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The ‘Average’ Auto Supplier, Socially

Our recent Social Media and Automotive Supplier Habits™ 2.0 (SMaASH™ 2.0) study of the top 25 North American automotive OEM suppliers showed that suppliers have stepped up their social media game in the past year.

Among the highlights:
• More suppliers are embracing social media – The most popular social media channels where leading auto suppliers maintain a presence are: LinkedIn (100% – up from 92%), Twitter (88% – up from 80%), Facebook (84% – up from 72%) and YouTube (68% – up from 56%);

• Suppliers are posting more frequently across all platforms versus a year ago – Twitter posts are up 56% to 24.2 per month; Linkedin updates are up 433% to 16 per month; Facebook posts are up 121% to 15.7 per month; and YouTube posts are up over 100% to 2.7 per month.

• Suppliers are growing their following across all channels – LinkedIn followers have almost quadrupled, up to 111,153 from 30,186; Facebook followers are up over 12 times to 57,732 from 4,518; with the largest audience by far on LinkedIn. Twitter followers have more than doubled, up to 8,157 from 3250; and YouTube subscribers have doubled, from 494 to 1,064.

• Suppliers are concentrating almost one-half of all their posts on Twitter – 45% of all top 25 auto supplier social media updates are posted on Twitter, trailed by Facebook (28%), LinkedIn (23%) and YouTube (4%).

Average, of course, doesn’t tell us what is best or worst … and no one wants to be “average” … so how can this data help us? It can point out trends and opportunities. For example, the results show suppliers are putting 50%  more posts on Twitter, where the average audience is only 8,000+, than they do on LinkedIn, where they have 12 times more followers. By shifting some of their focus to LinkedIn, suppliers can leverage that larger following more effectively.

The bottom line:
In the absence of data, people make things up. If you want to make real progress, turn to real-world data. And if you want real data on how the top automotive suppliers in North America are using social media – and where the opportunities for improvement are – contact us at bianchipr@bianchipr.com.

For more info on our SMaASH 2.0 study, see this article from Automotive World (http://bit.ly/1Pzwmcc).