I really like how a freelance Dutch creative duo used Twitter to get noticed  and ultimately hired by a hard-to-reach group that happens to spend a lot of time on Twitter: creative directors in advertising agencies. Naturally, I’d prefer you not to leave this site but the video isn’t available for download; its creators clearly want you to visit their Vimeo page. Here it is: Winning business with Twitter

Nonetheless, there are still plenty of sceptics out there when it comes to social media use by companies that sell to other companies (B2B) as opposed to individual consumers. Half an hour spent browsing the marketing website B2B Bloggers should be enough to answer any doubts, starting with articles like this one.

And if you still have doubts, do some further reading on Google’s latest moves to include social media activity in search results. This blog entry by Seatle-based search software firm SEOMoz explains what’s going on and why.

Are you as annoying as David Cameron?

This post was prompted by a small but noticeable flurry of reporters who used Twitter last week to ‘vent their spleens’.

1. Be impenetrable

Send editors a news release with an opening something like this: ‘Market leading unheard-of Company X (Nasdaq:UComp X08) today proudly announced the availability of market-leading, fault-tolerant 24×7 enterprise solution to optimize system integration…’

2. Be unaware

This can apply to a wide range of factors, from deadline times, editorial tone/policies, regular story themes, target readership, image requirements, what’s been previously written on your story subject or an individual’s contact preferences. Or it could be that the caller hasn’t yet worked out that no journalist welcomes a conversation that starts: “I’m calling to see if you received our news release. You have? That’s great, will you be using it?”

3. Be over-familiar

Chances are that you’ve never met. So keep things business-like and get straight to the point. It’s probably best not to mention that you have a hobby or interest in common unless there’s a clear connection and relevance to the story idea you’re pitching.

4. Be behind the news agenda

Pitching a story idea connected to something that happened yesterday, unless it gives the reporter a significant new angle or development on that event, is unlikely to be welcome. Hard news aside, editors plan stories around forthcoming event calendars relevant to their readers. So find out what’s on their news and story agenda, and make your pitch in advance. Do it in a timeframe that fits your target’s publication cycle.

Any one of the above will mark you out as irritating. But my favourite example is someone who managed to be doubly annoying in one call to FT columnist Andrew Hill recently. Hill’s response, via Twitter  was: “Welbeck: never heard of you, but you may wish to reconsider your tactic of cold-calling biz journalists on deadline to sell financial planning.”

What else should I add to this short list? I’d love to hear your examples

Some would say lawyers deserve all they get reputation-wise: they communicate in a strange, obscure language, deliberately designed to complicate the simple; they inhabit a rarefied, archaic world largely untouched by modern business norms such as offering high customer service levels and value for money. I suspect Luke Johnson’s recent damning column in The Financial Times speaks for many. The British government clearly thinks things need shaking up too because its ‘Legal Services Act’ comes into force next year, and aims to open up and deregulate the market. It has been described by The Times newspaper as the legal sector’s own version of The City’s ‘Big Bang’.

This polar bear ‘brief’ in Vancouver is probably the world’s only cool lawyer. Credit: photo courtesy Claire Dancer, Flickr

If, as expected, it creates greater competition, in-flows of capital and outside management, will these factors drive a big improvement in the way British Law firms market themselves? I think it will, and it’s long overdue according to James Baxter*:

“The legal sector remains on the whole undifferentiated: the same lawyers, offering the same services to the same clients who have little idea what distinguishes the amorphous mass of firms before them.”

Baxter ought to know. He is a former editor of Legal Business magazine. For those firms who’ve not yet taken the plunge into marketing, here’s one simple, important and overriding rule:  never entrust the task to any of the partners, unless they can demonstrate genuine, business and brand-building experience. This is what happens when you break that rule. Last month I received an alert saying my Twitter stream @andymturner was being followed by no less than ‘London’s coolest law firm’. How do I know this apparently oxymoronic claim is for real? Because that’s how the firm’s founder and senior partner trumpets his firm’s Twitter account biography. Somewhat surprised, I clicked through to the firm’s website expecting to see the epitome of cool, but of course, found just another dull-looking law firm with an equally ordinary client list. So I couldn’t resist writing to tell said senior partner that it’s unlikely anyone wants ‘cool’ from their law firm and to find a better USP fast before anyone important sees it, or at least just drop it. He replied with what seemed a little ‘froideur’ saying that he probably will, that he didn’t take Twitter seriously anyway (which is evident because he’s following 8,000+ people) and that it’s better to be talked about than not at all. I took the trouble to reply but haven’t heard from him again. Some people are so damned ungrateful on receipt of free, sensible advice.

Like others, I’m interested in keeping up with how businesses are using Twitter and what benefits they accrue. So was keen to read a recent article on this theme penned by international property consultancy Drivers Jonas Deloitte, DJD for short. After a bit of a struggle to find DJD’s Twitter page (they forgot to tell us in the piece), I noticed that the firm had a seemingly impressive number of followers (1100+). Curiosity is something I’m not short of so I delved a bit deeper. As I saw some of the followers’ profiles, the article comment describing Twitter as‘a watering hole at which to meet potential clients’ came back to me in a flash, but not in the sense originally intended: several of them were obvious porn peddlers.

Credit: photo courtesy Steve Punter at Flickr

So, either DJD doesn’t realise (did it bulk-buy followers?), it doesn’t care (someone at the firm must have manually accepted these follows), or it has no company policy for who can follow its corporate Twitter site. I found the same situation with another company I encountered recently. In that case, the firm had clearly bought the bulk of its followers. You could tell because there was a distinct over-representation of micro-businesses in Wales, despite the fact that the firm in question has no business or operations in that country, is based in London and it sells to a different scale of company entirely. I advise anyone who wants to avoid this kind of situation to read Michael Kristof’s and Chad Engle’s excellent content here

P.S. After writing this I came across this related post by Adrian Short about the unintended reputational consequences of using Google AdSense on your corporate website