What was your journey until taking on this role in the company?
I was born and studied at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague. Then I moved to Italy about thirteen years ago, I started working as a management assistant for a multinational company operating in the transformer market in Monselice. I subsequently entered the communications sector, following factories all over the world and collaborating with other marketing offices. At the time, communicating was still considered as making simple Power Point presentations but, fortunately, over the years we have come to do digital and use all the tools that are used in COMEM today. I have been following this reality since 2016 as a communication manager and in 2020 we became independent, carving out our space on the market. I therefore participated significantly in the company rebranding by choosing a completely different style from our competitors and creating our own. Now the Marketing Office can count on two other resources who collaborate with me on both internal and external communication projects and also manage events.
What do you think about the use of social media in the B2B market segment?
COMEM operates strongly on foreign markets therefore we must be able to understand and make our own the dynamics of other countries, adapting our communication and our contents. LinkedIn is also used extensively by our competitors because it is the platform that best suits this sector. Perhaps now we are also starting to use Instagram but still occasionally and without a real support strategy. I am convinced that platforms like Facebook and Instagram need dedicated content, perhaps less technical, thanks to which they can communicate a more "human" and pleasant side of the processes and workmanship behind the product.
Which social network is more in line with your business model and which is less?
In the specific case of COMEM, LinkedIn is fundamental: here we grow constantly and achieve excellent results with interactions. Lately, requests have been arriving from the Brazilian and Argentine markets regarding a possible Whatsapp channel that we are evaluating. TikTok, on the other hand, could be an interesting platform for the Asian market even if at first glance it might not be considered in line with the brand. We use YouTube as a sort of content repository even if for the moment we don't invest much in this social network.
The data shows that having a low number of followers damages the brand image, what do you think?
I am convinced that it is more important to have a sector audience that is interested and active and interacts with the content, rather than a high number of followers who are not the target. At the moment we have not allocated a budget for COMEM's social channels so the growth is completely organic and we are very happy with the results, especially because we have managed to build a fan base of users who are truly interested and loyal to the content. On a personal level, then, I can say that the number of followers of a company does not influence my perception of it because I know the dynamics of social media.
How important are online reviews, are they important?
Let's say that COMEM operates in a very niche market where those looking for our products know exactly what they want and need, therefore reviews are not fundamental for us. We are in an area that is very far from the end customer, who is usually the user who reviews, and therefore we rely very little on this parameter. Ours is a market that still relies on word of mouth and little on reviews as we are used to knowing them today. In the future it could become an interesting tool for creating a different contact with younger people who will become our target over time. Personally, however, I look at reviews above all of restaurants or businesses far from the sector in which I work, such as those of our competitors.
Have you ever collaborated with professionals regarding the social sphere?
At the moment in COMEM there are three of us who deal with the marketing and communication part. We collaborate with an agency that follows us on the website side, implementing it and also providing assistance with video content. As far as the social sphere is concerned, we manage everything internally because ours is a product that is difficult to understand and describe without knowing it in detail, so right now we prefer to "control" this part ourselves, from the content to the editorial plan.
What are the future corporate communication projects?
We now have some projects that we are following but of which we do not want to spoil anything yet: we would like to create dedicated and targeted communication. Over the next year we will certainly dedicate ourselves to sustainability plans and we would be interested in creating a strategy to reach the end user, where contents and approaches are totally different. We would certainly like to develop something easy and immediate on which to rely to better understand the assembly or disassembly process of the product: we are studying whether this solution can be achieved through video tutorials that are understandable to everyone and which, therefore, do not suffer the stress of translation. We will also focus on the implementation of the COMEM app which allows you to monitor the transformer remotely and provide faster, more effective and sustainable assistance than before.