How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Company

by Dana Galvin Lancour
Created: March 13, 2013

Barton Malow’s social media efforts demonstrate how you can use these online marketing tools to promote your company to potential clients, architects and the general public.

Barton Malow

Barton Malow received positive feedback from Facebook followers in response to its social media efforts to promote a recent project.
Barton Malow received positive feedback from Facebook followers in response to its social media efforts to promote a recent project.
Barton Malow

Through its Twitter account, Barton Malow cross promoted a recent project using its construction partner Severtal's Twitter handle in tweets.
Through its Twitter account, Barton Malow cross promoted a recent project using its construction partner Severtal's Twitter handle in tweets.
Barton Malow

In addition to promoting its project through social media, Barton Malow also prominentaly featured photos and information about the project on its website.
In addition to promoting its project through social media, Barton Malow also prominentaly featured photos and information about the project on its website.

The Barton Malow team posted regularly to social media sites on happenings throughout the project’s progress. This included the MIOSHA partnership signing, significant equipment installation highlights, phased completion celebrations and of course the grand opening. Photographs were taken throughout the construction progress to highlight these milestones on Facebook and Twitter. Professional photographers took some of the photos while others were taken by onsite construction personnel. The goal was to make sure all photography was posted in a timely manner through the proper social media channels.

Barton Malow also filmed video to demonstrate the complexity of the project through interviews of project personnel as well as imagery of construction being put into place. These videos focused on the BIM effort, challenges of the difficult job and benefits to the owner realized through Barton Malow’s capabilities. All videos were uploaded to Barton Malow’s YouTube channel and tagged with appropriate construction- and project-related terms for easy searching abilities.

Barton Malow team members also wrote various pieces about aspects of the Severstal project including a case study in collaboration with AutoDesk on the BIM effort and a feature article for the company’s newsletter. The project held a prominent position on the company’s website and was also featured on company personnel’s individual LinkedIn profiles.

There was a great deal of content generated about the Severstal project and much of it was reused for various sales and marketing initiatives for other potential projects.

See the results

The social media efforts on the Severstal project met all of Barton Malow’s goals and also achieved some unexpected positive results. Barton Malow built a strong relationship with Severstal both online and in person and was able to win various construction awards including the Associated General Contractor’s (AGC) Build Michigan Award. In addition, a number of online cross-promotion activities were realized through Twitter and Facebook.

Barton Malow Company promoted the Severstal project so well that Google ranked Barton Malow in its results when searching the word “Severstal.” In addition to this unplanned positive result, Facebook posts about the project provided a feedback mechanism for project partners and trades personnel to share their enthusiasm about this project. Barton Malow’s publication goals were also achieved through stories in several construction industry publications.

The Severstal example at Barton Malow illustrates the power of social media when planned and executed properly. Every firm should set measurable goals when developing marketing initiatives and social media is no exception.