 It’s official. Twitter has become the third largest social networking site in the world, according to August 2010 data from comScore Inc. By now, most B2B marketing professionals who were initially skeptical about Twitter, have included it in their social media strategy. It is reportedly the second most popular social media site on which companies have a presence (the first being Facebook).
Research from one year ago shows that 4% of Fortune 100 companies had amassed over 10,000 followers on their Twitter accounts. With 375,000 new users signing up on Twitter each day, that data is now hopelessly out of date. Starbucks already has over 1 million followers. That just illustrates the explosive growth of Twitter as a communications channel.
Now that Twitter has put its advertising service officially on offer, will Promoted Tweets become the next Google Adwords for B2B companies? One key difference is unlike Google, Twitter says they will take down non-resonating ads.
According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, advertisers are spending “upwards of US$100,000” on their Promoted Tweets ads. Twitter has also recently hired experienced advertising executives from other online advertising behemoths, Google Inc. and Facebook.
Whether you decide to test out Promoted Tweets, the rules of engagement on Twitter don’t change:
 1. Define your Twitter objective
Different companies use Twitter for different purposes. Some use it to monitor mentions of their company or related issues for potential public relations problems, others use it for marketing. What you decide to be your key goal will determine how you tweet and what you tweet.
2. Always provide value
Previous research shows that some of the main reasons people follow your tweets is because “I am a customer” and to “gain access to exclusive content”.
So keep your tweets useful, engaging and relevant for your customers. Upload thought provoking or insightful  presentations on SlideShare or YouTube and tweet the links to your followers. Or provide links to your latest research, articles and customer offers. And tweet only when you have something meaningful to post.
3. Monitor your traffic
Where possible, always link back to your website, forum, blog or e-newsletter – and make sure you continually track incoming traffic from Twitter to see what tweets are most attractive to your followers.
4. Encourage retweets
Call out links in your tweets that your followers might want to post to their own Twitter pages. Include suggestions like “copy and paste this link to use for your Twitter page”. Encourage followers to post your tweets @company.
5. Include promotional tweets sparingly
Promote your brand but do it with restraint. Post a few promotional entries on the latest developments at your company or relevant press releases between every 10-12 tweets.
6. Use keywords, optimise your links
allow you to customise the text in your links eg. http://keyword_here.
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