With the growth of mobile users who sign up for a Twitter account, the importance of this social media channel for businesses has gained its fame. The fact that over a billion people are now registered for the service and over 300 billion Tweets sent each day proves that the network is not a fad and it continues to grow. Yet, how does Twitter play out in the B2B space? Is there any use for it when it comes to landing deals?
The fact is 85% of B2B marketers use Twitter as part of their strategic marketing efforts. Surprisingly, that’s only 6% less than the traditional platform for B2B marketers, LinkedIn.
It makes sense that Twitter is becoming common as an “online SMS”. It is a nice way to quickly communicate or keep in contact with other people. While it does not add the depth of over social communications channels, it does allow marketers in the B2B world to keep tabs and constant contact with their clients and colleagues. The new habit of communicating via social networks from a mobile device have made this so. Now, if someone want to check on the latest data from their manufacturing operation, they can simply do it as easy as when they check on their retirement account, or their kids grades from school.
Whether you’re a Twitter fan or not, the truths to its effectiveness driving top-of-funnel awareness and behavior are well documented. Just over a year ago, Twitter released a study, which found use of Twitter in the B2B space mimics what behavior the company sees from consumer users. In fact, in driving website traffic, Twitter for B2B showed a 47% lift in site traffic from B2B tech sites after users were exposed to Tweets from those companies. In addition, Twitter users search for B2B tech brands at a significantly higher rate (30%) compared to the average web user. This all points to B2B brands who leverage Twitter strategically have a positive influence on brand consideration.
The same Twitter survey shows that Tweets also drive conversion. Of course, this is all coming from Twitter but we’re starting to see lots of third-party validation of this across the B2B channel. General Electric, Adobe, Intel and others continue to show effective use of the channel to engage, drive traffic, and drive consideration via Twitter. As this convergence of B2B and B2C only increase, you’ll see a flood of brands start to seriously up the ante when it comes to Twitter. Will they all do it well? Of course they won’t.