How easy do you make it for sales calls to come into your business – from social profiles? Adding your phone number to your twitter profile is one of 10 tips on how to market from business to business [B2B] on twitter.

Thanks to Elan Mosbacher, Marketing Team Leader at ifbyphone, for submitting today’s company guest post about how he uses twitter for B2B marketing. Ifbyphone is a business-to-business software company focused on technology that manages, measures, and automates customer interactions over the phone.

Ten B2B Twitter Marketing Tips from Elan Mosbacher, Marketing Team Leader at ifbyphone

80 Million Google search results for “Social Media Marketing Tips” but less than 1% of that number for “B2B Social Media Marketing Tips”?!?! It’s no wonder that business-to-business marketers are struggling to use Twitter successfully.

1. Consider who is managing your customers’ Twitter accounts
Twitter is ideal for interacting with business owners, software developers, and marketers, but is Twitter the right platform if your business sells software to the accounting department?

Keep in mind that the person managing the Twitter account may not always be your target customer within that business, as opposed to the B2C space where the consumer usually manages his or her own account. Focus your efforts not only on interacting with the right businesses, but the right people within those businesses.

2. List-building: Segment prospects, customers, industry thought leaders & competitors
Follow prospects, customers, industry leaders, and competitors. Segment these groups into unique lists. Provide resources to prospects, share customer success stories, build relationships with industry leaders, and monitor announcements in the marketplace. Finally, balance the needs of each audience.

3. Track social media conversations within your CRM
If you talk to a business on Twitter, make sure your sales team is aware of the conversation when they speak with that business.

4. Link to resources, not sales pitches
Create online content like blog posts, case studies, white papers, or “How To” guides so you can link to your own valuable content, not just to the content of other companies or media outlets.

5. Share your customers’ success stories
Help your business customers promote their success stories when you feel that those stories are relevant to your own customers by retweeting. If it isn’t relevant to your followers, minimally reply with a nice note, comment, or question.

6. Use Twitter search
Create custom searches on Twitter for words that relate to what you sell, conferences you attend, and your company name. Run out of room? You can search multiple terms in each query with OR statements. For example, “Call Tracking” OR “Response Rates” OR “Conversion Rates” will show you results for all three terms.

7. Focus on customer service & creating raving fans
Unlike B2C where semi-anonymous consumers can complain about bad customer service, a business is less likely to bash another business on Twitter. Nevertheless, be sure to provide outstanding customer service. This strategy will not only help you build your social media presence, it will help you build your business.

8. It’s only 140 characters, but a Tweet should still add value
Ask yourself if anyone outside of your company would actually care about this Tweet. Link to valuable resources, entertaining pieces, and your customer’s success stories. Not everything needs to be about the products or services you are selling.

9. Leverage your tribe of followers
Have something worth promoting? Inform industry experts, friends, and customers you’ve built a relationship with that you’ll be making a big announcement. Maybe it’s a new video, a blog post, or otherwise. Ask them to retweet your announcement. Don’t be afraid to ask for help as long as you’re ready to return the favor.

10. Don’t forget about the phone
Finally, use social media to listen, share information, and begin a conversation, and don’t be afraid to take that conversation offline by including a business phone number in your profile.

As an example, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh recently wrote:

“We believe the telephone is one of the best branding devices out there. We have the customer’s undivided attention for 5-10 minutes—compare that with a 30-second Super Bowl ad when the viewers are probably not paying full attention. If we get the interaction right, what we’ve found is that customers remember that for a very long time and tell their friends and family about us.”

In the world of B2B the phone is perhaps an even more important tool than it is in B2C as the sales transactions occurring are typically more complex and require more personal touch. Converting a 140-character Tweet into a phone conversation can go a long way towards solidifying a business-to-business relationship.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com in exchange for credit, which we are happy to give. Special thanks to Amy Hesser of Hesser Communications for introducing me to ifbyphone and their services.

Interested in having your company featured? Contact Barbara Rozgonyi at corywestmedia @gmail.com or call 630.207.7530.
Have a B2B twitter marketing tip you don’t see listed here? Please share yours in the comment box – thanks – or check out Wired PR Works twitter marketing resource section.

“Twitter has a place in business. Twitter combines two of this year’s hottest Internet marketing trends — real time updates and local search – into one simple, concise update box.” excerpt from “Taking Flight with Twitter” article, viewed – as of today – 2842 times according to The Business Ledger.

Note: This is not a “look how great I am!” post. This IS a thanks to The Business Ledger for the contribution opportunity and a huge shout of appreciation to everyone who read it and passed it on. It’s also a place to begin a dialogue about how twitter works for you and your business. So, please share in the comment box.

Hatching a Twitter for Business Article

After presenting at The Business Ledger’s Newsmaker Forum as social media speaker on the topic of twitter for business, editor Jeremy Stoltz graciously asked me if I would like to contribute an article. Set at 750 words, the article summarizes the background of my talk and sets up an action plan. Here’s a brief clip.

Taking Flight with Twitter by Barbara Rozgonyipublished by The Business Ledger on April 16, 2010
Twitter’s search engine (http://search.Twitter.com) searches updates instantaneously. Test it out the next time you’re watching a game, going to an event or want to follow what other people have to say about you, your business, your industry or the competition. Use Twitter’s advanced search option to fine-tune your search by location or people, (http://search.Twitter.com/advanced).

So what, exactly, is Twitter? Twitter is a social media platform that connects people through messages, known as “tweets,” that measure up to 140 characters long, including the user’s Twitter ID. To give you an idea of the actual length, the previous sentence is 141 characters long, or 140 without the period.

Response to Taking Flight with Twitter Article by Barbara Rozgonyi

Google results for “Taking Flight with Twitter”
Want to see where your post or article lands? Type the title or a content clip into the search box to track it down. Then, contact the publication or blogger to say thanks and find out how to contribute to their site.

117 Comments on Social Networks via Ubervu
Check out Ubervu to track your social mentions.

Search.twitter.com results show who is posting the article. This, to me, is the most interesting measure of distribution. You can find out who subscribes to your feed and then follow them on twitter – and thank them, too.

2842 Reads from The Business Ledger
Taking flight with Twitter
Friday, April 16, 2010 (2842 reads)

To read more about the social media panel for business presentation, check out this Business Ledger article:
Social media is a commerce driven necessity by Sherri Dauskurdas.

“Social media is not about technology and tools, it’s really about people,” said Barbara Rozgonyi, principal at CoryWest Media, LLC. “You can use Twitter to listen, you can search, respond to people for customer service. If people have a problem you can get to it right away. You can ask questions and connect with people, and you can also spy on your competition.”

How many ways do you use twitter in your business?

Image: screenshot with number of reads