A TEC Group.

As external consultants we have worked with companies having backgrounds ranging from food to leisure, to technology, to digital agencies, but all through these years we have become closely identified with companies featuring industrial backgrounds, mixing the technical and human experience aspects to establish industrial personalities.

In August 2014 you introduced us to Loesche’s social media project. How has it progressed since 2014?

In the past, B2B industrial companies were not considered the ‘social’ type being successful at attracting audiences on online communities due to the specialised nature of their products or services.

Understanding these products or services required certain knowledge on the topic to be able to engage, which was challenging in terms of popularity and community participation. But four years later, since the launch of the social media project in 2012, we are able to prove otherwise. The extent to which industrial B2B companies could be interesting and educational, for social media audiences, was underestimated.

Starting from scratch with 100 followers on Facebook, and a few more on Twitter, it is with great pride that today Loesche counts on the steady support of more than 50 000 community members on the different social media platforms on which it has an active presence.

Social media is a constantly changing phenomenon, and the online scene is now very different to what it was in 2014. How have you responded to changes in approach to online platforms and the introduction of new ones? Has your focus changed?

The approach of delivering relevant and helpful content, being consistent and being accessible by opening new channels of communication, has remained over the years. The changes have come in terms of tools and networking strategies, adapting and growing alongside the evolution of the social networks and the new experiences and solutions that each one of them offers.

Although new social networking alternatives appear, the major ones have solidified over the years, offering a reliable place where communities can grow steadily and feel comfortable. This allows for a brand to focus their efforts on the experiences that they wish to create for their communities, and to offer specific values.

However, as online branding consultants, we need to keep up with the online marketing trends and stay on top of any changes to improve the promotional and networking experiences of brands and their online communities, developing new ideas, and always being ready to tackle new challenges.

This is part one of a two-part article written for World Cement’s December issue and abridged for the website. Subscribers can read the full December issue by signing in, and can also catch up on-the-go via our new app for Apple and Android. Non-subscribers can access a preview of the December 2016 issue here.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/special-reports/20122016/world-cement-interview-loesche/