B2B Marketing on Twitter

Twitter has drastically changed the way B2B marketers communicate with their target audiences. In fact, it has become the top social platform for B2B brand mentions by providing another place for answering questions, engaging clientele and potential clientele, and for just showing who you are as a company. If you’re a business marketing to other businesses and not on Twitter, you’re definitely in the minority. A B2B Content Marketing Trends study from 2016 found that 87% of B2B marketers use Twitter to distribute content. B2B marketing on Twitter takes a lot more than just pushing content though.

Be Professional

Remaining professional on Twitter is important for all businesses. While you can absolutely share your personality and company fun, it’s important to make sure that you’re also representing your company in a positive light. Proofreading isn’t just important for the content you’re sharing. Little things, like making sure your information is filled out correctly, is extremely important to the success of your Twitter business page. If your address is incorrect, then your audience may not be able to find you. If your phone number or email address have typos in them, your potential clients may not be able to reach you.

Along with proofreading, you need to be aware of who your company page is following. You want to be sure you’re retweeting content that is relevant to your business, so be sure you’re following reputable sources as well as your clients and any prospects. A retweet could turn into a referral. Say for instance, you retweet something and the company you retweet starts following you, then they become interested in your services and then they become a client! That’s the best-case outcome and not all of your retweets will become paying customers. It is recommended by experts in B2B marketing that you follow customers, analysts, partners, potential customers, media, and bloggers in your industry. Save the fun puppy pages for your personal account, but don’t be afraid to share some personal stuff that represents your company or shows your company’s personality.

It’s also important to make sure that you include at least one person from the various departments of your business, when responding to tweets that are questions. If someone asks an IT-specific question, it’s not necessarily something your administrative assistant would know how to answer. It would be more beneficial to your audience and more fair to your admin assistant, to have someone from your IT department answer that question. Also, getting other departments’ input on what’s relevant to their specialties, gives you a more well-rounded and better representation of your company itself.

Just remember not to be too rigid with your posts. Even though B2B is business, Twitter makes this marketing a little more casual, which is nice because you are still communicating with a person on the other end.

Sharing isn’t Just a Lesson for Children

Think back to your childhood when your parents and teachers were always telling you to share the cookies or share the toys. Eventually, you probably made friends with those other kids you were sharing with. Retweeting is kind of like that. Just posting content might get you a few people who follow you just to see what you have, but if you’re retweeting others and sharing their posts, it will be easier to develop a relationship.

The key to sharing is to make sure you’re not retweeting the same people day after day. Broaden your horizons and retweet someone outside of your specific industry that could be interesting to your audience. If you retweet them, they’ll notice you and be more likely to retweet something of yours. This not only gets your information out, but it also exposes your name and brand to all of their audience.

Be sure to acknowledge those pages who are retweeting your tweets and respond to questions in a timely manner. People don’t like to feel like they’ve been ignored, especially when they’re asking a question. Even if they have something negative to say, it’s best to respond in a professional and timely manner. Ignoring your enemies won’t make them go away, chances are they’ll just keep attacking you on social media. The better option is to go the higher route and deal with the problem head-on.

Stay Active!

Connecting with your target audience on Twitter isn’t about quick hits. Decision-making processes in B2B take time, so it’s important the key people you want to reach are exposed to your messages multiple times. B2B audiences are much more likely to engage on Twitter after repeat exposure to messaging. Someone who has seen a business’s message four times is up to 335% more likely to click on a link in a Tweet by that business, than someone who has only been exposed to the message once. You can use the hashtag #ICYMI (In Case You Missed It), to repost something that you want to be sure is seen by a larger amount of people. Tweets can be repeated more than once over a day or a few days, if the message is relevant and timely.

It’s smart to experiment with varying the Tweet copy and rich media you use to showcase your message on Twitter. When you know what resonates with your target audience, you can focus on developing and Tweeting that type of content. Video is particularly effective for increasing engagement. You can use Periscope to live stream events, Vine for six second video snapshots, take polls using the built-in polling feature and hold competitions to help boost engagement on your account.

“Twitter has been the most effective platform by far
in terms of generating quality leads for our business.”
-- Dave Tang, Founder, Flevy

Twitter is also a great outlet to establish thought leadership. Making some of your posts come from the CEO’s and Senior Executives of your company gives them a lot more credibility. Whether they’re sharing insight on the latest industry developments, giving training tips or support in general, this will help your company establish authority as a leading expert in the IT industry. Events, like IT Nation, are prime opportunities to tweet. Sharing tidbits you’ve learned and even just showing people you’re there shows that you know what’s going on in your industry.

It’s important to remember that first and foremost, Twitter B2B marketing means listening. The constant stream of posts on Twitter initially might seem chaotic and overwhelming. But as you are exposed to your Twitter stream, you will start to “hear” interesting nuggets of insight and information and be able to recognize the people and companies with the most to offer your company. If you want help jumpstarting your Twitter presence, reach out to us or hit us up on Live Chat!