I have to admit, that I have tried Twitter, but did not see much potential. I'll look at that again based on your post here.

One thing is sure for B2B or B2C brands and that is we need many different touch points. As virtually all ad media have diminishing returns we need to spread out and social networks and media is a great way to do that.

I understand the problem companies have in terms of "man" power and that is why we offer services to do this for companies. As for the issue of the lack of managerial oversight all I can say is that you can decide to play and control (to a point) information on the Internet or you can put your head in the sand and the Internet will do as it pleases. You may not be happy with that result.

Harry:

This bit should actually read:

"The two concerns cited most by B2B companies on the use of social media:

(1) time and resources invested with no clear sense of ROI;
(2) the lack of managerial and legal oversight inherent in the use of social media

go away (with Twitter)." Those two areas that have been a great concern to companies go away with the use of this tool for the reasons I outline below. I'm on the client side and we've had discussions about it.

Also...in the 7 weeks I've been on Twitter, I've found 2 resources for project needs I've had.

Thanks for a B2B post!

If businesses are in fact to evaluate these tools, they want appreciate hearing form someone who is using them internally as well.

I meant to type "might" : )

Something I say to businesses fits here: "BE EVERYWHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS EXPECT YOU TO BE." If your customers expect to be on Twitter, then your business should be on Twitter.

Seems to me Twitter is a great tool for keeping in contact with existing customers who want to go deeper with a company. I'm not so sure Twitter is as great for establishing NEW relationships with customers.

However, I'm a firm believer that new customers will look/act like current customers. And since Twitter connects people with people, it can connect established customers with potential customers for a business. Time will tell here.

What's missing from this B2B pitch for Twitter are examples of B2B companies that are using Twitter effectively to drive their business. Consultant-types aside, I'd like to learn which B2B companies are using Twitter to better their business.

Wish I could already have results, John.

In the past, I have made that connection between customers and prospects with the creation of thought leadership summits custom-tailored to our customer needs -- everything.

The meetings, the speakers, even the social activities to provide an opportunity to bring the full intellectual capital of the organization to the table. It was very powerful.

I use Twitter almost as a referral RSS feed - I'm constantly finding useful blog posts, links, articles and information from people I follow. It's like a steady stream if information keeping me in the know. For that reason, I find it immensely valuable to my business. Also, testing the new medium as a form of communication - experimenting with mini-blogging and seeing people's use of it is very helpful.

I wonder if Classified Intelligence customers might find it useful to have updates about your services and products. As an opt in news channel to flesh out tools that might benefit them.

Could it be integrated with your current marketing efforts? Would your customers be receptive to using it? Are there verticals who would be more receptive? I am seeing a definite presence on Twitter for Real Estate agents, for example. It would be interesting to canvas who is there and find out what they find useful about it. My guess is opportunity for referrals. Thinking along those lines...

Valeria, I must admit that I haven't tried Twitter yet. I sometimes feel overwhelmed by regular email and then the varuous invitations and updates from Facebook and LinkedIn.

Re John's comment about needing to be wherever your customer expects you to be...I'm not sure my clients expect me to be anywhere except available by email. The fact that I blog has been seen as an interesting "plus" by some, though.

That's why I left Facebook -- too spammy and I'm not sure I want to see my friends as spammers. I can handle LinkedIn in small doses : )

I've found Twitter useful for a number of things on a personal level:

- finding out what's news and commentary
- learning about what's resonating at events
- mining knowledge on research and opinions

In general all "in the moment" information. I have also found it useful as a communication tool to connect people. I don't feel compelled to catch up on it, just enter the stream when I am available to it. In the end, it's what works for you, and your business. I am getting ready to do a pilot.

As the person who maintains the MarketingProfs Twitter account, I can tell you that it's been a great tool to directly connect with the readers of MarketingProfs, as well as introduce MP to people who may not be familiar with us. I've gotten a lot out of it, in return, for many of the reasons already stated here...as Shannon says, a "referral RSS" feed. It's always useful for me to know what people are thinking about, and this is a great listening device.

That said, there are challenges for B2B companies looking to maintain a Twitter profile. In my view, it's of limited usefulness to simply use it to push out headlines or "news" of your company, although I confess that's how I started. Your "followers," as Twitter calls them, can tire of that pretty quickly. It's NOT just another RSS channel. Instead, it's better to interact as a member of the community -- so the MarketingProfs Twitter feed has become, essentially, me. Sometimes I let our 600-ish followers there know what we are publishing, but oftentimes I'm simply part of the conversation.

In other words, I think the value for B2B companies is to designate a Twitter representative to interact there. My guess is that companies will vary on how comfortable they are with that approach.

Thank you, Ann. This is what I am planning to test with one person in my organization who is ready and understands the value of conversation -- with listening and interacting a big slice of it.

It will be interesting to see who follows, who we can follow and how it goes. We are weeks away from it so I cannot promise a report in short order ;-)

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in this conversation. I am only one so it's vital to capture what others experience.

I'll be honest; I find Twitterers who appear as orgs, not people, a little offputting. I've figured out that "MarketingProfs" is Ann, so when I see it, I think "Ann," but my initial reaction to it wasn't positive. (It's also crucial that Ann engages on Twitter as a person, not as an organization, so it works well.)

Because that's the point: people want to talk with other people, not companies or brands. I would suggest that a company have its people get onto Twitter, as people, with profiles that indicate who they are with (and links back, of course).

Hey, how about adding a field to the comment form to put Twitter links for commenters as well as the usual URLs?

Hi John,

Your remarks hits on a much broader issue, which is that in social media, the spokesperson = the brand. And hopefully hiring the right type of people will help with that -- it always did of course. Now we have a new level of visibility, in good and bad.

My Twitter URL is http://twitter.com/ConversationAge

I'd second Ann's recommendation not to use Twitter as just another push mechanism for spreading news.

We set up a corporate twitter account originally as a simple way to get "groups" type functionality - let all the employees on twitter follow the Optaros user, who would follow them back, and you get a simple aggregated feed. (You can also then look specifically for replies, using @optaros as a kind of distribution list).

But now I worry people go to http://twitter.com/optaros/ and expect to find content there directly, which they rarely do, other than link-sharing, press releases, and the like.

You can't really have a conversation with a company, only with the folks who work there. So make sure there is a real person behind the corporate name.

Social media tools make things more personal that they have ever been. I know that companies are starting to look at Facebook for internal use, for example. And there are more internal blogs these days...

We need to start shifting the thought around using these tools from push to two way. Real people work in companies, too. We just need to make sure they feel they can talk like real people.

Thank you for adding to the conversation, John.

I used twitter for about four months and just recently deleted my account. I found it to be too much to manage and follow and did not find it of much value. I tried to have my clients follow me on twitter and got some of them to engage but they too wearied of it and did not see much value. The issue for all of us was the limited format of communication did not allow for discussion and we ended up going to email for most of the discussion. I have used twitter for clients in product launches just to alert people to upcoming news and that is the only value i have seen to date for the best use of twitter.

I will chime in on the idea of be where your customers are and add another similar adage that I credit to Jeremiah Oywang of Forrester and that is: Fish where the fish are.

Ours is a B2B business and, for the moment, I don't see Twitter having a direct impact so far as ROI is concerned. (Same can be said of our Facebook business page for that matter.) Our customers simply have not gotten there yet.

It's great for the early adopters, and I think can work well for media companies such a MarketingProfs or orgs such as Forrester. But, it's yet to enter the mainstream of business consciousness and, therefore, has limited viability.

I mean, if you think about it, how long did it take blogs to reach a tipping point? While the adoption curve is much faster these days, where Twitter is concerned, we're not there yet.

That's not to totally pooh-pooh the notion of using it for biz purposes. I find great value personally as it's helped me strengthen my social graph and has proven to be a resource for staying on top of marketing and tech trends.

Jennifer:

Glad you joined the conversation and thank you for making the very valid points of signal vs. noise and usability vs. time invested. It's like everything else in life, balance and value need to be there for something to be sustainable.

I deactivated my Facebook account for a similar reason. I was becoming irritated by the constraints and "rules" of the tool that also transformed some people in my network into spammers : ) I would much rather have coffee with you socially.

Paul:

One of the other uses for Twitter may well be of raising awareness for a brand. Many people on this thread spoke about Forrester or Jeremy, for example. That is good (and cheap) advertising for their brand isn't it?

You strengthen your social graph... and so do brands.

We actually have a twittr profile here (http://twitter.com/slackbarshinger) and its really effective when you have at least one person who has a vested interest in updating the profile. It also is only one of many amenities to our blog in addition to flickr and Vimeo. Its a one stop shop

I advise my b2b clients to push promotions, tips, teases with new product launches.

It works, it's cool.

Hi there Valeria, the use of Twitter and monitoring of it constantly has played a big part in our success. I feel so passionate about the topic I recently posted on it here: http://tweetpr.com/?p=16

It's so important to be where your customers and partners are and to be listening to their needs.

Great post.

David

Regarding the original post, you don't necessarily need an Internet connection; you can text message posts to Twitter with your cell phone and no, you don't need a fancy Crackberry (I send it texts with my Moto Razr).

I'm trying to give Twitter a chance, but just haven't gotten much out of it. Unless they're in technology or communications, no one I know is familiar with it, or interested. So we'll see.

http://twitter.com/markforstneger

I think the reason a lot of people don't 'get' twitter is because they are unaware of the convenient tools that make it easy to use...ie setting it up through a cell, GTALK, ICHAT, or Twhirl.

I was wondering what all the fuss was about until I got it rocking on an IM.