Week 8: Visual Networks

I think that some sort of visual network, used wisely, can be important and “right” for any brand.  Even though the company I’m working on is a service-related company, there’s definitely a story underlying the business, and that story is inspiring and engaging and can be told, at least in part, through images.  It’s not just about engineering – sitting in front of a computer messing around with numbers – although shown in a compelling way that can be an engaging story in itself to the right way.  It’s also about people who love beer, who care about the environment, who love natural places, who love science, who work hard and are conscientious.  There’s a lot for people to connect with when you combine an enjoyable solo or social past-time with some of our higher moral desires to be good people and make a difference.  There’s also the angle of enabling companies to take even greater pride in the products they make while realizing long-term financial benefits that enable their company, their employees, and their investors to thrive. 

So, for Green Brew Engineering, I would start out using Instagram to tell some of those stories, especially since the images from Instagram can be used to populate other social media posts.  And I would get to work on some videos.  Especially given the research that shows men are more attracted to videos, in a male-dominated industry like brewing it seems like a bad idea not to take that to heart.  Also, videos can show the progress from engineering to beer to saving the environment to saving money and creating fun and good times and a beautiful world in a way that individual images can’t.

I would want to have a blog, so it might make sense to start off with Tumblr as my blog site at the same time as everything else.  However, I’d want to weight my blog options before jumping in.  It seems like the blogs have to be short, so that might not be the right tactic for engineering, which could require some longer and more complicated blogs sometimes.  Tumblr might be something I would do later instead of right away.

Pinterest has a smaller audience than the others.  Since we don’t really have products for sale, it doesn’t seem like a great avenue for our company, especially when the photo element can be covered elsewhere.  Pinterest I think has a reputation for being more crafty and maybe more for women.  I don’t think a lot of our audience is going to be hanging out on Pinterest much.