Engineering and Social Media: The Eternally Pending Task

Engineering and Social Media: The Eternally Pending Task

According to the Marketing and Sales study of the industrial sector carried out by Connext, many companies have not yet been able to adapt to the digitalisation demanded by Industry 4.0

The internet as we now know it began with the emergence of the World Wide Web in 1991, but little is left of what it was in its early days. The introduction of the Internet on mobile devices revolutionised the way we communicate today, enabling us to be connected at any time and from anywhere in the world.

As soon as users started to become familiar with the Internet, and given the human species’ social nature, social media was born: wells of wisdom based on the transfer of content of interest between members of different communities.

The first tentative steps made in history towards what we know today associal media was SIX Degrees, born out of the belief that we are all connected via six steps of friendship, work or social circles of interest to us Although it was not successful at the time, it set the foundations for many platforms that have remained stable over time, such as Fotolog (now defunct), Facebook or Twitter and which currently enjoy millions of users These examples have actually provided us with different multimedia content proposals adapted to our new needs: to create personal, loving and even professional bonds.

This desire to generate contacts is the one that moves the engineering sector the most, with LinkedIn being the social network that is most used, both to generate synergies and to find new profiles, clients and projects Figures back this up: according to studies, 63% of workers in the industrial sector have an account on LinkedIn, closely followed by Facebook with 58% and Twitter with 18%.

Despite these encouraging figures, the Internet presence of industrial companies has plenty of scope for improvement. According to the Marketing and Sales study of the industrial sector carried out by Connext, in 2019 two percent of companies did not have any presence on the Internet, and of the remaining 98% that do have it, the vast majorityof them do not update or generate content for social media or their website on a monthly basis, or have outdated websites that are poorly optimised for search engines.

Thebest showcasefor a business is the Internet, and the corporate image and website are the brand’s visible face. The benefits to be gained from a good online strategy are plenty indeed: to provide our clients with a good service, make it easier for prospects to find us, increase our image and online presence…

Analysing the specific case of IDEA Ingeniería in pursuit of our goal of being innovative and always at the forefrontof new technologies, we have enjoyed a very favourable year in this area. Throughout 2019 we have increased our numbers and online presence and in 2020 we expect to maintain and even surpass these records.

On the other hand, it should be noted that we don’t only use social media as a branding strategy. Searches for professional profiles in our Recruitment and Outsourcing department are largely performed through Linkedin, where they successfully reach a wide range of candidates from all over the country, analyse their experience and personal characteristics, and select the most suitable profiles to fill job vacancies. All our open vacancies can be viewed here.

In conclusion, it should be noted that social media is here to stay, no doubt about that. Therefore, it is down to the sector itself to adaptto current times and update its online presence, not only with random but quality content, and of interest to its target audience. Current efforts will be very beneficial in a future where technology will gradually gain even more ground and where activities that are currently done personally (face to face), will tend to be done virtually.