Brendan O’Connell, Director of Web Operations at ThomasNet, was an early adopter of social media and has been on Twitter since early 2007. (http://twitter.com/triggerfinger). He tells us how you can use services like Twitter as part of your businesses’ online marketing plans.
Forrester recently released new research revealing that B2B buyers have very high social participation. According to Forrester’s Social Technographics of Business Buyers, “55% of technology decision-makers were in social networks (Joiners) — despite as mature businesspeople and not college students, you’d think they’d be participating a lot less.”
If you’re not already participating in social media or including social networks in your online marketing efforts, it’s time to consider your options.
Let’s look at one of the more popular social network. Twitter (www.Twitter.com) is just one of several social media options available to us today. You’ve probably heard of Twitter by now, whether in the news media, the buzz about CNN vs. Ashton Kutcher, or Oprah coming on board. Twitter is the fastest-growing major website in the U.S. It had 17 million registered users in the U.S. in April — up 3,000% from a year ago, according to the latest market research from ComScore.
So what’s the buzz all about? And what’s in it for businesses?
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as “tweets.” ThomasNet is on Twitter (@ThomasNet).
Twitter can be a good starting point for your initiation into the social media world. From there, you should be able to determine if incorporating social media in your online marketing plans makes sense for your business.
In order to be successful with Twitter, or any of the social sites, you will need to start with a plan. At ThomasNet we say, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure,” and before you start, you need to do the following:
- set your company’s goals
- determine how you are going to measure your efforts, and
- decide who is going to be responsible for managing your company’s social media efforts.
Some possible goals for your company’s social media efforts might be improving brand awareness, helping with customer service efforts, driving traffic to your website, and acquiring leads, among others.
To measure the success of your efforts, you can look at inquiries to your website, how customer service feedback improves, track the number of leads recorded in your online conversations and more.
Decide who will be responsible for your company’s social media efforts and how they’ll engage with your customers and report back to your company by answering these questions:
- Will there be one person or a team responsible for your company’s social media efforts?
- What is the “voice” of your company and key messages you wish to relay?
- How will people engage with your company?
- What is the protocol if a client complains or competitors start to follow you?
- What is the role of personal accounts?
There are other questions, too, that you might want to consider when developing your company’s social media plans. It all depends on your goals.
Once your company’s goals and ground rules are set, you’ll need to claim your brand throughout the world of social media. Let’s start with Twitter. Even if your company is not going to tweet, you should make sure that someone else does not grab your company’s Twitter name and misrepresent your company or brand — a mistake several Fortune 100 companies have already made!
Set up your company’s Twitter account now.
Go to www.twitter.com and register your company’s name, as well as your key brand/product names. Accounts are free and you should secure them before your competition does. Even if your company never plans on using Twitter, you should protect your company and brand names on Twitter (and all social sites). It’s a good idea to keep a spreadsheet of all the names you register, the usernames and passwords.
Next, you can corporatize/personalize the Twitter account(s) using your company/brand logo, a one-line bio, and an appropriate background. There are many sites that you can use to help you develop a custom background, such as Tweetbacks, Twitterimage, Twitpaper, if you don’t have a graphic designer on staff. The Twitter background should align with your goals and resemble the colors, format and logo of your website/brand.
Start “tweeting” (communicating and responding)!
Log onto Twitter and post your first company tweet. Remember, each tweet on Twitter is limited to 140 characters. Have a plan to tweet at least once a week – and more frequently if appropriate.
Track activity based on those tweets. Remember tweeting is a process and you can’t just tweet “buy our stuff” over and over again and expect to gain followers or sales.
Company tweets should be a mix of company news, customer support, feedback and special offers. If you have an RSS feed of your company’s blog you can easily feed it to your Twitter account using a service such as Twitterfeed.
Start following — and get a following.
Part of your marketing plan on Twitter is to acquire followers. Be sure to add your company’s Twitter name to all appropriate e-mails/newsletters/business cards and to put it on your website and in your blog. Run a contest, offer coupons or discounts for followers.
Take a look at your peers’ and your competitors’ Twitter profiles to see who they are following or who is following them to find people that you should be following, too. Use tools like the Twitter Search and Twellow for additional followers.
Also, know that your competitors will likewise be following you so be careful what you tweet.
Engage your followers by following them, asking questions, offering discounts/coupons, answering questions and “retweeting” their tweets. Be sure to follow ThomasNet (@ThomasNet) and we’ll be happy to follow you, too!
If you have any questions about incorporating social media and Twitter in your B2B online marketing plans, send a tweet to @ThomasNet or email us at industrialmarketer@thomasnet.com.
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