Twitter is now 5 years old – Long Live Twitter! With an estimated user base that is now double that of LinkedIn at more than 200 million users, Twitter is less about what we are doing now and more about becoming a channel for customer service, consumer campaigns, and big brands to engage with their present and potential customers. Needless to say, with the mass usage and attention to tweeting on the Internet, many businesses have taken advantage of the site for its marketing potential. This has become such a popular and fruitful business tactic that Twitter have included an entire section on how businesses can use Twitter to share information with interested potential customers, gather product feedback and build relationships with consumers, partners and influential people. Many businesses have already taken the liberty of tweeting to their advantage to increase sales opportunities and have been succeeding at doing so. Apparently, Charlie Sheen is not the only one “winning” on Twitter.
We often see the Twitter icon on the websites of most big consumer brand websites now, but the question at hand is: How can B2B marketers use Twitter as part of their social media marketing strategy? Continuing from my recent social media B2B blog case studies post, let’s take a look at 4 successful case studies of how B2B business is developed on Twitter:
Avaya – The Listener
My favorite example of how one tweet set up a 6 figure deal for a B2B company is this one:
shoretel or avaya? Time for a new phone system very soon
The fascinating thing about Twitter, when compared to a LinkedIn or Facebook, is that 1) there are an incredible amount of conversations going on at any given time and 2) for the most part, the information is public. That’s why social media monitoring tools are so important because you simply can’t humanly monitor what is being said out there. While most companies focus on the reputation management side of social media monitoring, I believe that monitoring conversations can lead to business opportunities.
Getting back to the above tweet, Avaya was listening, and within 15 minutes responded effectively.
The Bottom Line: 13 days later Avaya closed a $250,000 sale.
Continues at: 4 Twitter B2B Case Studies – How Tweets Lead to Business.
Related articles
- Social media and B2B marketing (ingeniousrapport.com)
- Thinking about B2B Social Media? Dot your i’s first. (steverevill.net)
- Evolution of Social Media for B2B Lead Generation (customerthink.com)
