Social Media in Oil and Gas Industry

Social media has now become a penchant for marketing, an unprecedented tool for brand promotion and communication. Business groups are promoting their business and developing thought leadership via such platforms. However, there’s been a long past of ignorance of Social Media in Oil and Gas industry. Let us learn about their strained relationship in this blog.

A latest study reveals that Facebook has close to 1.33 billion active users. Its emerging importance as a great marketing tool can be easily testified that 42% of the marketers believe that it [Facebook] is critical to their business. There are multitude of other examples. Let us first have an aerial view of the usage of social media platforms by famous business groups before coming to the analysis and importance of social media as a tool for oil and gas industry.

BCG & Ford, pioneers of using social media

Unlike an old saying, “Strike when the iron is hot”, various markets reinvented themselves and are making the iron hot by striking i.e. they’re not exploring but creating new possibilities.

There are business groups which have incorporated Social Media in their marketing culture and have ramped up their visibility and penetrated the markets which earlier seemed impenetrable. One of the pioneering examples of the other industries harping on Social Media to increase their reach is the Ford Motor company. Their unique and engaging blog, The Ford Story, is the benchmark for many other players in the industry.

The other one can be the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). BCG determined the potential of Facebook to promote its clientele and consulting brand and it helped the group to take multiple strides forward in terms of profit.

Not only Facebook, platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Quora have been used as tools to market brands or companies. LinkedIn, being a network of professionals, is definitely the most sought after business connectivity platform. Many industry players use it to engage with other ventures. Harvard Business Review calls it the latest business trend in the contemporary corporate world.

Read our blog to find out why you need the ‘right marketing‘ for your company

What is missing in our industry?

Oil and Gas industry is a whopping $1.72 trillion industry but it has a minuscule cyberspace engagement. It’s a known fact that rarely do we come across engaging social media copies by any company or business conglomerate (of the Oil and Gas industry) but there are many companies which happen to be industry leaders and they don’t even have their social media accounts.

Is our industry giving social media a cold shoulder? The answer is yes, but are we mindful about what we’re missing out as an industry by ignoring the power of social media? Do we fail to understand how social media can leverage our reputation in a very cost-effective manner?

The gains of having social media accounts are innumerable. Here’s a look at how any business can benefit from having an engaging cyberspace account and visibility:

• A tool to engage public and media;
• To identify the information and misinformation spread about the particular company (a tool to be vigilant of company’s public reputation);
• A technique to create a valuable brand;
• Easy identification and penetration of the market;
• Quick response time which helps faster communication;
• To identify consumer behaviour and help create and market a product which can appeal the consumers.

Hence, it’s no more ‘an-extra-mile’ option, rather it is imperative to have social media accounts for almost all the oil and gas industries/companies.

A necessity, not an option

It’s a good sign to find that many industry players have realized that it should be used as a part and parcel of their business now. A joint study by Microsoft and Accenture found that 75% of the Oil and Gas companies feel that presence on social media is the key to strengthening the industry and the recent survey reflects that the percent of the believers witnessed a hike further by 8%, this year.

In the light of such crucial studies and remarks, it can be easily deduced how important it is to incorporate social media as an essential tool and strategy in marketing.

Energy Dias is one such platform that helps oil and gas companies leverage their market visibility through their company page on our website wherein they can interact to any company across various geographies, thus providing an unprecedented ease of doing business.