Get the Most Out of Your B2B Twitter Account

From the basics through to advertising campaigns. Are you up to date with the latest B2B Twitter techniques?

It’s been 11 years since the inception of the ubiquitous microblogging platform and with around 350k tweets sent every minute, there’s still a huge opportunity for every business in the use of Twitter.

Let’s Start with the Basics

Whether you’ve been active on Twitter for some time or are looking into launching your account there are a few things you need to get right straight off the bat.

Make sure you have a clear, optimised avatar, this should be 400px by 400px, the simplest version of your logo should work best here. You then need to think about your banner image, it should be 1500px by 500px, panoramas work well but make sure to check how the image is cropped on multiple operating systems on mobile – 80% of Twitter activity occurs on mobile.

You also want to think about your Twitter handle, a lot of companies, especially in B2B see Twitter as a search engine, and it’s by no means nothing less, but this doesn’t mean you should use your handle as a keyword. Always create a handle that is as close to your brand name as possible so it makes sense when other users quote your name in a tweet. You can be found on a Twitter search through the keywords in your bio and the nature of the content your produce.

Your bio only has 140 characters, choose them well. Carefully and succinctly describe the distilled version of what your company does and what it stands for. If you’ve been through a branding exercise, an outward-facing positioning statement fits well here.

Strategy

Just as the case with any other element of your marketing arsenal, you need to have a strategy for your Twitter account. This should include an annual and monthly content plan. In B2B marketing you may use other social platforms such as LinkedIn or even Facebook but your Twitter strategy can differ given the uses unique to the platform:

·       Outreach – Outreaching to potential clients as well as the press is a unique aspect of the Twittersphere. 

·       Breaking News – With Twitter being one of the world’s most real-time newsrooms, it’s easy to jump on news stories affecting your industry and forming an authoritative opinion on situations as they unfold.

Advertising

Some of the more interesting advancements in Twitter’s offering for B2B companies lie within the advertising dashboard. Twitter ads have come a long way in the past few years in terms of both media and targeting capabilities. Campaign types that you may find the most value in include:

• A follow campaign – While this may not gain you any warm leads from the outset, it usually looks more authoritative to have some good numbers beside your name. This should by no means be at the crux of your advertising strategy as vanity numbers will only get you so far. It’s also worth noting, if you’ve run a like campaign on Facebook before, you will see a far higher cost per follow on Twitter, especially if you’re in B2B but a far lower cost per impression.

• Engagement campaign – You get the most from your money in an engagement campaign if you have something interesting to say. Unless you’re running a particularly interesting campaign or have some enticing video content to display, you might want to hold on to your cash until you do.
• Website Clicks – You can gain the best results from this campaign but only if you support it with online content. Landing pages are the best way to convert users in from Twitter, ensure the call to action in your tweet follows directly to your landing page and make it easy for the user to enquire once they’ve hit the site.
• Remarketing – Setting up Twitter pixels on your site isn’t hard to do but you may want to take some time to consider a remarketing campaign within the B2B arena. Consider how many users you actually get to your site, this will differ greatly depending on if your site is transactional or just a brand site, and then overlay this with your targeting on Twitter, you may be looking at a very small cross-section of an audience and your budget may be better spent elsewhere.

Reporting

Reporting is one of the most important parts of any social media marketing process as you need to ensure you are honing your messaging and refining your strategy on an on-going basis. Even if you have been reporting on your Twitter activity for a while, a change in the reporting process or a review of your KPIs may reveal opportunities or release inspiration you may not have thought of.

This is definitely the case for automated reporting tools, to get the most out of your stats, you’re best off jumping into https://analytics.twitter.com/ and really analysing on a granular level, what your audience is interested in.

If you’re looking for further advice on your Twitter or social media strategy as a whole, you can contact us here or sign up for one of our Social Media Training sessions.