Twitter doesn’t matter for a lot of B2B marketers and business people
and probably shouldn’t. If your target market is CEO’s of industrial waste management companies, buyers for Wal-Mart and Costco, or a handful of other “less-likely-to-give-a-darn” folks, you’re chirping up the wrong channel get back to your tradeshow booth and blackberry! Don’t get fooled though, there have been some huge wins in this space, but it does depend on your audience. If your audience is gen x or younger, or the marketing crowd, you will find them in the thousands on Twitter.

So if you’ve decided that your audience is of the “Tweeting” variety, and you’re ready to “get your tweet on,” here are a few things you should know:

1. Ditch the Inane Banter

I’ve recently taken a liking to following the daily ramblings of Darth Vader and it is amusing to hear about the first thing he did after he got out of bed this morning, but I’m not about to call him up and ask him for any business advice.

There are more than a few Twitter aficionados that will tell you Twitter requires much more personality to generate a true following, but I have work to do and so do you! When I have something really juicy and relevant to my B2B lead generation audience, it will go up there, and if not I’ll go silent for a day.. no inane ramblings about what I had for breakfast, how bad my drive to work was.

2. Add Genuine Value

Still spamming? Twitter is no different than email, don’t burn your list! Help people solve real problems and gather invaluable nuggets for their business. Big kudos for people like John Hossack at VKI Studios his tweets are generally the best of what he’s come accross in his daily research.

3. Don’t Ask for Anything In Return

I can’t believe how many corporate accounts I’ve followed over the past couple of months who still don’t get it!! DellSmallBiz is a prime example: great, value-add tweets but too many direct product plugs, the net result is much less buy-in. Help me deal with the bigger problems in my business, and I’ll buy from you because I like you!

4. Be Consistent In Message & Focus

Your Twitter persona and your brand are one in the same.. if you want to be the go-to -person for carbon footprint auditing services make sure you focus your content around carbon footprint auditing.

5. Add More Value

Repeat number 2 regularly!

6. It’s Social! Be Involved, Start & Be Part of Conversations

One thing we’re learning as we go, is how to create more of a conversation with Twitter. Conversations draw people in from the periphery and are the same as attending a party.

7. If You Build it They Will Come!

Be patient, they will come.

8. Read-Up On Some Twitter Do’s and Don’ts:

Ogilvy PR’s Do’s & Don’ts for Twitter

Twitter Best Practices Article

Stay Tuned for more on Twitter..

Next Twitter Article: Top 10 Tools for Twitter

Time Magazine Cover - Twitter

Johnston’s Game-Changing Observations on Twitter:

1. An Open Conversation – it’s a great meeting of minds
2. Super-fresh content – up to date and published from all devices.. blackberry, IPhone etc..
3. News & Opinions – in bite sized pieces – users feed the best of what they see to peers

TwitteFacts:

• 17 Million Visitors in April 2009 (Google had 120 million, Facebook had 71 million)
• 11,000 third-party apps have already been developed to integrate Twitter into several aspects of our daily lives

At least now I don’t need to explain to people that Twitter might be important; not only that it has utility beyond a short fad, as author Steven Johnston proves:

“.. three or four years from now, we’ll have moved on. But the key elements of the Twitter platform will perservere. Every major channel of information will be Twitterfied.”

As it turns out there is something very useful about communicating 140 charachters at a time with the world that goes well beyond a post-adolescent banter.. Twitter means business! We will explore this in upcoming articles. Stay tuned we’ll explore implications for the B2B marketing crowd in upcoming posts.

You can Read the Whole Time Twitter Article Here