Finding the right social media management tool isn’t easy– especially when you are merging teams and creating a brand new strategy.
Yet that’s exactly what Siemens Gamesa, a renewable energy supplier, had to do when the wind power business Siemens merged with the wind energy company Gamesa in 2017.
The newly formed Siemens Gamesa supplies wind power solutions to people around the globe and provide renewable energy solutions like storage, hybrid and solar power.
Siemens Gamesa has successfully engaged in all three areas of the wind power business: onshore, offshore and service. They’ve installed products and tech in over 90 countries and have built a team of 25,000 employees.
So when they began the search for a social media marketing tool, they needed something that supported the entire company yet was lean enough to let them start small.
We spoke to Susanne Adam, the Senior Digital Communications Manager who shared the details.
Searching for The One During a Merger
Finding the right tool is hard at the best times. It’s even harder when you are handling the merger of two companies. Yet the newly born Siemens Gamesa was not deterred. The marketing team were determined to find the right social media management tool.
But there was a challenge. Both the Gamesa and Siemens teams were using different tools…
At Gamesa, the communication team didn’t use a social media management tool. The only thing in their arsenal was Brandwatch for analytics. Siemens worked with Hootsuite and also used Brandwatch for analytics.
So the new marketing team had to find a tool that fit everyone’s needs.
Taking the first step
Before starting the search, Susanne and the team conducted a company audit to figure out what they needed.
“First of all we conducted a requirement analysis for our company. Based on this analysis we did online research for available tools and went through several articles.
We summarized everything in a report (in total we looked at four different solutions) and ranked the different systems.”
They approached the problem systematically because while they had an extensive wish-list, the team wanted to avoid an over-engineered solution with too many bells and whistles.
The right tool had to be lean and flexible. It had to offer the right amount of features and yet have plenty of room for growth.
Thanks to the audit, the team knew exactly what they were looking for:
“We were looking for a lean tool making our lives easier when planning, creating and publishing our social media content.
With a small team – two global social media experts and a handful of regional experts – and little time to set-up the new joint social media strategy including the tool, we needed a basic range of functions, an easy to learn application, at a reasonable cost.”
They found all that in Agorapulse.
Blowing the Competition Away
The Siemens Gamesa team tested out a few tools before committing and it didn’t take long for Agorapulse to come on top.
“When we tested Agorapulse, we instantly liked the intuitive and clean user-interface. It offered what we were looking for, matching our needs perfectly (number of profiles, team-setup, listening, content scheduling, support and training).
Therefore Agorapulse ranked number one in our requirement analysis and the cost performance ratio was unbeatable.”
Did the honeymoon period last?
When you first start using a tool, it’s pretty easy to fall for it. It’s happened to me more than once…
But that initial user experience doesn’t always last. That’s why we were eager to find out if Agorapulse stood up to the test of time.
Siemens Gamesa have been using it for a year now and seem pretty pleased with the results.
“In January 2018 we started using Agorapulse with our new social media strategy. We had no starting issues and could intuitively manage our social media activities. If any questions occurred, the training area and tutorials were always a good knowledge source.
After feeling 100% comfortable with the system, we trained and on-boarded additional, regional and press team members in March 2018. In the next step we will add regional profiles to be managed by regional social media experts.
Within a few months, we could set-up Agorapulse, onboard team members and expand the profiles with a minimum effort.
Agorapulse helped us significantly increase followers and engagement on all our channels at low cost.“
With stellar feedback that made us blush a little, we had to know one last thing.
We asked Susanne about the team’s favorite things about Agorapulse and the answer… Well, you can read it for yourself.
“We very much appreciate the support and video tutorials Agorapulse provides.
Furthermore Agorapulse is continuously developing additional functions such as personalized login or advanced LinkedIn management, and you can always see what’s coming next in the “Suggest Features “page.
Hearing this made our engineers pretty happy!
