If you are one of those business owners who isn’t using social media because of the following reason: “I’m a B2B business owner. Social media is a B2C thing,” well I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re wrong. Dear B2B business owners, it is time to embrace what you call “the Twitter.” Yes, Facebook is still a vital component to any social media strategy, but I feel it is primarily for SEO and to honestly just prove that you’re on social media. Twitter, however, is a very active tool you can use to increase revenue, gain clients and reap those other ancillary benefits of SEO and being viewed as a B2B leader in social media. No matter how you look at it, it isn’t bad. In fact, it’s quite good!

So let’s take that first step in hopping on the B2B Twitter bandwagon!

First, set up a Twitter account. If you already have one, replace that generic egg-shaped profile photo with a logo of your business. (Don’t laugh, I’m sure this step applies to a lot of you).

Now, print out your client list or export it into a spreadsheet. Create two columns next to each client. One should be labeled “Twitter Company Account”, and the other “Twitter Personal Account.” This process takes a very long time, I know. But I guarantee you a good number of your clients are on Twitter. By you engaging with them on that platform and seeing what they’re tweeting dramatically increases the chance that you not only keep these clients, but you know that much more about them to help cater future marketing efforts.

After you complete this process, go into Twitter.com and start putting those accounts into a private (yes, private!) Twitter list entitled “Clients”. Now instead of a waterfall of tweets, you will see the tweets that are important to you – the ones from people who give you money. Now whenever you get a new client, automatically add them to this list and cross-reference their social media profiles. Then you only have to go through this long research process once.

One caveat to organizing this list is this: DO NOT SPAM! You are not meant to follow your clients purely for the chance of promoting your other services to them. Then your efforts may backfire. Go in once a day and see what they’re saying and simply retweet them or reply to something they say in an engaging way. Remember you are a person behind that Twitter handle; act like it!

My suggestion is to schedule 3-5 tweets per day via a social media scheduling tool (a popular one is HootSuite – I also highly recommend Argyle Social for their Google Analytics tracking – plus it emails you when you get a mention or RT!) and have 2-3 informational for your industry, one promotional leading people to your e-mail newsletter or product page, and one highlighting a current client’s accomplishment or news. Then you have content going out regularly combined with your client engagement efforts.

Now for the next step. Once you get used to engaging with your clients on Twitter and scheduling tweets, it’s time to set your tweets to prospects. Keep up the same process you already have going, but add another Twitter list. Unfortunately, you will have to do some more research and manual spreadsheet input, but I promise it’s worth it! Because, as these are your clients, and they’re Twitter followers are potential clients! Go through these list of followers and pick out the ones who you feel would be prospects for your business. Create a separate private Twitter list called “Prospects” – add only five to ten at a time so you don’t overwhelm yourself, and engage with those on that list as much as you do with your current clients. You will begin noticing quite a difference of inbound traffic links and potentially new clients.

Twitter has a plethora of other fantastic qualities, but this is the most direct and effective for a B2B company. It takes customer service to a whole new level. And you never know, you just may be the next B2B Social Media Case Study!

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Rachel Yeomans Categories: ePiphany, Social Media