HCL CAMWorks
Published

Try Humor to Connect to Younger Manufacturers on Social Media

Shop Floor Automations is trying something new: a Web comic intended to catch the attention of up-and-coming machinists on social media.

Share

Hey, have you heard this G-code joke?

Well, y'know what they say?

%
O1234
(THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE)
G28 X0.0 Y0.0 Z0.0
M30
%

Get it?

That’s the opening tweet from @ShopFloorHumor, a Twitter account set up by Shop Floor Automations (SFA), a reseller and distributor of CNC hardware and software, particularly machine monitoring software. With an eye toward a younger manufacturing audience, the company has launched a Web comic series called “Shop Floor Man Presents” with the intention of carving out a space for manufacturing-related humor on social media, especially Twitter.

The comic appears in two-panel stories in which the main character, Shop Floor Man, shows life with SFA’s software solutions compared with exaggerated horrors he faces elsewhere, as in the tweet below.

There is a distinct difference between a #FridayFeeling WITH and WITHOUT good tech support #machinist #mfg #ThingsMachinistsSays #cnc #dnc pic.twitter.com/EvgczjCMYE

— Shop Floor Humor (@ShopFloorHumor) September 23, 2016

Other comics will riff on familiar trials faced by machinists everywhere as well as other industry-related humor, like this one released for Manufacturing Day 2016 a couple weeks ago.

Here is our newest Shop Floor Man comic, themed for #MFGday16 #WorldSmileDay #FridayFeeling pic.twitter.com/kswJUizfwb

— ShopFloorAutomations (@sfa_inc) October 7, 2016

Obviously, the comic serves as a marketing and promotional tool for the company. But it’s also an intriguing entrance into a sphere not many other manufacturers have explored to date, one with the potential to tap into the lived experience of younger, millennial audiences.

“Having a footprint online aside from just a website is so crucial,” says Amanda Rosenblatt, SFA’s marketing coordinator and the comic strip artist. “You have middle school kids, high school teens and college-age young adults who we are trying to get into this industry, or people like the military veterans being trained at organizations like Workshops for Warriors. These people of these various age groups are attached to their devices and social media; we can reach them and show them this industry is a community.”

In the sometimes convoluted Venn diagram of manufacturers, millennials and social media, Web comics could be a particularly effective way to bridge culture gaps and to foster community through shared experience. A lot of web comics are shared on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, and many of the those popular among young adults cleverly comment on the existential questions that inform many of their (our) tweets (@SarahCAndersen and @poorlydrawn_lol come to mind as notable examples).

pic.twitter.com/MQLlh6yCId

— Sarah Andersen (@SarahCAndersen) October 12, 2016

In a similar way, the scope of Shop Floor Man could be described as commenting humorously on the existential issues of life as a machinist. In fact, even the “poorly drawn” aesthetic is something that may be familiar to many younger Twitter users who read web comics. Concerning the art, Rosenblatt chuckles and says, “I think it is a bold statement because, really, [Shop Floor Man] is purposely drawn badly. That’s why we have the tagline ‘Our solutions are better than our comics.’ No one at the company, including myself, has the time to draw or commission someone to make an amazing comic, but we have the humor, stories and resources to make people laugh. There’s charm to him.”

She adds that the comic has even contributed to SFA’s own internal community-building: “We gather ideas and feedback on comics from the whole company, so it’s fun for them to get involved, and the final product is a group effort.”

Find more of the company’s antics by following @ShopFloorHumor on Twitter. 

*This blog post originally appeared on Techspex.com.

ProShop
HCL CAMWorks
VERISURF
Paperless Parts
KraussMaffei
Hurco
Techspex
IMTS+
More blasting. Less part handling.
TIMTOS
JTEKT
DN Solutions

Related Content

Aerospace

Machine Monitoring Boosts Aerospace Manufacturer's Utilization

Once it had a bird’s eye view of various data points across its shops, this aerospace manufacturer raised its utilization by 27% in nine months.

Read More
Sponsored

Swiss-Type Control Uses CNC Data to Improve Efficiency

Advanced controls for Swiss-type CNC lathes uses machine data to prevent tool collisions, saving setup time and scrap costs.

Read More

Reinventing a Precision Shop With a Data-Driven Mindset

When this machine shop lost 90% of its business within three months, a reinvention was in order. Here's how it survived after quickly falling on hard times.

Read More

Shop Moves to Aerospace Machining With Help From ERP

Coastal Machine is an oil and gas shop that pivoted to aerospace manufacturing with the help of an ERP system that made the certification process simple.

Read More

Read Next

5 Rules of Thumb for Buying CNC Machine Tools

Use these tips to carefully plan your machine tool purchases and to avoid regretting your decision later.

Read More
Sponsored

The Future of High Feed Milling in Modern Manufacturing

Achieve higher metal removal rates and enhanced predictability with ISCAR’s advanced high-feed milling tools — optimized for today’s competitive global market.

Read More
Toolholders

Rego-Fix’s Center for Machining Excellence Promotes Collaboration

The new space includes a showroom, office spaces and an auditorium that will enhance its work with its technical partners.

Read More
HCL CAMWorks