Twitter is currently one of the most popular social media platforms among B2B marketers. Still, there are a lot of B2B brands struggling to leverage Twitter in their marketing strategy.
And in this article, I‘m going to share the most effective B2B lead generation strategies for Twitter that successful B2B brands are using, and you can use too.
That being said, if you have any doubts about how Twitter can be useful for a B2B brand, let me share some facts and figures with you.
Is Twitter useful for B2B brands?
According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, Twitter is the second most used platform for content marketing purposes among B2B marketers.
Twitter is a platform with over 300 million users with active 182M+ average monthly active users. Among them, over 63 percent of Twitter users worldwide are between 18 and 50 years old.
This shows that the user base on Twitter is mature, and it is most likely that the B2B target audience is also using the platform. Apart from these statistics, here are a few benefits of using Twitter for B2B marketing purposes-
- Building Connection with the Audience– Twitter helps business enterprises communicate with their audiences in a particular way that most social media networks do not offer. Organizations use Twitter and connect with their audience in real time by posting updates, answering questions, and replying to their posts. As per reports by Content Marketing Institute, almost 67% of B2B marketers respond to their users and do better business through Twitter.
- Creating brand awareness- As soon as you have a vast user base, you can promote your content and create brand awareness of your product or services. This activity can drive more traffic to your blog or website and eventually convert them to leads.
- Building thought leadership- If you keep sharing helpful information and insights related to your industry, you will eventually become the first source of information about the industry. People will trust your brand and follow the page just to stay updated.
- Analyzing Competitors- By utilizing Twitter Analytics, like checking Twitter activity, follower growth, impressions, and so on, you can narrow your position on the social media podium and keep an eye on your competitors. You can monitor their activities, specifically their hashtags and mentions, from where you can get an idea of how your competitors are progressing.
With all these benefits, Twitter is not limited to lead generation. Twitter can be a powerful platform for lead nurturing and building relationships with industry leaders if you can use it strategically.
8 Proven ways of using Twitter for B2B Lead generation
By now, you know why you need to leverage Twitter to generate leads in your business and its advantages.
Let us now delve deeper into the top ways of using Twitter for B2B lead generation.
1. Make use of Twitter Lists
Twitter allows you to organize your Twitter feed into targeted topics using Twitter Lists. Using Lists, you can not only keep up with the most critical conversations in your industry but stay tuned to what your target audience, prospects, and customers are sharing on the platform.
Just take a look at the type of Twitter Lists created by Salesforce –
Most of the lists in the above image are created to stay tuned to what people in the industry and Salesforce employees are talking about on Twitter.
Similarly, you can segment users into multiple private lists that include your existing clients, potential clients, prospects, media people, and other influencers.
Check these lists thoroughly every day to find out any interesting conversation or content and then get stuck to it for responding and retweeting.
Based on what people in your lists are talking about, you can create targeted, customized messages for those users and, in return, generate huge responses from them, thereby increasing your chances of business growth.
2. Come up with newsworthy content
While using Twitter, B2B marketers don’t necessarily need to go for a heavy sales pitch. It is the newsworthy content that rules on Twitter. You will be surprised to know that almost 74% of Twitteraties browse Twitter to check regular news. You will see that people are primarily interested in things that are on-trend or in the news.
This gives you an idea of what kind of content you must publish to capture your followers’ attention. Go for posting statistical insights, talk about the latest trends, and use third-party data sources to create original content loaded with unique stats and insights. This kind of newsworthy content attracts people’s attention, resulting in generating more leads.
3. Promote your B2B webinar via video ads
Webinars are one of the most useful forms of content for B2B lead generation. If you haven’t started using webinars in your lead generation process, you can refer to my B2B webinar guide to get started.
If you are already using webinars to generate leads, use Twitter Ads to promote your webinar via video ads to reach targeted audiences and get more sign-ups.
All you need to do is pick a topic for a webinar in which your target audience will be interested. Do it live or record it, and once you’re done with the webinar, bring all the clips together and run video ads to promote the upcoming webinars.
The video ads will generate interest among your target audience, which will have to drive in more sign-ups and, thus, lead generation.
4. Target your competitors’ followers via paid ads
Twitter allows you to target your competitors’ followers via ads. That is, you can reach people with similar interests to your competitors’ followers.
This is my favorite strategy to use on Twitter. If your competitor has already established an engaging follower base, you can simply target their followers and reach people with similar interests in your proposition.
You just have to add your competitors’ profiles in the “Targeting features” section of Twitter Ads like this –
However, to target your competitors’ followers, you need to develop a better campaign strategy to showcase yourself as a better alternative for targeting people who follow your competitors. Let’s cite an example for you.
If your competitor provides poor customer service, you can create a campaign that will tell your people how good you are at your customer service. You can also add another plus point in the ad by displaying how good you are at your “After Sales Service,” too. In this way, you attract your competitor’s followers’ attention to your brand, thereby generating more leads.
5. Promote your most popular lead magnets using Twitter Ads
Bringing in new leads in your marketing funnel is a challenge indeed. But by offering helpful resources to your target audience, you can grab their attention and generate quality leads.
Using Twitter Ads, you can promote lead magnets that drive most lead generation across channels. These lead magnets are the incentives you offer to potential customers in exchange for their contact information.
Don’t you have any lead magnets on your site? Check our guide on B2B lead magnets to understand what a lead magnet is and what type of lead magnets you can create for B2B lead generation.
A relevant and user-demanded lead magnet can help you turn Twitter advertising into a strong acquisition channel. So, create useful lead magnets for the B2B audience and promote them on Twitter to make them available for your target audience globally and locally.
6. Boost your most engaging Twitter posts
Another powerful strategy is to boost the seats that are getting a good response from the audience, and you want to increase the audience activity and get more Retweets, likes, and replies on that post.
To do so, you have to first select “Engagement” as your campaign objective.
Next, add your campaign details, set up an ad group, select the bidding type, add audience targeting details, and choose the Tweets that you’d like to promote in the “ Creatives “ section.
The objective of this strategy is to drive engagement from the most popular organic posts, turn them into followers, and eventually convert them into leads and then into paid customers.
7. Leverage Influencer Marketing
This is the most undervalued Twitter strategy that B2B marketers are not utilizing in the best possible way. And one of the reasons behind it is that over 73% of B2B marketers find it extremely hard to find the right influencer for their business.
Unlike consumer brands, B2B influencers cannot be selected just because of their huge follower base. Their credibility and expertise in the industry are the most crucial factors in B2B influencer marketing.
However, the best part of Twitter is that you can find all the industry leaders here, and thus it is the best platform to execute influencer marketing for B2B brands.
To find the right influencers, you can use BuzzSumo. Using that, you can find people based on the profile, topics, and domains that include your target keyword.
For example, in the below image, I searched for influencers who share articles about “Sales CRM” –
BuzzSumo displays a complete list of Twitter profiles that share articles about the mentioned keyword.
You can now add the filter and sort the list to view the most desired influencers to talk about Sales CRM. Export the list, visit their profile, and select the people who you think would be fit to promote your brand as an influencer.
You can start by creating blog posts featuring the influencers you have selected and share them with them to start the conversation and build relationships.
8. Use Live videos
Another effective strategy for generating leads is through utilizing the concept of ‘live videos.’ Like other social platforms, videos are more engaging than regular posts on Twitter as well. In fact, videos get almost 6x more retweets than images and posts.
However, when it comes to B2B lead generation, consider going live more often because, according to GoLive, 80% of social media users prefer Live Videos over regular posts.
Twitter live video is powered by Periscope, a live-stream platform. To go live, compose a Tweet on your mobile app, then tap “LIVE” where you can frame your shot, and when you’re ready, press “Go Live” to start broadcasting.
Once you’re live, anyone on Twitter and Periscope can join your live video and participate in your experience.
The top B2B brands are currently hosting live webinars, interviews, events, and product promotion videos and are engaging with prospects, industry people, and customers regularly. Just look at this scheduled live session by Salesforce –
I guess this session is about sharing one of their customer’s success stories, and this is an excellent idea for you to get started with Twitter live videos.
Conclusion
Generating leads for your B2B brand via Twitter may be a bit difficult and time-consuming, but not an impossible feat to achieve. Since you are investing in Ads, you need to come up with a compelling and creative ad strategy to ensure that it is reaching out to the appropriate audience.
Target your Twitter campaigns to get a high-quality score, better engagement, and ultimately an increased ROI.
Not only ads but in this article, I have also talked about the organic ways to use Twitter for B2B lead generation. By following these few techniques, you can generate more leads for your B2B brand than earlier.
Want to know how to leverage other platforms for B2B lead generation? Here are a few hand-picked articles that you should read –
- LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for B2B lead generation
- Best way to use Quora for B2B Lead generation
- Best practices to convert blog traffic into leads
- How to use social media to generate quality B2B leads