Twitter – Should B2B companies bother?

Until recently most B2B companies were convinced that LinkedIn, being the professional network, was the social media they should be concentrating their resources on. But are they missing a trick with Twitter? Its popularity and effectiveness for B2C brands is well documented. By engaging with real time, public conversations consumer brands can act quickly to give Twitter only discounts or solicit feedback and ask questions of their customers. Can B2B companies use some of the consumer boys tricks and find further ways to interact with clients?

“Let’s see what happens”

The answer is it depends what you want to do with Twitter. You have to have a thought through strategy complete with measureable metrics if you are going to give it a try. Simply saying you are going to stick your toe in the water and see what response you get isn’t going to work.  Commit to using Twitter for a period of 12 months and before you even do so much as set up your profile, determine what success will look like for you. If you do this you are at least 90% ahead of the field. Twitter is full of underutilized and unused B2B company profiles. Don’t let yours be one of them. Do it or don’t do it – don’t just see what happens.

Time and Resources

One of the big mistakes that B2B companies make is that they underestimate – especially in the beginning – how much time and resource it will take to create and maintain their presence on Twitter. You have to follow other people. You have to build your own followers. You have to engage with other people in the sector. You have to tweet interactive and engaging tweets. You have to re-tweet others tweets. All of this begins to build your online presence and show the world that there is a real person and some real thought going into these tweets.

Of course, many B2B companies have been successful on Twitter by defining the parameters of their engagement and then handing the project over lock, stock and tweetdeck to a specialist marketing agency. There are cost implications here but the result should be the same, if not better. There are many Twitter agencies out there that specialise in social brand building.

Engage or Inform?

Twitter is a great channel to engage or inform clients. Engaging strategies such as soliciting feedback, asking questions of your clients and listening to wider industry conversations can enlighten not just the marketing department, or those doing the Tweeting, but can serve as good industry intelligence throughout the business.

Informing strategies such as content marketing, expanding your current network by following profiles, launching press releases, white papers or case studies can help you get your messages out to current and possibly new clients. The danger with relying on an information strategy is that Twitter could become just another push marketing communications route. The minute it does this, all your hard work is ruined.

Twitter is not the preserve of consumer brands, celebrities and individuals. By creating an integrated social media strategy and knowing what you want to get out of using the channel, B2B companies can make as big as impact. Granted it will be to a smaller follower base but by acknowledging that at least part of the industry conversation happens in this forum you can position yourself as a thought leader and social savvy company.