2019 Azbee Awards of Excellence

Category

Online > Social Media Presence > Heartland

Awarded to

Allison Barwacz, Senior Digital Media Content Producer; Kevin Yanik, Editor-in-Chief; Zach Mentz, Managing Editor; Joe McCarthy, Associate Editor

Entry details

Pit & Quarry Social Media Strategy

Issue date (if applicable): 
Publication name: Pit & Quarry
Publishing company: North Coast Media, LLC
Website home page: https://www.pitandquarry.com/

Please describe the publication's mission and readership:

Launched in 1916, Pit & Quarry magazine covers the multi-billion-dollar aggregate mining industry. It serves as the leading equipment and technology media source for the crushed stone and sand and gravel industries, offering readers relevant information about the latest industry news.

Pit & Quarry had great success with social media in 2018. Our goals were to engage readers, drive website visits to pitandquarry.com, increase page views and accentuate our brand voice. We maintained a constant stream of content across all of our social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, which helped engage our readers in conversation and verify us as a trusted online news source.

As a part of our social media strategy, we have to keep in mind that, per Facebook, our largest readership—31%—consists of men between the ages 25 and 34, a younger skewed audience than our website visitors and magazine readers. With our main target audience in mind, we developed a social media strategy that involves clear and concise posts that avoid using extra “fluff” that could steer readers away from our page. We’ve found that, across all platforms, using compelling imagery and video is key for high-performing posts, so that has become an integral part of our strategy.

Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

In 2018, Pit & Quarry’s (P&Q) Facebook page saw an 11.5% increase in followers; its Twitter account saw a 9.9% increase; its Instagram saw a 50.8% increase; its LinkedIn saw a 120% increase; and its YouTube account saw a 63% increase in subscribers and more than 51,100 video views.

Across all of our social media sites, we share news, feature articles, blogs, photos and videos. Each site has its own niche: Facebook serves as an all-encompassing dissemination platform; Twitter serves mainly as a newsfeed; Instagram serves as a multimedia platform; and LinkedIn serves as a business feed.

As a whole, we like to attribute our success to a multimedia- and audience-focused strategy. We post weekly #FlashbackFriday and #PQInsights posts to our 5,629 Facebook followers, 4,211 Twitter followers, 1,090 Instagram followers and 800 LinkedIn followers. Our #FlashbackFriday posts, which feature equipment up to 100 years old, have remained our most popular posts throughout the past several years. This year, we also integrated “#PQInsights” quote cards on our platforms. These posts include quotes from prominent industry members with URLs that direct readers to our website.

Our focus on multimedia has proven to be one of the strongest aspects of P&Q’s social media strategy, In fact, P&Q’s top Facebook post of 2018 was a video post, which reached 21,790 people and accrued 1,700 engagements (a URL is provided).

Overall, determining what type of content our audience responds to best has allowed us to gain new followers, grow P&Q’s voice and engage our readers.

Links to entry URLs

Please note: These URLs are only required for entries in the Online division categories, entries in the Design division categories that are specific to websites, entries in the Website of the Year category, and entries in the Cross-Platform Package of the Year category.

Entry URL(s), if applicable:
https://www.facebook.com/pitandquarry
https://twitter.com/pitandquarry
https://www.youtube.com/user/PQTV3
https://www.instagram.com/pitandquarry/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pit-&-quarry-magazine
https://www.facebook.com/pitandquarry/posts/1681679105224236
https://twitter.com/hashtag/pqinsights?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n_0JO1lZj0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQm5Yb42ckA

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