By 
Twitter is now 5 years old – Long Live Twitter! With an estimated user base that is now double that of LinkedIn at more than 200 million users, Twitter is less about what we are doing now and more about becoming a channel for customer service, consumer campaigns, and big brands to engage with their present and potential customers. Needless to say, with the mass usage and attention to tweeting on the Internet, many businesses have taken advantage of the site for its marketing potential. This has become such a popular and fruitful business tactic that Twitter have included an entire section on how businesses can use Twitter to share information with interested potential customers, gather product feedback and build relationships with consumers, partners and influential people. Many businesses have already taken the liberty of tweeting to their advantage to increase sales opportunities and have been succeeding at doing so. Apparently, Charlie Sheen is not the only one “winning” on Twitter.
We often see the Twitter icon on the websites of most big consumer brand websites now, but the question at hand is: How can B2B marketers use Twitter as part of their social media marketing strategy? Continuing from my recent social media B2B blog case studies post, let’s take a look at 4 successful case studies of how B2B business is developed on Twitter:
Avaya – The Listener
My favorite example of how one tweet set up a 6 figure deal for a B2B company is this one:
shoretel or avaya? Time for a new phone system very soon
The fascinating thing about Twitter, when compared to a LinkedIn or Facebook, is that 1) there are an incredible amount of conversations going on at any given time and 2) for the most part, the information is public. That’s why social media monitoring tools are so important because you simply can’t humanly monitor what is being said out there. While most companies focus on the reputation management side of social media monitoring, I believe that monitoring conversations can lead to business opportunities.
Getting back to the above tweet, Avaya was listening, and within 15 minutes responded effectively.
The Bottom Line: 13 days later Avaya closed a $250,000 sale.
B-Co Communications – The Answerer
You don’t have to be a huge B2B enterprise to reap the benefits of Twitter. Even small, single-person owned companies that are targeting other businesses can take advantage of the same platform. The beauty of tweeting and social media in general is that it not only levels the playing field for all, it was also made for people, making it easier for smaller businesses to engage with potential clients in a personable and authentic way.
Because Twitter is a public conversation, and there are many media outlets on Twitter, tweeting can indirectly lead to business by receiving media coverage. This is exactly what happened B-Co Communications, a Canadian PR firm. Here’s what happened in their words:
…thanks to the power of Twitter, b*co [B-Co Communications] appeared in the Globe & Mail this week! Matt Hartley at the Globe put out a question on Twitter, asking if anyone knew any small businesses that were focused on the Olympics, and if there were any interesting stories…I contacted Matt right away, telling him I thought b*co had a pretty good story. And apparently he agreed!
The Bottom Line: The media coverage that came from that single tweet has allowed B-Co to develop several potential business leads.
Neenah Paper – The Engager
Let’s face it: B2B clients are as distracted by the Internet and social media as anyone else. People have less time to deal with sales calls, and Neenah Paper found that their target client base of small business owners who were designers, graphic artists, and printers simply were not returning their calls nor agreeing to in-person meetings.
Neenah Paper analyzed the situation and realized that their target customer base was sitting behind a computer the whole day, so why not try to influence them from within the Internet? This brought Neenah Paper’s marketing into social media, but is was the sales team who took the baton from there and realized that they could easily engage with their potential customers on Twitter and develop business through tweets.
The Bottom Line: Today there are 10 sales reps. who are using their personal Twitter accounts to close new Neenah Paper business.
Windmills Marketing – The Tweeter
If you didn’t know, Windmills Marketing is the name of my social media strategy consulting practice. And, yes, I have my own B2B success story to share. I received an email from someone I had never heard of that was interested in my consulting services. After connecting on the phone, it turned out that the president of a music company had been following my tweets on social media for some time and had finally reached out to me. “I see from your tweets that you know what you’re talking about, so how can we work together?”
The Bottom Line: One week later I closed the deal for my own social media strategy consulting, and add-on business thereafter has made this client my biggest so far in 2011.
There are endless stories of B2C success stories, but I hope the above case studies give you a sense of the many ways in which business can and is being developed on Twitter from a B2B perspective.
Do you have other examples to share with us or want to showcase how your B2B business leverages Twitter as part of your marketing efforts? Please chime in and share your B2B case studies with us!
Black Seo Guy
Twitter just gives you that ability to contact people that you couldn’t before..like P-Diddy or Donald Trump..by having these opportunities..then companies and pitch ideas and hopefully gain more clients..
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
nealschaffer
Amen Coleman!
Gabriele Maidecchi
Twitter is such an “open” tool that it’s really up to each of us to find the best use for it, and what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for you and vice versa.
That’s why you really need to get a proper strategy laid down before you seriously start using Twitter for business, otherwise you risk spreading precious resources all around without a clear goal set in mind.
Personally I don’t have a real case study to share, I am in the “networking phase” so to say, also because my business doesn’t really (yet) offer a proper product but more like services, however we got the monitoring in place and the conversation started
nealschaffer
I appreciate that you have an equal passion to strategy in social media like I have.
As for your business don’t stop with mere monitoring – engage!
Patrick Allmond
Don’t overthink think it though. This is a very simple platform. Your strategy should take about 30 minutes to come up with
nealschaffer
Thanks for that thought Patrick
Ckrason
Hi Patrick – and everyone !! While I have been using twitter and fb personally for several years, I am starting an new venture and want to develop a sm strategy – any tips/suggestions????? Thanks in advance.
Christine
4 Twitter B2B Case Studies – How Tweets Lead to Business | PrintMediaCentr.com
[...] Continues at: 4 Twitter B2B Case Studies – How Tweets Lead to Business. [...]
Christopher Porter
Neal, thank you so much for sharing these stories and case studies. You are helping this twitter echo system by highlighting best practices on your blog, and helping to make all of us more effective in business and personally.
It is one thing to show a company how twitter “could” work for them, and entirely another to show them a deal like Avaya, and the benefits of learning how to effectively incorporate social media into their business. I also agree with Gabriel (who commented earlier) that it really takes understanding that business and what will work for them. Social Media is not a silver bullet. But, in the hands of knowledgeable people like yourself, it can be quite powerful!
nealschaffer
Thanks Christopher. I like to think that social media is sort of like nuclear energy. If harnessed, it can be clean and with little effort provide powerful resorts. If you don’t handle it properly, though, …
Adminitrack
good analogy…
nealschaffer
Thanks!
SEM Services
B-Co is an awesome story!
nealschaffer
Glad you liked it Brock.
Add Twitter To Your Direct Marketing Mix: It Just Might Work!
[...] media strategist Neal Schaffer believes Twitter can lead to business and he’s got the stories to prove it. Here’s a quick wrap of three cases in [...]
nealschaffer
Hi Christine,
A social media strategy requires a lot of moving pieces and will be different for each company. Start with thinking about your objective first, what content your target audience might be interested in second, start a blog third, and then slowly join social media conversation where your targeted customer is.
@NealSchaffer
Adminitrack
Long live Twitter! Come up with a simple plan & stick with it.
nealschaffer
Amen!
4 Signs Its Time to Outsource Social Media
[...] example, you may have been putting all of your efforts into Twitter marketing because you’ve read a few white papers and are excited about the medium. However, if your results [...]
Why Twitter, Part 1 | ZUZA Marketer's Blog
[...] Avaya engaged the customer and ended up getting a $250,000 sale out of it. (story source: WindMill Networking Blog » [...]
Social Media for B2B Branding: Why Smart Marketers Use It
[...] B2B marketing is not about selling to businesses, but to the people who work for those businesses. Behind every RFP, procurement team and competitive bidding process, there are people who want to hear your story. They want to understand why your company, your brand, can better meet their needs. [...]
Differences in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Writing
[...] an added bonus, creating your own Twitter update for a curated blog post can help you stand out from the pack. How many times have you seen the same [...]
Kent
Whenever I start a Twitter marketing for a company, I would encourage them to listen first. Because understanding customers is very important. But it seems that a lot of companies don’t understand this. They use old mindset to use new technology. They use Twitter for mass communication.
Neal Schaffer
Yup! But that will change over time, Kent …
Using Social Media for B2B Branding: Using Stories
[...] partners, investors and the media is expressing an aspect of this personality. Your challenge as a B2B marketer is to be sure that the brand buyers experience is consistent with the brand you want your business [...]
How Twitter Helps B2B Marketers | Right On Interactive
[...] strong advantage from using Twitter. The brevity offered by tweets is tailor-made to reach out and engage with B2B clients, who hard pressed for [...]
How Twitter Helps B2B Marketers | Right On Interactive
[...] strong advantage from using Twitter. The brevity offered by tweets is tailor-made to reach out and engage with B2B clients, who hard pressed for [...]
50 Social Media Case Studies You Should Bookmark «Risky Stuff Risky Stuff
[...] – A behind the scenes look at Oreo’s real-time Super Bowl slam dunk.- Back in 2010, KLM used Twitter to identify customers flying with them and gave certain passengers small, but useful gifts, resulting in one million impressions on Twitter alone.- How Optify used Twitter’s Promoted Tweets to increase engagement and generated leads by over 700%- Four B2B marketing case studies that shows how tweets leads to business. [...]
LEADership Is There a RIGHT Way to Use Twitter for #B2BLeadGeneration
[...] Let’s look at another study that gives us more examples: [...]