How Do Chemical Engineers Use Social Media?

Loraine Kasprzak

Managing Director
Advantage Marketing Consulting Services


Loraine Kasprzak, Advantage Marketing’s Founder and Managing Director, is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC),  MBA and ChemE with over 17 years of hands-on experience in marketing communications and strategy. One of Loraine’s strengths is her ability to help her clients clarify their thinking so that they can focus and fine-tune their message for the marketplace.

Prior to beginning her management consulting career in 1995, Loraine worked for 12 years in corporate America, advancing through various engineering, marketing and management roles. She started as an R&D engineer at Hercules Chemical Company, Wilmington, DE, then joined Con Edison’s Management Intern Program, and worked in the company's R&D department.

Loraine rounded out her corporate career at BOC Gases, Murray Hill, NJ, where she held commercial development, product management, business planning, and marketing services positions.

As a consultant, Loraine has facilitated the strategic development and implementation of communications programs for a variety of professional service and small business clients, including engineering and environmental firms, healthcare and information technology companies, and startups.

Her clients have included Aujas Networks, the Entech Group, MXI Environmental Services, Monarch Electric, and Quest Diagnostics.

Loraine served on the Social Media Committee and was National Marketing Chair for the Institute of Management Consultants USA (IMC USA), as well as executive editor for IMC USA's monthly Connector newsletter. She has also served as vice president of public relations as well as a board member and certification chair for the IMC New Jersey chapter. She received IMC’s 2009 Distinguished Service Award for continuous outstanding service.

Loraine blogs at The Marketing Advantage is a frequent public speaker. She has authored a social media for professionals article series  for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Chemical Engineering Progress magazine and now writes CEP's Career Corner column.

She has presented talks on social media, marketing and branding at regional and local business conferences and was a guest lecturer for the Prudential Young Entrepreneurs Program. Loraine was a business columnist for Union County Voice magazine and has written for the Princeton Packet Business Journal.

Loraine holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Manhattan College and an MBA in Marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

http://advantage-marketingblog.com/

Since Linkedin was launched in 2005, social media has increasingly played a role in our lives, both personal and professional. A recent New York Times article discussed the idea of how you influence people - or don't - based your social media reach. We know we reach the ChEnected community of engineering professionals via a variety of social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to name a few. That got us thinking: how are engineers using these tools - and more importantly, why? So we'd like to find out how you're using social media and where it's been of value to you. We'll report on our findings in a series of CEP articles and ChEnected posts, starting in early 2012. Please take two minutes and share your insights by answering our short questionnaire. We may just quote you in an upcoming article or blog post!

Tell us how you use social media by filling out our brief questionnaire.

Comments

Submitted by Nemoy (not verified) on Wed, 08/31/2011 - 09:43

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This is a very interesting question on a few different levels. One has to acknowledge the stance pharmaceutical companies has taken in regards to facebook pages (long story short, they killed them all due to Facebook instigating policies allowing users to comment on those pages which caused problems for FDA regulations of drugs, etc.). For average Chemical Engineers working in a plant or a design firm, the one employee generally won't announce via social media when new projects are announced (they are usually done through press releases by the company). From that perspective, I don't foresee engineers (unless they are in business development) announcing via social media that Company X has received $X contract to design and construct Y Plant in Z location. This is actually quite interesting because the company I am working with now is actually planning on using social media for a number of advertising for their new products. I actually see more smaller companies utilizing social media for advertising rather then big chemical companies or design firms.

Submitted by Douglas Clark (not verified) on Wed, 08/31/2011 - 09:50

In reply to by Nemoy (not verified)

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Hi, Nemoy. Thanks for your comments. Yes, there are a lot of different angles to this question, and we're very interested to learn more from readers. I hope you did (or will) fill out the questionnaire!