Stop Ignoring Twitter As A Supply Chain Tool
Using social media as a supply chain tool? Don’t dismiss Twitter – it can add real value for your organisation.
Many procurement teams and companies have realised the crucial role that social media plays in their marketing efforts. However, while Facebook and LinkedIn are often used effectively, Twitter is frequently relegated to an afterthought – and it shouldn’t be.
From brand awareness to customer engagement and trend monitoring, Twitter provides many opportunities for supply chain organisations to stand out from the crowd.
In addition, the microblogging platform can be an asset that extends beyond your marketing efforts and shapes your overall business strategy.
Below are just a few ways Twitter can be a game changer for your company:
Use Hashtags To Showcase Thought Leadership And Discover New Supply Chain Trends
Twitter’s hashtags are a great way to get a pulse on the supply chain industry. In fact, there are 228 tweets per hour that include the hashtag #supplychain. Some of the other most popular supply chain hashtags include #Procurement, #SCM, and #Logistics.
Use these hashtags in your posts to showcase thought leadership and uncover potential business development opportunities. You can also follow these hashtags – and others – to uncover new trends, technologies and best practices that you can use to implement in your organisation.
Tools like Hashtagify make it easy to find hashtags relevant to your company and industry.
Recruit The Right Talent
Recruiting and retaining top supply chain talent is becoming more competitive, so companies need to find new ways to recruit the best in the industry.
Showcasing your company’s corporate culture through Twitter can entice the right supply chain talent to apply for job openings at your organisation.
Not only can Twitter help find the right talent, it can also help your organisation research and vet candidates. Your organisation will understand the candidate’s perspective on the supply chain industry, as well as get a better sense of whether or not the candidate would be a good fit in your organisation.
Discover Potential Demands And Risks in Real Time
Twitter acts like a real-time news ticker, which can help supply chain professionals prepare for unexpected demands and risk. Twitter is able to add rich, real-time insight to operational data that can help your organisation make timely and better-informed decisions.
According to IBM, Twitter is a valuable indicator of demand for certain sectors of manufacturing. For example, if a major influencer discusses one of your products on Twitter, the awareness of your brand may skyrocket, causing a large demand for your company’s product without any warning.
By monitoring your products and services on Twitter, you’ll be able to learn about the demand as soon as you can. Social listening on Twitter can also help your organisation prepare for low-probability, high-impact risks such as natural disasters that could disrupt your supply chain.
Showcasing your knowledge, connecting with top talent and keeping your finger on the pulse of the supply chain are powerful ways to gain a competitive advantage over the competition, and Twitter makes it simple. Be sure to integrate it into your social media strategy.
Ed Edwards is Audience Outreach Manager at THOMASNET.com. He leverages his extensive experiences in engineering, manufacturing and procurement, to educate procurement and engineering professionals on how to streamline and improve their work.
Ed provides customised training to organisations’ engineering and sourcing teams and helps buyers with their challenges and finds them new opportunities.
