Graham The Plumbers’ Merchant has won a major award for its use of social media in promoting itself, highlighting the importance of social media knowledge as a skill in every tradesman’s tool belt.

The Glasgow-headquarter company was deemed to have had the Best Social Media Campaign at the Construction Marketing Awards 2012. The award recognised its highly-developed online presence – including a highly-read industry blog – and up-to-date and informative Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The awards were organised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Construction Industry Group (CIMCIG), with the aim of rewarding excellent marketing in the built environment sector. The company was presented with its award at a gala ceremony held at London’s Radisson Blu Portman Hotel in December.

Graham’s marketing director, Ian Kenny, said that the use of social media had allowed them to maintain relationships with clients at a local and immediate level.

“We wanted to take full advantage of social media as an additional means of communication and support for our customer base,” he explained. “We wanted to pioneer its use within the plumbers’ merchant sector and with support from our customers and suppliers, we feel it has been a great success and one that we looking forward to building on in the future.”