Insights on How Top Marketers Use Twitter

By
Hayden Richards

Many mid-sized companies are slowly starting to use Twitter effectively. Marketing managers at these companies are also experimenting with various social media monitoring and listening tools in order to engage, reach, and influence their audience. A new report from Leadtail and DNN titled “How Top Marketers at Mid-Size Companies Engage on Twitter” analyzed 504 U.S. marketing professionals in companies that were both business and consumer focused. It was carried out for the last 3 months of 2013 and was targeted at companies with at least 50-5,000 employees.

The researchers examined a total of 91,805 tweets, and 45,731 shared links.

The aim of the report, is to reveal insights that still puzzle some marketing departments, such as how do marketers and mid-size companies describe themselves on the Social web. These are the questions typically asked:  Which social networks are these marketers active on? What topics and people are they talking about? and which media sources do these marketing professionals consume and share?

Here are some interesting Key Takeaways:

1. The social profiles of marketers from mid-size companies provide insights into both their professional interests and the topics they are passionate about in their personal lives (like comedy,sports and culture).

2. Marketers at mid-size companies rely on a variety of mobile apps and platforms to consume and share content, meaning mobile-friendly content and customer touch points are a must-have for engaging them.

3. Certain publications, brands, and people are highly influential with marketers at mid-size companies; leverage relationships with these influencers to increase awareness of your brand with these diverse marketers.

4. While publishers have a strong foothold with these mid-size company marketers, some vendors are gaining traction with their content marketing programs, including: HubSpot, Marketo, and Buffer.

5. B2C and B2B marketers at mid-size companies share many common traits and behaviors, but there are specific preferences and patterns that emerge depending on the marketer’s target audience

We know that this year, more people will consume content on mobile devices. Marketers and mid-size companies are no exception. With smart applications expanding beyond the humble phone and tablets into cars and wearable tech smart marketers will have to consider how their content is experienced within a  true mobile environment. Looking at the above chart 9 out of 15 of the most popular sharing  apps/platforms are mobile, but Twitter.com and the Tweet button remain the two most popular  ways to share content to Twitter.

Take a look at the brands above in the top 10 for retweets. If you are like me, you would have retweeted their content several times during the course of a week. The message here is brands and vendors must increasingly become more like publishers – creating and sharing high quality, highly relevant content on a regular basis – or risk losing out to rivals that do.

This report is a must read and will help you connect some dots, as well as provide you with social media insights to help you make more informed decisions about how to reach, engage, and influence marketing professionals at mid-size companies. Convinced? You can download it here.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR