Twitter in B2B: Top 3 Frequently Asked Questions

On a regular basis, SPOTONVISION organizes webinars about relevant B2B Marketing topics. One of today’s hot topics is Twitter in Business-to-Business Marketing: Is Twitter a MUST in your social media marketing strategy?

Usually, our main message is that any marketing or communications professional should at least know what Twitter is and how you can use it in B2B. Once you know about it, it is entirely up to you if and how to use it of course. Your choice will depend partly on your target audience and on your knowledge/content. If you don’t have anything to say, well there’s no point in tweeting. But, didn’t we all decide years ago that B2B marketing is all about knowledge related to the products and services that we offer? in other words shouldn’t we put content at the heart of our marketing strategy?

Well then, if we have a lot of knowledge or content to share, social media offers powerful ways to market this. Twitter is of one these tools, free of charge even. So it could be the right time to start or to consider using Twitter in your marketing mix.

In the past weeks, we’ve heard the same questions over again. Here are the top 3 Frequently Asked Questions and the Answers:

1. We are a large organization and if we were to start a Twitter account, who should be tweeting on behalf of our organization? Our CEO? Our Marketing Department?

Whatever you do, it will be good to have at least one company account that is controlled by the marketing or communications department. But you can look further than this. Maybe HR and Recruitment? they can start their own account or Customer Service?
Think of the target audience as a starting point and decide then on the logical steps to have one or more accounts.

Obviously, you can have people tweet on a personal level, it is a very personal instrument, but if employees tweet on behalf of your company make sure they stick to a code or tone of voice guidelines. Shouldn’t be too complicated, but it is recommended.

2. Can we use Twitter to approach a focused industry? Who to address?

Twitter is not like the Yellow Pages, where someone has organized categories for you.
Everyone who is active on Twitter will give info about his or her activities, whether hobby, profession or industry. For you, as a marketeer, it is very easy to find out who is active in the industry of your interest. You can use Twitter Explore to find more information about the activity in you industry. The great advantage of searching online like this is that you will find new contacts in your industry on a continuous basis.

3. How much time does it need to start with Twitter as part of my marketing strategy?

A lot of marketers are busy enough, keeping up-to-date with all the blogs that they started all those years ago. With the rise of Twitter, you often wonder where to find time to keep up with all these new tools? Only recently Seth Godin revealed in a video interview that he chooses to blog and not Twitter for that reason.

Better do one thing properly, we often hear. Well, I think it’s a matter of setting priorities indeed and seeing whether and how Twitter can be used effectively in your company.
many times you can make use of existing info, or links to running campaigns, so why not use Twitter to let your followers know?

How much work can this be? It’s not too bad. And you can re-tweet interesting information from others every now and then. This way you share interesting knowledge with your target audience. Obviously, this only works if your target audience is on Twitter. Looking at the latest industry figures these chances are growing every day.

Last but not least, you are only allowed 140 characters in one tweet. That is not a lot and for sure far less work than writing a proper blog post. So if you have to make choices anyway…


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