Video and social media for manufacturing and engineering: what customers and candidates want to see

Why manufacturing belongs on LinkedIn, not TikTok

In our sample of 54 Berlin LinkedIn company pages (surveyed 4 to 17 August 2026), the median comes out at 0.16 posts a week, roughly one post a month. The video share among those posts sits at a median of 0%. For a network where buyers, HR managers and future skilled workers spend their working hours, that's a real gap.

That lines up with something else we've found: of 52 Berlin business websites we've checked since July, spanning trades, manufacturing, services and more, only 11 show a video on the homepage. If you run a machine shop or an engineering business with a hall full of motion and still only show a photo of the building front, you're leaving out exactly the footage other industries have to stage from scratch. For an overview of every industry we cover, see the industries hub.

TikTok reaches consumers scrolling in the evening. LinkedIn reaches the person comparing quotes in the morning, reading a tender, or looking for an open maintenance role. In B2B decisions with long lead times, what matters isn't the reach of a single clip, it's whether it turns up at the right moment in the feed of someone already searching for what you do.

Three formats

You don't need to be active on every channel. For manufacturing and engineering, three formats usually cover it in practice: a brand film as the foundation, a product video for a machine that's hard to explain in words, and short process clips that keep the channel moving between the bigger shoots. For a general breakdown of which format fits your business, see Brand film, product video or event film: which one fits your business?.

The best time for the first shoot often follows the trade show calendar or a quieter stretch in production: right before a trade show, the equipment is already looking its best, and a plant shutdown or a gap between shifts makes it easier to fit in a shoot day without disrupting the line. Planning around that means you have finished footage ready before the next trade show or hiring season starts.

The brand film: your shop floor and your team

A brand film shows the shop floor, the machines running and the team at the stations where the work actually happens. For a machining shop in Marzahn, that means the CNC mill running its cycle, a machinist checking the finished part, the quiet moment between two steps. The film runs on the homepage, opens doors in sales before the first meeting, and plays at the trade show stand, doing in a minute what a plant tour would take half an hour to show. Öykü and Nils shoot it themselves, with a camera that fits into a running production line instead of interrupting it. You can see examples of our work in industrial settings in the references.

The product video for machines that need explaining

Some machines don't fit into a sentence, and a spec sheet alone won't convince anyone. A product video shows a system running, the material flow, the exact point where a customer feels the difference. A plant engineering company in Spandau, for example, uses a video like this in sales conversations before a technician ever travels out: the prospect sees the system running before they ask a single question. The same video plays at the trade show stand when nobody's free to explain it in person. You'll find examples in the references.

Process clips for LinkedIn

Short clips keep a channel alive between the bigger productions: a cut, a weld seam, a part coming out of the machine still warm. Fifteen to thirty seconds is plenty, often from a single fixed camera position. An electronics manufacturer in Adlershof, for instance, shows a circuit board moving through three stations in a single clip, from assembly to testing. It doesn't need a studio, just an eye for the moment worth keeping, and that's exactly what Öykü and Nils bring, because video production is their core business, not something they buy in.

If you also want to show how a machine actually gets operated, or why it was built for a particular industry, you can add a format that works just as well in the trades: a short interview with an engineer or a foreman right at the machine builds trust without a single drawing or parts list ever appearing on screen.

Öykü and Nils know the other model well from their own years in marketing teams in the music and tech industries: plenty of social media agencies don't own a camera and pass the shoot on to a third party, with all the back and forth and waiting that adds, especially on a factory floor where an outside crew first has to learn where they're even allowed to stand. With us it stays in-house, from the first idea to the final cut.

Format, goal and effort at a glance

The table below sums up which format serves which goal, what it shows, and roughly how much effort it takes, counted in shoot days rather than euros.

What you can show, and what to leave out

Show machines in motion, hands on the workpiece, the moment a part comes out of the machine. What doesn't belong in frame: drawings, parts lists or dimensions that count as trade secrets, and anything traceable to a specific customer order unless that customer has explicitly agreed. A plant engineering company in Spandau, for example, runs through this with its own sales team before every shoot: which system can go on camera, and which one is currently running for a client who expects discretion.

If staff appear on camera, the same rule applies as in any business: get agreement beforehand, not after the edit is done. In many companies with a works council, that body also has a say when footage of staff gets recorded. Sort that out internally before the shoot, we're not giving legal advice here, just a reminder to have on your calendar ahead of the shoot day.

Safety comes before the shot. Hearing protection, safety shoes, hi-vis vests and every access rule in the hall apply to the camera the same way they apply to anyone else, no exception for a better angle. Sorting that out before the shoot saves time on the day itself, because nobody has to improvise in the middle of production.

Candidates see something different than customers do

The skills shortage hits manufacturing and the trades alike, and the answer is similar in both: show what the work actually looks like. A separate recruiting video usually isn't necessary, because a brand film with the team does the same job, as long as it's planned from the start with applicants in mind too. Video and social media for trades businesses covers how that plays out for trades, the same logic applies to manufacturing, just with a bigger hall.

Customers pay attention to precision, delivery dates and the machine itself. Candidates pay attention to something else: how people talk to each other, what the break room looks like, whether there are visibly people of different ages and backgrounds at the machines. That footage comes from the same shoot day as the sales footage, just with a second eye for who the camera shows and in which moment.

A shoot day on the shop floor

A shoot day in production looks different from a shoot in an office. The line doesn't stop for the camera, noise is part of the job, and light is often a mix of hall lighting and whatever comes through the skylights. We bring our own lighting where it's needed, without stopping production for a single shot. We wear the same safety gear as anyone else on the floor, that's not a formality, it's the condition for being allowed to film at all.

For how a shoot day gets prepared in detail, from the first idea to final approval, see How a video production works. On the shop floor, one thing gets added: a short check-in with the shift lead about when each station is running, so we're there exactly when something is actually happening, not in the middle of a changeover.

An industrial video has a different lifespan than a social clip: it still shows up years later at trade shows, in sales and on your website, often for three or four years or longer. At some film production companies, usage rights are tied to an agreed time and geographic scope, according to the terms of several film production companies, as of August 2026. For a film that stays in use that long, that's a risk: what's cleared today might need a new agreement later. With us, usage rights sit with you with no time limit, and you get every export.

A brand film shot once doesn't go stale after a few months, as long as the shop floor, the machines and the team don't change fundamentally. It still runs in year two and year three the way it did in year one, at every trade show all over again, while the short process clips keep adding up in between and keep the channel alive between the big dates.

Even for a single brand film, the same rule applies: two rounds of revisions are part of the calculation and written into the quote, only the third round gets billed by effort, and that's named in the quote upfront. If you also want ongoing support afterwards, you test it through a first project, the brand film or product video as the starting point, then the retainer runs at a fixed monthly rate, with a one-month minimum and cancel monthly after that.

How this breaks down for your business, brand film, product video or both, is usually clearest after a short, free first call. For a full overview of what we offer, see the services page.