Social media strategy for freight forwarders

There are already 4.62 billion people using social media, in 2020, there were 3.6 billion people, and the prediction according to?Statista, was that by 2025 there would be almost 4.41 billion, and we already passed that. That is a massive number to not think about social media strategy for freight forwarders business, after all, social media for logistics and forwarding companies can bring many benefits for the business.

With that many people online you will for sure be able to reach an audience of freight forwarders interested in what you have to say and offer, you will only need the right social media strategy for it.

How to start your freight forwarding social media strategy

To start your forwarder’s social media strategies in the most effective way, the first step is to define your personas.

• Personas are fictional characters, created to represent the different types of customers you have in your forwarder company. Built by demographic and psychographic factors.

For example, at?Parnity, we have 3 types of personas:?

• the Decision Makers, that are managers, and CEOs of forwarding companies;?
• the Pricing team, which is responsible for quoting other freight forwarding companies;
• the Trade Lane or Business Developer, that are the network coordinators.

We prepared a blog post explaining everything you need to know about personas and the best way to create them,?click here to check it out.?

After you have mapped your personas it is time to set up a tone of communication you are going to use to talk to each of them.?

For example, if you are going to set up a pricing persona you will need to show them how your forwarding company can make their quotation process faster and easier to deal with. On the other hand, if you are using a decision-maker persona you should show them your forwarder’s commitment and quality to the services you offer.?

Planning your freight forwarder’s social media strategy

Now it’s time to start planning your posts and social media campaigns, we recommend doing around 12 posts and 1 campaign per month on all your forwarder’s social media accounts, always bringing different types of content related to your freight forwarding business.?

The best way to plan your forwarder’s social media strategy is to separate a day or two in the last week of the month for arranging next month’s social media content.?

To help you have a better view of the month’s planning we recommend creating it on a spreadsheet. Oh, and we prepared a great model for you to start working on your forwarder’s social media planning,?here?is the link?for you to access it.

Here are some social media ideas of posts you can add to your monthly planning:

• A series of “about my company”, each week or month you can share with your audience information about your freight company. For example, how long your company is operating in the market, what kind of services you offer, what countries and cities you make business with, and so on.
• A series of “presenting my forwarder partners”, each week or month show your followers who are your current freight partners.?
• A monthly series of “presenting your staff”, show your potential forwarder partners the faces behind each operation.
• A series of “FAQs”, gather the most common questions you receive and answer them for your audience.?
• Share freight forwarders events your company will host
• Facts and figures about the freight forwarding industry.
• Freight forwarding business tips; logistics business tips.
• Freight forwarding trends for the industry; logistics trends.
• Freight forwarding news; logistics news.
• Technology in the forwarding and logistics industry.
• Inspirational quotes from professionals of the freight market.
• Holidays and celebration dates, like Christmas, easter, woman’s day, and so on.

These social media ideas for your freight forwarder company will help you to start engaging your audience and establishing a relationship.

Which social media should your freight forwarding company use

To give a start on your forwarder’s company's social media strategy focus on the basics:

• Facebook;
• Instagram;?
• Linkedin.

Once you have your monthly social media strategy ready you can start posting them on Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin.?

Once you start getting the hang of the social media planning process you should think about expanding your strategies inside?Facebook groups?and?Linkedin groups. Each platform has an option of participating in freight forwarding and logistics groups, and they are an amazing opportunity to share the materials of your freight company with a bigger audience of worldwide freight forwarders.

Along with the groups, if it makes sense to your freight forwarding business, you can start working with Youtube, Twitter, Clubhouse, and so on.?

To know more about Facebook and Linkedin strategies, and other potential channels your freight forwarding company can work with?click here.

Next steps

Now it’s up to you! With all these tips and guide you can for sure make an incredible social media strategy for your freight forwarding company.?

Just remember to think of your personas, set up a ton of communication, and create a range of posts. Oh, and another great tip to get inspired when creating your forwarder social media plan is to go through the social media of companies like yours, along with systems for freight forwarders, or another kind of social media that inspires you!?

Parnity’s?social media channels are a great inspiration for freight forwarders, check out our?Facebook,?Instagram,?Linkedin, and?Youtube?pages.