Twitter Fail Whale

According to the June 14th issue of BtoB magazine, the results of a recent study carried out by the publication shows that marketers are finding mixed results with using Twitter as a marketing tool.  Four out of five respondents said that they could not directly attribute revenue to Twitter, and nearly half said that they are dissatisfied with their return on Tweets.

Yet some other respondents said that they find that Twitter…”is now more effective at driving traffic than search engine marketing”.  More frequent users of the service, not surprisingly, reported higher overall satisfaction.  Also interesting is that “tracking ROI” was identified as the most challenging variable in the Twitter equation “by a significant margin.”  It would seem that the lack of reliable metrics keeps BtoB marketing professionals from using Twitter more effectively.

Successful Twitter users shared some of their best practices, which included: scheduling messages for optimal visibility, retweeting messages from  influential bloggers, adopting a rigorous schedule for sending tweets, and concentrating messages around special events.

What to take from this study?  If Twitter will not make up part of an integrated marketing strategy, don’t use it…but if you have a strategy for how, when, and why to deploy Twitter as part of your overall marketing strategy, tweet away.  And watch those business leads roll in.