Is Twitter Social Marketing Important to B2B?

I've been following a LinkedIn discussion about the relevance and importance (and how to use) Twitter for B2B.  The Q&A primarily about engaging the CEO of a company.  The conversation primarily between solopreneurs and small business owners focused on sales and marketing.

Then today, I came across an Ad Age article:  Your Followers Are No Measure of Your Influence, Popularity on Twitter or Facebook Is Just That; It's the Ability to Drive Behavior That Matters. 

Quoting several studies and authors, the article covers a basic truth of sales, marketing and advertising applied to social networking.  Influence is not about numbers.  It is about importance, relevance and driving action and behavior.

One way to help drive action (or behavior) is to be relevant.  Whether a Facebook page posting, a Blog post or a Tweet, it only matters if it is important to your reader and compelling enough for them to take an action or share the information with a colleague or friend to whom it may important.

• Is it interesting?
• Is it informative?
• Is it educational?
• Does it prevent a problem?
• Does it solve a problem?
• Is there a sense of immediacy?
• Is there a consequence associated with doing (or not doing) something?
• Is it something the reader needs to know, wants to know or will benefit from knowing and sharing?

Several in the LinkedIn discussion point out that the CEO may not be interested in a particular Tweet about a particular B2B matter, after all, the CEO has people who report to him/her who make many of the recommendations and decisions.   So targeting the CEO is not necessarily critical in social marketing.

What remains critical is the message that reaches the influencer.
In ten words or less, the article points out the difference between "influence" and "popular."

You can read the full Ad Age article here:  http://adage.com/influencers2010/article?article_id=147957

Be relevant.

Be the hero,
Mark