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The five things you should tweet (if you’re a vendor)

10.11.2011 - Martin Smith

Okay, so you have a corporate twitter account.  Now what?

My view on tweeting, like talking, is that you tweet when you have something useful to say.  So what is “something useful”?  Well, that depends upon the audience you are trying to reach.

A pretty safe assumption is that you are trying to reach potential customers, partners or investors (or the people that can influence them, like media and analysts).  Something useful to them means giving them something that will help them do their job, while putting you in a good light.

For the sake of this blog post, I am going to ignore the “having a chat” aspect of twitter, which is less about content and more like a public SMS.  For instance: “@Someone’s_name Hey, haven’t seen you in ages.  Want to grab a coffee?”

With this in mind, here is my hierarchy of the best content to tweet:

1. Links to your thought-leadership content:  The numero uno reason to tweet in a b2b setting.  Show your ecosystem of potential customers and partners that you have something new and interesting to say, that you have some intelligence and insight that they need.  The content can be a blog post, a whitepaper, a case study, a bylined article.

2. Events and webinars:  All your twitter followers have opted in to receive information from you, so you should absolutely work the list and let them know what shows you are going to attend and how they can reach you, give them details about your webinars and show off that your execs are speaking at top events.

3. News about you: Again, you have an opt-in list here, so you have to assume that they want to hear about what is happening to you as a company.  Tell them your good news, your big wins, your awards.  And make sure you include the link to the press release or article.

4. Re-tweets of positive mentions of you: I don’t believe in re-tweeting for the sake of it (at least not while you are working on the company’s dime), but positive mentions of you from other tweeters are absolutely worth doing.  It shows third-party endorsement and gives a polite nod to the endorser.

5. Re-tweets of relevant industry news and opinion: Re-tweeting is fine, so long as the content you’re linking to is interesting and useful to your audience.  But don’t prioritize promoting someone else’s content over and above your own.

Categories: Blogging, Content Creation, Social Media, Telecom PR