Twitter for Marketing

Guide to Using Twitter for Marketing Your B2B Business

Over 320 million monthly active users…

Close to half a billion tweets every single day…

This is where Twitter stands now. Seven years ago, it had only about 30 million users. But not all of them use it to socialize. A significant number of the users are businesses. You might be wondering how it can be of use to a B2B business, as Twitter is generally a platform most leveraged by B2C companies.

B2B companies can also wield this particular weapon. However, the way they use it is what actually matters.

Today, social media platforms provide users with an experience like none other. The impact is big enough to influence the decisions those users make. When you consider a business, you should realize that it’s run by people too. So, it’s actually people who do business with other people.

Companies with an established digital profile and active social media presence becomes quite appealing to potential clients. This means, people can start working on building relationships with potential clients on behalf of the company.

To market your B2B business better on Twitter, you will need to take a few things into account and make sure you don’t make those common mistakes many companies have made already.
 

Bots Won’t Work Anymore

 
Building followers is part of the first phase of Twitter marketing. A large number of followers indicate that the business is quite successful. So to raise the numbers, many businesses relied on bots. Twitter estimates that there could be over 25 million bots on the platform. But studies by many universities claim that there could be well over 40 million bots.

Twitter is already on a rampage bringing down the bots, and other tools have started popping up that can filter bots from actual users. This means, businesses won’t be able to use this tactic anymore. In the long run, it could do more harm than good if you get caught.

It shouldn’t be about increasing the number of followers to show off your influence and success. It should be about having real followers who are actually interested in your company and the services you offer. For a B2B company, the followers can be other companies. A reputed, well-established company following your business on Twitter would speak a lot about the way you do business. It gives you credibility and some amount of brand value. A lot of such businesses following your company would make things considerably easier for you to market your company.

Now, how will you find and get such an audience to follow your business on Twitter?

Understand them first.

To understand your audience, there should be a lot of market research. You can use various tools for that. One such tool that is getting a lot of praise is ‘Audiense’. A consumer panel which will help you discover the right users to follow your business based on their interests, remove followers that aren’t necessary for your Twitter marketing campaign, target your content at the right time and to the right audience, tweet to your followers at opportune moments etc.

However, you still won’t be able to specifically find out what they are reading. But once you get the followers, you can start focusing on the next phase.
 

Generating the Right Buzz

 
To create the right buzz, you need to deliver the right content in good quality. For that, more research is in order. For starters, try to figure out an answer to these three questions.

  • What are the most effective influencers in your industry?
  • What types of content give the best results?
  • What types of content are regularly shared?

The third question is quite important considering the ever-changing nature of social media platforms. You need to keep an eye on content trends. As for the first question, you can use tools to identify Twitter accounts that get a lot of retweets for their tweets.

If you can get some of those influencers to follow you, your tweets can be retweeted and it will reach hundreds of thousands of users in no time. The key is to find the top influencers in your industry, and start building relationships with them.
 

The Essence of B2B Marketing on Twitter

 
Strategy.

Nothing is more important than strategy for marketing a B2B business. By now, you may have realized that harnessing the power of Twitter demands a significant investment of time.

A perfect strategy is a combination of efficient tools and best practices that can maximize your reach. Once you have the reach, it’s all about engaging with users. But that won’t be enough. You will have to tweet consistently while using appropriate hashtags.

The objective is to make sure your posts reach the right audience. With the right type of content that’s reliable and relatable, your chances of turning them into customers go higher.

With that said, mind you that these are just the fundamentals to help you get started the right way. A proper B2B digital marketing is quite intricate. But if you stick to the basics, you won’t find it as challenging as it really is. If you don’t have the time to do it all yourself, you can hire a team or a reliable digital marketing expert.

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Written by Shibu Kumar
Shibu's expertise in Digital Technologies and his business forward approach has helped Verbat's customers derive significant results on Digital channels over the years. He is currently responsible for Global Marketing, Sales Support and Alliances. Shibu’s strong technology background coupled with his passion for B2B marketing places him in a great position to execute strategies in building brand awareness and market share for Verbat.