How Twitter is Changing B2B Lead Generation for the BetterPosted on 05 Feb
If you work in a business to business industry, you’ve probably heard the buzz and attention that “social leads” are getting from the press and others in the industry. You’ve probably heard about the power of Linkedin and why it’s important to upgrade to a premium account. What if I told you that Linkedin isn’t the only channel you should be paying attention to; would you believe me? Sure. What if I told you that Linkedin isn’t the best for actually generating leads; would you still believe me? Maybe not. So let me explain…
The way people interact on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest is very different. On one channel you’re primarily using direct messages to discuss business, on the other you’re asking questions to a group of followers, on another you’re looking at pictures of high school friends and on the other you’re creating a digital scrapbook. Clearly, these are dumbed down descriptions of what you can do on each channel but you get the idea. If you’re looking for something and wan’t a third party recommendation, what channel would you use? Facebook or Twitter, right? To some extent Linkedin could be used but most people wan’t quick responses and not everyone uses Linkedin daily. Facebook is often blocked off to a limited group of friends while Twitter is available for the world.
Over the last 5 years social media has gone from being a place where people have back and forth conversations about Brad Pitt to a place where customer service is expected and embraced. It took brands a long time to quite get a grip on the way people were interacting and many actually believed Twitter would disappear by now.
According to a new study by digital marketing software provider Optify, social media generates less than 5% of overall traffic and leads to B2B websites with Facebook leading the pack. While this may be the case as it relates to traffic, the stat that stoof out in this study for me was related to social leads. We just talked about the type of interactions that happen on the various networks which further shows why this study makes sense. It showed that Twitter is by far the strongest social media channel for B2B lead-generation with 82% of social media leads coming directly from Twitter, outperforming Facebook and LinkedIn by 9-to-1.
Here is an interesting visual from the report:
So how do you take advantage of Twitter? Well first you need to find these potential leads. Look at these individuals job titles, look at their locations and identify where they actually work. Once you’ve identified potential customers based on a specific persona, follow these people so that hopefully they’ll follow you back. To increase the chances of getting a follow back, engage with them through conversation about anything and everything. At the same time, ensure that you’re constantly provide relevant content through your tweets that they might find useful or interesting. As people get to know you, they’ll become interested in what you and your business does. And when that happens, magic happens. They’ll go from social media conversations to social media conversions.
Interested in taking theses insights and turning them into results? Here are 5 social media tactics that will help you get there.