Elon Musk is Banking on Twitter. Should You?

Twitter is in the news these days, and it's always been a popular social media option for B2B marketers. Find out how today's B2B brands are using Twitter to develop communities, build brand awareness and foster qualified leads.

So, Elon Musk, the world's richest person, is in the process of buying Twitter. That news has lit up not only the Twitterverse but the entire social media macrocosm.

All that buzz has me thinking about Twitter's place in the modern B2B marketing mix. I'm wondering what role Twitter will play in potential clients' buying journeys in the years ahead.

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) ranks Twitter second only to LinkedIn for use by B2B content marketers over the past year. That's why you're seeing this article here, rather than on Twitter!

B2B Uses Twitter More than Facebook, YouTube or Instagram

Still, B2B marketers use Twitter more than Facebook, YouTube or Instagram. In fact, the CMI study shows that 82% of B2B marketers had used Twitter in the previous 12 months.

One of the earliest social networks, Twitter launched in 2006, billing itself as a "microblogging service." Micro is right! The original Twitter limited the size of Tweets to just 140 characters.

Today, Tweets have a 280-character limit, and the limit no longer includes users' handles or tags for attachments. That's still a very restrictive size limit, but today's Tweets almost always include links, often to video content.

Tweets Include Links, Often to Video Content

Twitter is no longer the major player it used to be for the public-at-large. According to Hootsuite's Digital 2022 Global Overview Report, Twitter now ranks 15th among the most visited social platforms by everyday people.

However, when we delve into the data, we find that Twitter users are generally older, better educated and more affluent than the average social media visitor. Eighty percent of Twitter users access the platform using a mobile device. Virtually all of Twitter's 500 million daily Tweets come from just 25% of Twitter's users.

The platform of Choice for Business Leaders

These demographics confirm that Twitter has a very specific reputation and target audience niche. It's the platform of choice where politicians, journalists, and business leaders pop onto their smartphones to compare quick notes about daily events. That's why Twitter puts such heavy emphasis on what's trending.

My astute B2B marketing clients recognize this. They often engage me to help with their Twitter campaigns. They tell me that Twitter is part of their social media strategies for three broad reasons.

Community Building

The foundation of the three is community building. The preferred way to use Twitter to start building a prospective client funnel is to establish an online community there.

Early Twitter marketers used a "one-to-many" approach. They broadcast a message without expecting much audience interaction.

Today's Twitter is much more of a "one-to-one" communication proposition. Responding to that trend, Twitter announced a new Twitter Communities feature in September of last year.

Private groups have been a mainstay for B2B marketers on LinkedIn for years, but this is something new for Twitter. Marketers are setting up or joining Twitter Communities discussing themes that relate to their value propositions.

As with other social media groups, B2B marketers can use Twitter Communities to learn about trends in their target industries. They can also monitor developing issues and "pain points" for prospective clients.

As with other social media groups, content marketing content within Twitter Communities shouldn't be a sales pitch or a glorified product brochure. To succeed, group posts have to focus on what readers care about, not merely on what brands want to tell them.

By using Twitter Communities to better understand your target audience, you can apply what you learn. This enables you to start tailoring the content of other kinds of Tweets. Community participation sets you up for the second reason to be on Twitter.

Brand Awareness

The next B2B marketing reason for your Twitter presence is building brand awareness. The platform isn't the place to post a lengthy corporate profile. The tactic for B2B Twitter marketers is to blast out multiple, carefully targeted micro-messages many times each and every day.

A typical Tweet lasts about twenty minutes on Twitter these days. If you're targeting an international audience, you also have to keep time zones in mind.

So, pumping out the same Tweet a dozen times a day is quite common. You can use software tools to schedule and automatically post your series of Tweets at ideal moments throughout the day.

Because of the sheer volume of Tweets that fly by, yours will need to be eye-catching, with multimedia links. The content of choice so far in 2022 seems to be very short, phone-friendly video clips, roughly ten or fifteen seconds long.

As prospects get to know your brand through your community awareness and brand-building efforts, you're positioning yourself for the ultimate reason marketers benefit from Twitter.

Lead Generation

As discussed, today's Twitter offers a growing level of interactivity. Smart B2B marketers use interactive content to learn more about prospects and develop qualified client leads.

In particular, Twitter users feel that polls, quizzes and self-assessments are fun ways to pass the time online. Tabulating the results from these interactive exercises can generate a B2B gold mine for your sales force.

Working with what these polls tell you about prospects, you can start nurturing these potential clients through your online customer experience. The quiz data helps sales staff personalize their initial contacts with prospects, making it feel less like a cold call.

I suggest undertaking these three approaches sequentially. First, build a Twitter Community, then tastefully introduce your brand to your followers, and finally, start fostering specific leads for your sales team to contact.

Content Strategy

Your brand should align its approach to Twitter with its overall content marketing strategy. Twitter isn't for every brand, but it's more popular with B2B marketers than most other social media platforms.

Why not assess how often your target audience visits Twitter and the type of content they access there? You may find that Twitter has the potential to help your brand better deliver the results your senior management demands.

Twitter is sure to be front-and-centre in the financial news throughout 2022. This is likely to pique the curiosity of business-oriented users. These new visitors may be ideal prospects for your B2B content marketing campaign.

Given all the media buzz it's getting, this may be the time to rethink Twitter's role in your brand's social media strategy.