With over 396.5 Million users worldwide, Twitter is one of the leading social media and microblogging platforms. It is ‘the’ place where you can spot trends, and interact with both customers and businesses.
CEOs, decision-makers, and business influencers are on Twitter to build loyal communities and post thought leadership content making it the most eligible platform for B2B after LinkedIn.
With the B2B target audience being present on Twitter, tweeting about the latest trending topic just won’t do. Twitter has transformed from being just an app people use to share their random thoughts to a dominant marketing platform. To gain marketing success on the platform, posting content ad hoc won’t suffice. It requires strategic planning to make Twitter work in favor of your business.
So in this article, we’re going to talk all about Twitter content marketing for B2B businesses.
What is Twitter content marketing?
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute.
Twitter content marketing simply refers to using the social media platform to push forward your content and reach out to a target audience. And, how businesses use the content for marketing on Twitter should depend upon the buyer’s persona and the algorithm of the channel.
Still not convinced about using Twitter as a marketing tool for your business? Well, then read further to know why you should start with Twitter content marketing right away.
Why use Twitter content marketing?
Twitter is an unbeatable marketing tool for B2B businesses for the following reasons:
- It is free to use
- Allows the businesses to interact with followers and consumers
- Acts as a search engine where prospects can research more about your company.
- Acts as a search engine where you can search for your competitor’s marketing content and dig out their strategy.
But here are some statistics to also back up our statements above:
- 500 Million tweets are made per day
- Twitter engagement rate across every industry is 0.46%
- The average user spends 5.1 hours a month on Twitter
- 16% of internet users aged 16-64 use Twitter for brand research
- Twitter’s click through rate stands at 0.86%
Users on Twitter are fairly responsive to good content and it is good content that helps B2B sell.
That’s why what you need before hopping onto the platform, is a well-defined and documented Twitter content marketing strategy.
How to get started with Twitter content marketing?
With over 330 million monthly active users and over 500 million tweets sent across every day, Twitter is one of the leading social media platforms. But to cut through the noise, what you need is a content marketing plan and we’re here to help you create one.
1. Keep your bio optimized
Bio is the brief about what your company does in 160 characters or less. It usually holds the mission statement of your brand or what your product/ service is all about.
Optimizing your Twitter bio will help you position yourself as an expert and tell people what you do.
If you haven’t already, then go back to your Twitter handle and optimize it. And, don’t forget to add the website link in the bio to guide the prospect further into making a decision.
Here’s an example of the same:
And here’s how we have optimized ours:
Remember, you can always experiment with different bios to optimize for search intent.
2. Identify the target audience
When it comes to B2B businesses on Twitter, understanding which audience segment you’re targeting becomes crucial for the brand. Research on the audience segment you want to target on the platform, the type of content your target audience is consuming plus the content creators they follow. This will help you customize your marketing strategy according to their needs.
It will also help you get into the minds of your consumers and create content that resonates with them, which ultimately is the goal.
3. Identify topics the audience is talking about
On your Twitter search, type in a few keywords related to your industry and see what type of content brands like yours are posting. Take a look at the posts that are trending and engaging your prospects and consumers.
Is it funny? Or educational? Or is it informational? Or maybe entertaining? Try to decode what’s working for them and inculcate that into your content with the added uniqueness of your brand.
The best thing to do is to analyze the content of your competitors. It’ll give you ideas on creating engaging posts and help in crafting a content marketing strategy for your business that satisfies the consumers.
We recommend using Twitter lists and creating a private group of your competitors so that you can keep up with their tweets. It makes the analysis of the competitor’s content easier for you.
4. Identifying content pillars
Keeping up with Twitter gets hard if you don’t have your content marketing strategy preplanned. If you want to stay on top of your consumers’ minds then you must tweet frequently about topics that fall under your niche. For example, here’s what Content Marketing Institute’s pillars look like on Twitter:
Content pillars can be anything from funny, entertaining, educational, informative, promotional, etc. Pick the pillars that resonate with your brand and churn out content that speaks to the audience. It has to be something that you can frequently talk about in different ways while at the same time imparting value to the audience.
Here’s SEMrush describing how to find your pillars:
5. Establish a frequency for posting
Twitter demands consistency and frequency. But, that doesn’t mean you have to set aside all of your work and start posting on Twitter every second. To keep your brand’s presence active and continually engaging the audience, you need to publish at least 1-2 tweets per day.
According to the chart above, posting 3 times is the sweet spot. Because engagement decreases after the 3rd tweet.
If you’re too busy to keep up with tweets, post at least 1 tweet a day or to help you build a brand on Twitter.
6. Repurpose your existing content
If you have a library of blogs or even eBooks, then content creation on Twitter will be simple for you. Include posting small snippets from the blog/eBook on Twitter into your strategy and you will have innumerable pieces of content ready to tweet.
To increase engagement and click-through rate, customize the content according to your audience. Whether you write a small caption or post a piece from the blog or pose a question, be sure to make them stop the scroll and read.
Another way of repurposing blog content on Twitter is to write threads. This method is followed by the industry leaders to convey their unique thought leadership. It is done by writing the main topic and then following up the initial topic with a few more tweets and finally ending it with the link to the blog post.
Here’s an example of a Twitter thread:
7. Don’t be afraid to ask questions
Asking questions is like killing two birds with one stone. One is the content ideas and the other is generating engagement.
Asking questions has to be done strategically, you just can’t ask anything. The questions have to revolve around the product or the brand. It might be about the challenges the audience is facing, changes they want to see in the product, etc.
When people answer your questions, you get a lot of engagement through their replies on comments and might spark discussions that result in lead generation. The answers also help you in understanding your target audience well. Hence, when in doubt about what to post, do a Q&A.
8. Make ‘engage and interact’ a part of the plan
One of the top best practices on Twitter is to engage and interact with your followers. Twitter is the game of engagement, for it is the platform for building connections and encouraging conversations.
Engagement on Twitter can be increased by different means such as commenting on others’ tweets, prompting your audience to share their stories and experiences, or asking a question.
One way to ensure the audience is engaged is to post polls with your tweets. It is one of the easiest interactive ways to drive engagement on your tweet. Before you run a poll be sure to keep it on brand and talk about something from your business or product.
Here’s an example of HubSpot using polls.
9. Establish a clear brand voice
From fast-food chains to retail brands, everyone is on Twitter chatting and engaging with consumers like an individual rather than a company to reveal a more human side of the brand where people can relate to it. We recommend using business casual to conversate with the audience as it is apt to build trust and maintain professionalism.
Here’s an example of how HubSpot is trying to connect with its target audience – marketers, casually.
Adopting a casual tone on Twitter to connect with consumers and prospects has proved to be beneficial for B2B businesses by increasing the trust factor.
10. Diversify hashtags
Copy-pasting your Instagram hashtags on Twitter wouldn’t do the trick. Twitter recommends using no more than two relevant hashtags per post.
Using random trending hashtags without any context will be the biggest mistake one can make. Instead, research the hashtags that have gained high impressions and engagement on Twitter and use them for your tweets or you can see which hashtags are trending and use them if they’re relevant to your industry.
11. Hop on to relevant trends
Time and again hopping on trends that are relevant to your brand will only boost your engagement rate. After all, Twitter is ‘the’ place for viral trends, and joining in some fun wouldn’t hurt your business after all.
Memes and hashtags might sound more of a B2C thing but, B2B businesses should also make the most of these trends as long as it’s appropriate and relevant.
Not all trends will work for your brand so don’t fall for making the most out of that one event.
12. Leverage Twitter spaces
Twitter spaces is a feature that allows having live audio conversations with anyone on the platform. You have an audience on twitter to talk about everything and anything.
B2B businesses can leverage Twitter spaces by doing live launches, hosting talks about the products, their uses, and benefits. Consumers will have the opportunity to converse with the brand and its members.
And as we all know, conversations lead to conversions in B2B.
13. Create a content calendar
The content calendar takes you out of the deadly loop of what to post today and helps plan what type of content to post and when. Having a social media calendar helps in planning and strategizing content ahead of time making the workflow effective, efficient and organized.
here’s a simple template you can use for your calendar
14. Monitor and optimize
Make sure to keep checking the insights and tweak your strategy accordingly. Double down on the type of content that brought about an increased engagement rate and avoid the type of content that isn’t working for you.
You would know what’s working and what’s not working only by practice so keep posting and tweak your strategy with respect to its use.
Twitter analytics makes this even simpler to keep track of!
Examples of great Twitter content marketing strategies
Now that we have uncovered the secrets to a highly effective B2B Twitter content marketing strategy, let’s go through some of the best examples of the same.
1. Adobe
Twitter profile: @Adobe
642,400 followers
Twitter tagline: “Changing the world through digital experiences.”
Adobe has used Twitter creatively using all post types to engage with the users including creative use of video format. From a tweet announcing the firm’s latest drawing and painting app’s arrival on iOS to news of its subsidiary Marketo’s Fearless 50 list of top global marketers, Adobe keeps its Twitter messaging both joyful and informative.
2. Deloitte
Twitter profile: @Deloitte
479,600 followers
Twitter tagline: “Sharing the latest news, research, events, and more from Deloitte Global and the Deloitte network of member firms.”
Deloitte uses a variety of engaging content to connect with its audience. From visually engaging video tweets highlighting record $46.2 billion revenue and over 90,000 new hires to image tweets about company initiatives.
3. Intel
Twitter profile: @intel
4,800,000 followers
Twitter tagline: “Intel news, views & events about global tech innovation.”
From a tweet announcing an immersive highlights partnership with English Premier League Champions Manchester City to video-rich content featuring artificial intelligence (AI) innovations from the firm’s presence at the technology conference IFA, Intel keeps its feed filled with information within twitter’s unique format.
Conclusion
Twitter is a fun platform to experiment with. But, the only thing to keep in mind is to stay consistent and post frequently on the platform. Twitter demands both quantity and quality.
Twitter is the most powerful marketing platform for B2B businesses as the decision makers of the organization are leveraging it to brainstorm and start conversations around topics of their interest. It helps you drive traffic to your site, improve brand awareness, build loyal communities, increase sales, and a lot more, if you do it right.
If you consider all the points mentioned in this article while building your Twitter content marketing strategy, you will be able to scale your business in no time.
Need help with your B2B Twitter content marketing strategy? Reach out to us today.
