How can B2B marketers rev up their social media engines using Twitter’s new long-form content publishing features?
Twitter Write is the social platform’s forthcoming tool for composing and sharing written content that runs well beyond Twitter’s traditional 280-character limit, initially offering up to 2,500 words — plenty of blank digital paper for B2B marketers and brands to fill with messages of innovation.
B2B marketers should be prepared when Twitter moves its Twitter Write feature from its present limited test-bed of hand-selected authors to a worldwide rollout, and we’ll show you how to be ready when the time comes.
Twitter has recently rearranged its Twitter Notes and newsletter features to exist under an expanded Twitter Write brand.
It’s also begun sharing additional information about Twitter Write, including at events such as the National Association of Black Journalists conference and its “#TwitterForNews: Going Beyond 280 Characters | Powered by Twitter” session.
We’re so excited to be back at #NABJNAHJ22 in person! Mark your calendars to join our session tomorrow Aug. 5 at 8am in Milano V with @dianejeanty and @EricZuck + our panel @jpbrammer, @Adriana_Lacy, @jabladoraaa and @MichellCClark moderated by @rembert. https://t.co/Wbrw0FF9Pf pic.twitter.com/HP2CRnAQUg
— Twitter News (@TwitterNews) August 4, 2022
The platform has shared several examples of how Twitter Write has been put to use by those with early access, including a look at how several journalists at the conference have published using the long-form Twitter feature.
Let’s take our own look at five creative ways B2B marketers can take advantage of Twitter’s forthcoming long-form content creation options.
1 — Stand Out With Unexpected Insight
For eyes accustomed to seeing hundreds of tiny tweets scrolling by at a mile-a-minute, B2B marketers can stand out simply by being among the first to creatively use Twitter Write, and the content that it will publish — which the platform calls Twitter Notes.
Merely using Twitter Notes will be a curiosity at first, however B2B marketers should take full advantage of the situation by providing unexpected insight that is crafted specifically to work well within the 2,500-word limit of Twitter Write.
What might stand out the most to B2B marketers viewing a brand’s Twitter feed? How about these ideas, for starters:
- Case Studies
- Client & Customer Testimonials
- Original Research, Reports, Studies & Surveys
- Behind-The-Scenes Interviews
The one-two punch of seeing this type of B2B content in a radically-unexpected long format on Twitter would be quite likely to shake things up — and increase brand engagement in the process. In a B2B marketing landscape where being different and standing out is paramount, Twitter Write’s long-form content could be a powerful new publishing option.
“In a B2B marketing landscape where being different and standing out is paramount, Twitter Write's long-form content could be a powerful new publishing differentiator.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Share on X2 — Create Cliffhanger Episodic Content
With the vastly increased written content capacity of Twitter Write comes new possibilities for not only stand-alone writing, but serialized content of all sorts.
B2B marketers could use Twitter Notes to take advantage of the power of episodic content, as our own senior content marketing manager Nick Nelson explored in “Hungry for More: What B2B Marketers Need to Know About Episodic Content,” and as our senior content marketing manager Joshua Nite took a look at in “Episodic Expansion: How to Optimize B2B Experiences by Expanding Your Podcast to Full-On Video,” with insights that apply in many cases just as much to the written word as video.
Sharing your latest cliffhanger digital content on Twitter Write — with a suspenseful call-to-action (CTA) to return for the rest of the story during the next episode — is a method B2B marketers will be able to experiment with using Twitter Notes. You can learn more about creating successful CTAs in “Winning B2B Calls to Action That Get Responses & Convert Browsers into Buyers.”
3 — Publish In-Depth Newsletters
Just last year Twitter expanded its platform with an array of newsletter-related features with the acquisition of Revue, which it has now rolled into the Twitter Write mix as Revue by Twitter.
Twitter Write offers a different way to publish on the platform, and B2B marketers could even utilize both Twitter’s Revue and Notes options to tie similar content together — potentially driving audiences who are engaging with their written content on their Twitter newsletter to additional relevant or bonus information shared within Notes content.
Writing a winning newsletter — whether it’s broadcast via email, through the newsletter features of LinkedIn* or Twitter, or in any of the many other ways they can be published online, is a topic well worth exploring, as we recently dug into with “Sign Me Up: How B2B Marketers Will Create Top-Notch Newsletters In 2022.”
4 — Harness Long-Form Content To Build A Twitter Community
B2B brands that are looking to build a bigger and more engaged community on Twitter will have a powerful new tool at their disposal, as Twitter Write will let brands dig deeper and tell more engaging stories on the platform than has heretofore been possible using only 280 characters at a time.
It takes great storytelling to attract, engage, and convert in B2B marketing, and having a bigger slate to work with using Twitter Notes will let more powerful brand, customer, and employee stories gain a new audience.
You’ll find even more about the practice of successful B2B storytelling in our many articles on the topic, including “Free The Story: How B2B Marketers Can Use Digital Storytelling To Bring Content Alive In New Ways,” “Why There’s a Need for Creative Storytelling in B2B Tech and How Influencer Marketing Can Accelerate Results,” and “Microsoft’s Miri Rodriguez on How B2B Marketers Are Embracing Empathy For Better Customer Storytelling.”
5 — The Expanding Universe of Brand, Executive & Employee Influence
It’s no secret anymore that the people who together form a company — from corporate executives to bright-eyed freshly-hired interns — hold an influential power unlike that any traditional marketing can easily provide. This is why the art and science of B2B influencer marketing has seen steadily climbing implementation among major global brands over the past decade, and especially during the past two years.
Executive influence has come through as a standout element leading to success in our own recently-published comprehensive 2022 B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report, with 65 percent of B2B brands saying that internal executives have been effective at increasing the influence of the brand.
Additionally, as part of improving brand thought leadership, some 75 percent of B2B marketers already work with internal executives to grow their credibility with customers, and a full two-thirds of those who work with executives say their program has been very or extremely effective at increasing brand influence.
Captivate & Delight With Long-Form Twitter Content
At its best, writing can captivate and delight no matter which digital platform it lives on, however when marketers fine-tune this type of best-answer content to precisely take advantage of a particular social platform, the resulting online experience will more often than not be accompanied by new levels of success and engagement.
The question of how B2B marketers can best craft the type of content that elevates the lives of the people who seek to learn from it is a deep one, which I explore further in “Content Contemplations: How We Process Information & Why B2B Marketers Must Craft Content That Elevates.”
Knowing what will work well when it comes to the new long-form content features of Twitter Write is bound to give B2B marketers an advantage when Twitter releases the capability to all of its users.
We hope that the five ideas for creative long-form content creation we’ve looked at here will be helpful in your own future efforts, whether on Twitter or in any other media format.
When it comes to crafting award-winning B2B video marketing that elevates, amplifies, and humanizes, there are no short-cuts, which is why an increasing number of firms are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.
*LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.
