The interest for today's blog is a look at trade, B2B publications and service providers who have made the best of Twitter. Obvously, this is in no way intended to be a comprehensive list, we couldn't hope to cover the best and worst of every industry, besides, it'd probably get a little boring for you, the readers.
With this in mind, we're going to use a few examples to illustrate what we think are the great and not so great trade and business profiles on Twitter.
In our eyes, the best trade and business publications on Twitter are those that use it to interact with their readers, adding another dimension to their publication. A good example of this is Cardealered. CarDealerEd is the Twitter profile for James Baggot, editor of Car Dealer Magazine, who uses his Twitter profile to keep people up to date with breaking news as he recieves it.
James says, "I use it as a personal wire service - like the newspaper rooms of old with feeds from PA and Reuters. I follow mainly car people and sites so as soon as something big happens in the car world one of these guys will tweet about it. I've had a few stories like this from Twitter."
We think this approach really works, James' followers get the latest relevant breaking news, whilst James generates traffic to his site. Everyone benefits, and even gets to hear the odd bit of news about what's going on in James' life, adding a human element to his posts adding a human touch to his tweets. Which is, after all, what Twitter's all about.
Our second example of how we think Twitter can help in a B2B context comes from Simon Apps, a photographer who is the owner and twitter presence of a nationwide network of specialist PR photographers, Professional Images. Simon realised that most twitter followers are interested in the person, not the business.
By tweeting about what he's doing, potential clients get a feel for him and his business before they've met. According to Simon, "This strategy has meant the Professional Images website has has a plentiful stream of hits originating from Twitter and lots of positive comments about our portfolio and services, and one tweet might lead to thousands of pounds worth of new business." This just goes to show that when you get your
Twitter strategy right, it opens up opportunities that can generate business almost all by itself.
If we compare the approch taken by James and Simon, to the one taken by PRWeek, it soon becomes clear why we hold them in such high esteem. Instead of using Twitter as an interactive forum, where people can interact with the magazine and ask questions of the journalists involved, or build a more human relationship with potential clients, PR Week use Twitter to advertise their latest news stories.
Whilst there is some merit in this, allowing them to take the story to their readers without their readers having to find it, it's the manner of their updates that really infuriates us. PRWeek post new tweets 4 times a day, at the same time. If you miss these tweets then you have to search for them on the PR Week site, which does make us wonder why they've got the page to begin with.
In short, if, as a business, you're going to use Twitter, make sure you make the most of it. Don't be afraid to tweet occasionally about what's going on in the office, dont' be afraid to talk to client, and above all, enjoy it!
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