The Top 5 Do’s & Don’ts of Tweeting for B2B Marketers:

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Natascha Thomson (@nathomson), a Judge for the 2010 B2BTOTY Program, is on the SAP Social Media Audience Marketing (SMAM) team.  She is responsible for identifying best practices that enable SAP marketers to create solution awareness and demand through social media.  Disclaimer: This a personal blogpost and only contains her personal views, thoughts and opinions. It is not endorsed by SAP nor does it constitute any official communication of SAP.”

As a B2B marketer, building your brand is essential.  If you use Twitter, you will be taken more seriously and be more successful if you heed the follow do's and don'ts:

DON’T

1. Don’t constantly thank people who have retweeted (RT) you. Twitter etiquette is important but it is getting out of hand.  Instead, if you feel the need and don’t want to DM, thank a group of people who RTed you in a single Tweet.
2. Don’t excessively chit-chat about nothing. Why does a private conversation between two Tweeters have to be public?  Instead, follow each other and DM.  I’ll help you keep followers and others to cut through the information overload.
3. Don’t leave the profile section in your Twitter account blank. I would never follow anybody who does not state their intention aka “brand”? Let people know what to expect from you and your Tweets. (Also, have a picture of you, to show that you are serious about Twitter, not a symbol).
4. Don’t send automated messages thanking people for following you and asking them to click on URLs.  It’s annoying and against the spirit of B2P = Business to People).
5. Does your business really need its own paper.li, e.g. the “Peter Smith Daily”? There is an abundance of them on Twitter already, so please make sure you have a unique angle, and measure how your followers receive it.

DO:

1. Think about why you are on Twitter (= your brand) and be somewhat consistent in your messages. You owe this to your followers so that they don’t have to pick out relevant content between your notifications that you just checked into “The Steak Pit”. I am not saying, don’t have a personality, but as Twitter is public, it’s good for you, your business, and the rest of us to see a relevant theme.  It will help you build a consistent following and reduce noise.
2. Participate in #FollowFriday or #FF. It’s a nice way to recommend somebody who sends good Tweets, so show them that their Tweets are not going unappreciated/unnoticed.  Ideally, don’t just Tweet an @handle but explain why this person is worth following.
3. Send some original Tweets (not just RTs) to convey opinions on relevant topics or engage with your followers, as opposed to just amplifying.
4. Make it clear which part of a Tweet is your comment when RTing and adding insights, e.g., add a carrot and your initials at the end (^NT).
5. RT relevant pieces of information and URLs to your followers. And if there are enough characters, add your own commentary to show that you are RTing  for a reason. Lately, I’ve heard people complain about too much retweeting. I say, make sure the information is relevant for your followers and that the 140 characters you use to describe the URL are not misleading.

I am sure that I have at one time or the other broken all of the above rules. Follow the rules you like and ignore the rest! I believe that Twitter is a valuable tool to build your brand in B2B marketing, and if used right, Twitter can be a great referral tool to your own site.

Do you have your own list? Please share your own do's and don’ts for B2B and Twitter.