marketing case study b to b model of GE digital and social media marketing

1. GE : A MODEL FOR B-TO-
B DIGITAL AND SOCIAL
MEDIA MARKETING
GENERAL ELECTRIC

2. LOGO AND PRODUCTS:
• Light bulbs , Refrigerators ,
microwave ovens , Cloth
washers.
• Aircrafts , Wind turbines
• 100s of different products
with GE script logo.

3. INDUSTRIAL
INFRASTRUCTUR
AL COMPANY
GE sells everything from jet aircraft engines, giant wind
turbines, and diesel locomotives to water processing
systems and high-tech medical imaging equipment.
GE, bills itself as industrial infrastructural company.
Invent the next industrial era, to build, move, power,
and cure the world.

4. SALES
SOURCES:
Less than a meager 8 percent of GE’s $117
billion in annual sales comes from
consumer products.
The vast majority of the company’s sales
comes from industrial products and services
across a wide range of energy,
transportation, and health-care industries.

5. MODEL OF
B-TO-B
DIGITAL
AND
SOCIAL
MEDIA
MARKETIN
G :
• Jet engines? Diesel locomotives? Power
turbines? .To many people, “industrial”
translates to “dull.”
• It’s hardy the fodder for stimulating digital and
social media content.
• GE doesn’t see it that way.
• GE has a brand story to tell “a story of big, bad
machines and innovative technologies that are
changing the world and how we live in it. And it
sees digital as an ideal platform for sharing
that story” .
• As a result, GE has become a model for B-to-B
use of digital and social media.

6. DIGITAL
MARKETING
• GE covers the digital basics well through a wide
variety of platforms that inform and engage
business customers directly and connect them with
GE salespeople, and promote customer purchasing
and relationships.
• For example, GE’s various divisions—from GE
Aviation to GE Healthcare and GE Energy— offer
dozens of industry-specific websites, containing
thousands of individual site areas and tens of
thousands of pages that provide B-to-B customers
with purchasing solutions, product overviews,
detailed technical information, online videos and
webinars, live chats, and real-time customer
support.
• GE also uses digital platforms to reach out to other
important publics. “The more people know GE, the
more they like GE,” says the company’s director of
global media

7. SOCIAL
MEDIA
• GE also helps its sales force
engage business customers
more deeply through a
comprehensive presence in
major social media.
• Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, Google+,
Salesforce.com, and even
Instagram, Pinterest, and
Vine
• “We have a core believe that
business is social” , says
GE’s Chief Marketing Officer
(CMO).
• “If you’re in business you need
social because it’s going to get you
closer to your customers. We want
to get our sales team 100 percent
digitized”.

8. CONTENT STRATEGY
• GE’s [digital] content strategy is about uncovering and telling great
stories about innovation, technology, big data, developing
healthcare, and so on. We want our customers, our shareholders, our
employees to know what GE thinks about the world.
• The goal is to make the GE brand relevant, contemporary, and
accessible.
• Compelling stories bring a brand to life—they make us relevant,
poignant, vibrant, droll, and hopefully memorable.
• “No one remembers product specs and features. But a great story
well told hits home,” says GE’s CMO.

9. CAMPAINGS
• one of GE’s first and most successful social
media campaigns was #sixsecondscience, a
program launched on Vine asking people to
share their favorite science experiments in video
clips of six seconds or less. The campaign drew
in 400 videos in a week, including
demonstrations of everything from how to make
a volcano using a pile of sand, vinegar, and
baking soda to a homemade Tesla coil in action.
The Vine campaign won awards and accolades.
More important, it got people to spend time with
the GE brand.
• GE has also mastered the art of digital video
content. An example is the company’s recent
award-winning “Childlike Imagination”
campaign, a series of video ads that show the
scope of GE’s product lines through the eyes
of a little girl whose Mom works at GE
• The very first board at the GE Pinterest site is
“Badass Machines.” Others include “From the
Factory Floor,” “Minds and Machines,” and
“Brilliant Machines.”

10. B-TO-B BLOG AND GE
GARAGES
• GE also publishes an innovative daily online B-to-B blog, called GE
Reports, which features science fiction–like stories on topics such
as moon power, digital pathology, and 3D printing done by hand.
The blog includes original content from various GE sources,
including GE Garages.
• As with GE’s other digital content, GE Reports offers easily
digestible material that gets people excited about the future of
technology and science while positioning GE as a company that is
leading them into that future.
• GE Garages—an initiative designed to reinvigorate innovation and
manufacturing by providing a collaborative space where
technologists, entrepreneurs, and everyday Americans can engage
in hands-on experiences with 3D printers, computer-controlled
milling machines, laser cutters, and injection molders.

11. LESS ADVERTISER AND MORE BRAND
CONTENT PUBLISHER
• GE acts like a content publisher .
• Creating, curating, and shaping brand content and conversations in real time.
• For a brand that has the history that GE do, staying modern, contemporary, and
relevant is something GE think about every single day.
• GE think about who shares our passion and our interest in science, technology,
and engineering and we go after that. GE do that on platforms as diverse as
Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Yo, and many others.
• In all, few companies do digital better than GE. “When it comes to innovative
social media campaigns,” says one analyst, GE is “often light-years ahead of
most marketers,” regardless of industry