Don't Discard Twitter for B2B Marketing

Marketing Eye is always the last to market ourselves, but having put together some 'hairy audacious goals' for 2010, we are looking at every possible avenue to market our business to small to medium sized businesses.

There are so many ways to market a small business in the b2b environment and so the choice is limitless however, when you have limited budget and not alot of time, it's integral that the marketing platforms that you use are in fact the best 'bang for your buck' and the least amount of effort.

To me, unless you are doing consumer based marketing, Twitter can be very time consuming.

With writing ongoing tweets, finding people to follow and to follow you, replying to direct messages and in general keeping up to date with what's going on - it's pretty time consuming.

What really is twitter? Wikipedia does an apt definition that is easy to understand
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter)and most people don't need to look too much further than this to understand exactly what twitter is.

Last Friday, I did an experiment. Time limit on twitter was 2 hours from start to finish and I had to achieve something - anything - that was relevant to my lead generation requirements.

So I found a few people who had twitter accounts that had a similar demographic to Marketing Eye and followed people following them. A tongue twister - I know! 200 in total were followed for the sake of this experiment.

I then wrote a few tweets about marketing including some interesting marketing stories that I found online.

Additionally, I added a few personal tweets - to ensure that the tweet followers got to know me as well. "Hugh Grant is coming to Australia on 22 December to promote his new movie". I am a huge fan of Hugh Grant and desperately want to play a round of golf with him. I am hopeless and he is really good. Almost at a level of being a professional! Needless to say, it would be one long round all in my favour!

THE RESPONSE

Within a couple of hours, I received direct tweets;

- From a journalist wanting to write a story on me
- A small business wanting to know more about Marketing Eye's marketing services
- An individual wanting a website that is cost effective
- Reconnection with an old client
- 100 extra people who are relevant following my tweets!To me, this is an amazing response! 2 hours work and no added costs other than time -and this was my result.

To all those people who slam twitter as a waste of time, think again!

IF YOUR TARGET MARKET IS B2B, HERE'S SOME TIPS:

1. Set up a twitter account immediately
2. Tweet about relevant topics, opinions and offers your business has
3. Follow people who are relevant to your business
4. Find people who have the same demographic as your client base and go through their list and follow their followers
5. Make sure you respond to all direct messages
6. Make sure you thank people who are following you. It's the first touch point of many to come
7. If someone following you is relevant to your business, follow them back
8. Don't waste time on Twitter. Use this time as a direct marketing effort to engage your audience, communicate your unique selling proposition and position you as an industry leader
9. Add the odd personal tweet so people get to know you
10. Make sure your Twitter account is giving your business a ROI.

Marketing Eye is a leading national marketing consulting firm for small to medium sized businesses in Australia. All Marketing Eye consultants are trained on web 2.0 to ensure that if your business can benefit from social networks, then you are leveraging this medium.

Find out more on Marketing Eye's new website www.marketingeye.com.au

In Search for an Effen Great Bloke

Today is D - Day. The search for an Effen Great Bloke and his mates is on.

All you have to do is log onto www.effengreatbloke.com.au and register your details and that of your mate's to have a chance to win a year's supply of beer for you and your mate. How awesome is that!

What is an effen Great Bloke? He is many things - he shares a drink or two with you, he doesn't shag your missus, he is there when he needs to be, he doesn't dump you for the first chick that comes along, he likes to hang out, watches the football and more. www.youtube.com/effengreatbloke - check it out! I bet you can do better.

Become a fan on facebook, twitter, myspace and flickr and make sure you enter the competition and share www.effengreatbloke.com.au with your mates.

Most of all, have an effen great time!

Marketing Eye is proud to be associated with this promotion about mates having an effen good time. Isn't that what life is all about?

www.marketingeye.com.au

Marketing Eye Embraces Twitter To Find New Clients

Who would have thought, that one social media medium would take precedent over another just because of usability, ease of functionality and a more aligned target audience joined by the fact that it is achieving better results for our clients.

When Marketing Eye embraced twitter, I wasn’t too sure what the results would be like. I totally get b2c marketing and the dependence on twitter and alike, but when it comes to b2b – it’s a whole different story.

‘Follow me’ is replacing ‘friend me’ because if we are doing business, quite frankly, I don’t want you to ‘friend me’. We are not ‘friends’ who hang out on Saturdays. I would rather hide under a blanket all day then have embarrassing high school photos with my 80’s perm, white stockings and shoulder pads on display. I don’t want a client or prospect seeing photographs of me with a glass of champagne and definitely not in the endless stream of photographs that tend to be openly on display on facebook by people who have no idea what impact it can possibly have.

‘Follow me’ saves me from embarrassment. In a few words, I can tell you exactly what I want to say, without boring you to tears with what the weathers like and how bored I am on a cold, rainy day in Melbourne.

Whilst Facebook has its place, I am reluctant to share my page with the rest of the world. I value my privacy and that of my friends, so I don’t want them spammed with information that does not directly affect them.

And… I am not alone. In July 2009 there was a study of Fortune 100 companies that found that more had a presence on Twitter (54%) than on Facebook (29%). Surprisingly, only 32% had a corporate blog – of which, I am a big fan. (Source Burson-Marsteller)

Burson-Marsteller found that these top companies were using Twitter for several purposes: company news, customer service, marketing promotions and employee recruitment.

Quite simply, Marketing Eye is not unlike many of our marketing peers who overwhelmingly are choosing Twitter for their clients.

We welcomed the whole Web 2.0 with open arms and saw the dream come alive for many of our clients who chose this path to marketing success.

Low cost, effective and targeted - social networks have provided a platform for even the smallest company to excel.

www.marketingeye.com.au

Twitter Smitter

I have tried everything. Changed screens on my computer, rummaged to the next page in newspapers and hummed la la la in my head when my staff mention it and to be honest, tried everything in the book to avoid hearing about it.

Twitter Smitter as I like to call it is on everyone's lips. From business leaders to celebrities. Think Ashton Kutcher posting a picture of his A-List Actress Wife Demi Moore bending over in her underwear, exposed for the world to see on Twitter. Lindsay Lohan just today ranted on Twitter that her girlfriend was having an affair and even Barack Obama has used this ultra cool social media to connect to the public.

Setting up a Twitter account takes about 2 minutes. They don't ask alot of information. I immediately decided to look up what Ashton Kutcher has been twittering. There is nothing too exciting there. Not sure why he has over 700,000 people following him. Power of celebrity I suppose.

I am not sure what to write, but know that I had better write something since I have gone to the effort of setting it up.

So I write that I am attending Carbon Expo on the Gold Coast in October 2009. The day is quite miserable here in Melbourne - cold, rainy and grey, so thinking of the Gold Coast's sandy beaches and blue skies is the best I could think about right now.

I am sure the more I Twitter, the more accomplished I will become.

My staff use it for business and they also set Twitter up for clients as part of their web 2.0 strategy.

Here are some ways that you can use Twitter to market your business and improve your sales.

1.Mix in a little personal life with your professional life. Twitter allows you to post snippets of information about yourself and your business on a blog. These short little comments need to be packed with interesting words that keep your customers interested enough to want to return to your blog. Keep your customers intrigued by including a little bit of your personal life in your Twitter blog.

2. Link your Twitter blog to your business website. Any successful marketing strategy considers ways to improve website traffic. If your business already has a website, consider linking your Twitter blog to your website (and vice versa) so that you can direct your customers to both.

3. Keep your Twitter blog up to date. Keep your Twitter blog up-to-date so that there is always something fresh and new for your customers to absorb. Log on at least every other day, if only for a few minutes. Whether you post about your new business services or where you had dinner last night, you'll keep your customers coming back. And that's a great way to market your business.

www.marketingeye.com.au