THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 6th Annual Shorty Awards

GE on Social

Finalist in Fortune 500 Brand

Objectives

For GE, social media success isn’t measured in sales, but rather in awareness and affinity. As GE works to gain visibility as a connected and competitive technology leader with advanced research capabilities, the brand turns to both established and emerging social media channels to deliver its message. The challenge GE faces is making primarily-B2B products and services, such as jet engines and big data sensors, relatable to consumers. For a company that has expertise in so many fields, it’s sometimes hard for people to wrap their head around what exactly GE does. By focusing its marketing strategy to champion science and innovation in general, the brand is able to change their public perception from “makers of appliances" to “thought-leaders in advanced technology."GE’s social media objectives are to improve GE's relevancy and humanize the brand through positive consumer engagement. The brand’s strategy is to create engaging content each day, feature innovative user-generated campaigns each month, and experiment with exciting new emerging platforms year-round. GE actively produces content for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Vine, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Although GE’s business objectives are B2B, the brand makes an effort to create shareable social media content for consumers. From "Lessons in Science" on Facebook to "Badass Machines" on Pinterest, GE combines lightweight science and technology-related content with stimulating visuals to stand out from the crowd. In addition to daily content, GE made an effort in 2013 to feature numerous user-generated campaigns and own conversation around brand-related topics. For example, to celebrate the world’s first 3D Printing Day and own social media conversation around 3D printing, GE assembled a team of 10 influencers from a variety of industries and paired them with CAD artists to design a suite of 3D-printed holiday gifts. On December 3rd (D3 for 3D) GE gave away customized versions of these gifts to fans on Twitter using the hashtag #3DPrintMyGift, which organically trended in the United States. Since GE is a leading technology company, it’s important that the brand is aligned with leading technology channels, especially emerging social media platforms. As a result, GE was one of the first brands to share content on Vine, launching just 1 day after the platform was made available to the public. GE was also one of the exclusive launch partners for Tapestry, creating an interactive slideshow that took users through blueprints showing how GE jet engines work. Later in the year, the brand partnered with the popular mobile game Dots to introduce a new game mode to support GE’s #GravityDay campaign.

Strategy and Execution

GE on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GE GE on Twitter: https://twitter.com/generalelectric GE on Google+: https://plus.google.com/+GE GE on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/ge GE on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/generalelectric/ GE on Vine: https://vine.co/GeneralElectric GE on Instagram: http://instagram.com/generalelectric GE on Tumblr: http://generalelectric.tumblr.com/ GE on Tapestry: https://readtapestry.com/s/HCxUMkShN/

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

GE

Link

Entry Credits