Twitter has become a B2B company’s best friend. With 50% of the 100 million active Twitter users logging in and 300,000 new visitors every single day, this now equates to a huge 50,300,000 daily visits on the social media goliath.
Twitter could become a key tool alongside other social media sites to boost company awareness and to show off what you do best. However, many B2B business owners are still holding back from exploiting these new opportunities. Can you afford to leave your Twitter potential untapped?
Twitter already has over 1 in every 2 users following businesses and furthermore, 42% of people use twitter to learn about products or services. If statistics indicate that 40% of Twitter using B2B companies acquire new customers from its activities on Twitter, it’s a seemingly convincing prospect to start using Twitter for lead generation.
Obviously along with all social media, some tips and tricks can help optimise its use. One key feature Twitter offers is it hashtag function (adding ‘#’ before a word). This categorises the tweet with the words you have hashtagged, so that by clicking on the tag, it will lead you to all the tweets from around the world that have hashtagged the same word.
The rule would be, hashtag, but don’t overdo it. It’s advised to use hashtags to share common themes in tweets and be more likely to be noticed. But be sure to stick to the relevant and important and not to simply hashtag everything you write. For example,
“Visiting #glee2012; look out for #Williams Commerce”
looks far better than;
“#Visiting #glee#2012; #look #out…”
Twitter is not only a business front, but it has and is generating possibilities to interact with smaller businesses and to engage with potential clients on a personal level. Windmill Networking has highlighted great case studies to really emphasise the value of using Twitter as a marketing tool, one of which stresses that Twitter is not only for huge B2B firms, but sole traders and small wholesalers are also reaping the benefits. The examples demonstrate how a small B2B firm was able to generate high levels of new business leads simply through replying to a tweet posted by another company. Sound interesting?
Twitter likes friends over enemies. Spreading interesting things from other companies is vital. However, don’t just stick to tweets directly related to your company all the time. Yes of course keep to subjects that indirectly link to your firm, but by choosing to only post your own items presents an image of being out of touch with the wider world and a sense of competitiveness that may put off readers.
Don’t tweet junk. Further from the previous tip, yes it’s good to tweet some things that may not be directly related to your company. But this doesn’t mean it gives you the permission to tweet completely outrageous or uninteresting content. ‘Interesting’ is a subjective word, but if you know that your potential customer base or business circle would definitely not want to read the tweet, then don’t post it, otherwise you risk the chances of being unfollowed or seen as a company only concerned with tweeting for the sake of it, versus hand-picking content that is relevant, useful and engaging to your target audience. Adding value is the name of the game.
Try, try and try again. The issue with Twitter may be that your current strategy isn’t working as well as it should be. Well the simple fact is that there’s no one size fits all method for Twitter. Following other successful B2B businesses can provide insights, along with better understanding your target audience and the way they want to interact with businesses on social media can stop you from blindly ploughing ahead with little to show for your efforts. The positive however, is that you can always try one approach, if all fails and no one noticed your tweets, try another. Like the news, trend topics and focuses are constantly changing on Twitter and it’s likely that one day conversation subjects will direct many more readers to your Twitter page; this will be when you need to impress.
These are just a few of the many tips and tricks you can use to start your journey into the 140 character world that is Twitter. Experiment and have a go, see how Twitter affects your business. Just remember not to give up straight away, keep at it and hopefully Twitter will help your lead generation strategy or at the very minimum will help you to understand what is the best social media mix for your business.
References
Schaffer, N. (2011). Twitter B2B Marketing Case Studies. Available: http://windmillnetworking.com/2011/04/14/twitter-b2b-marketing-case-studies/ . Last accessed 01/11/2012.
Cohen, J. L. (2011). B2B Twitter Tips Marketer. Available: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/08/b2b-twitter-tips-marketer/ . Last accessed 01/11/2012.
Robles, P. (2012). 10 Tips for B2B Twitter Success. Available: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/10573-10-tips-for-b2b-twitter-success. Last accessed 02/11/2012.
Hussain, A. (2012). Is Twitter a Dying Social Network?. Available: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33277/Is-Twitter-a-Dying-Social-Network-MKTGdebate.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HubSpot+%28HubSpot%29. Last accessed 02/11/2012.
Hubspot. (2012). 120 marketing stats, charts and graphs. Available: http://blog.hubspot.com/Portals/249/docs/ebooks/120-marketing-stats-charts-and-graphs.pdf. Last accessed 02/11/2012.
