PORCELAIN GRES IN SOCIAL MEDIA TIMES (AND CERSAIE 2014 TIMES)

Furnishings, design & social network: a marriage that works? DSG ceramics on the way to a lasting relationship..

Social media and architecture go comfortably together. Conversations, interactions, true initiatives follow one another constantly globally.. It goes back to last spring, to make an example, the test realized by Voices from the Blogs to identify who and why is the most "linked", commented and shared architect on social platforms.

A real popularity test in digital format. Not to mention the platforms planned ad hoc to make the architects and designers come into contact. Opportunities to Exchange ideas like Edilia2000, or the most famous Archilovers. Virtual places in which to have a confrontation and present your projects. It's name is Inarcommunity, the social network that unites freelance Italian engineers and architects on the web, promoted by the Pension Fund and assistance of engineers and architects free professionals. More than online social networks, they are all real opportunities to gain visibility, industry information and increase their contacts globally.

Even closer, the relationship between social network and design: community and platforms dedicated takes place without stopping; contest and forum are wasted. But, in this context, the real question is: do companies prove to be able to exploit this channel of direct contact with the stakeholder in the sector (customers, architects, designers, planners, suppliers...)? Do the strategies adopted use the full potential of this media?

The answer seems to be, only in part, affirmative; with different peculiarities depending on the country and on the platform. We observe, for example, what it was noted during the last Salone Internazionale della Ceramica per l'Architettura e dell'Arredobagno, to which DSG Ceramics has recently participated presenting the new collections Light_Bianco in Architettura and Luci di Venezia.

The framework of Cersaie 2014 is representative of the general situation of design and furnishing market. The press and social media offices of kermesse in Bologna, reports that «it is noted that Italians mainly use facebook, while foreigners prefer Twitter (the most lively are Spanish and Anglo-saxon). Instagram is still not much used from Italian Companies, many times with contents not really suitable for the medium».

The figure shows that, for the Italian market, there is an opening to social networks, however remaining tied to dynamics that does not belong to social universe. From this point of view, DSG Ceramics comes back from Cersaie not excited for the presentation of the new gres tiles for architecture, but also for using this important opportunity of dialogue according to the digital grammar.

We told our participation on Facebook and Twitter (before-during-after), in ways that have competed with the most digital European Country. Spain, whose Companies are moving in the right direction to follow the "storytelling" way, opened from the USA market. We tried to talk and tell more than show, to create a confrontation with  Cersaie and all potential stakeholders interested in new and old innovative and Made in Italy porcelain gres collections.

In other words, we tried not to limit ourselves to « contents that are not different from those of a on-line catalogue». On the other hand, as pointed out by the Cersaie Office of Print & Social Media: « There are only few significant storytelling examples from the Italian ceramic Companies; the use of social has been more massif in the week before the exhibition and during the performance».