Top 10 B2B Companies on Twitter [March 2011]

By Jeffrey L. Cohen

Wed, Mar 23, 2011

Buffer

Earlier this year we established a set of criteria to rank B2B company Twitter accounts. Below you will find this month’s version of the rankings. The biggest change to the list is the inclusion of @MarketingProfs, based on my interview with Ann Handley about her use of the account. When ranked against the other B2B company Twitter accounts, @MarketingProfs comes out on top.

One of the trends that we have seen in the list is that many companies gained significant followers over the past two months. The biggest gain is by Hubspot, which went from 40,000 to 100,000 followers using Twitter’s advertising program of Promoted Accounts. One of the components of the ranking is the ratio of followers to followings, and Hubspot, like the other companies gaining followers, did not increase the people they were following accordingly. This means the ratio component of their ranking went down, as compared to companies whose ratio of follower count did not change significantly.

SocialMediaB2B.com Top B2B Companies on Twitter
(March 2011)

Ranking
1. MarketingProfs (@MarketingProfs)
2. Hubspot (@Hubspot)
3. eMarketer (@eMarketer)
4. Forrester (@Forrester)
5. CME Group (@CMEGroup)
6. comScore (@comScore)
7. Cisco (@CiscoSystems)
8. Gartner (@Gartner_Inc)
9. radian6 (@radian6)
10. Marketo (@Marketo)

Jan 2011
-
1
3
2
4
5
6
7
9
-

Change
new
-1
0
-2
-1
-1
-1
-1
0
new

Other B2B company Twitter accounts that were ranked, but did not make the top 10 were @Accenture, @Eloqua, @Intel, @MarketingSherpa, @Oracle, @Salesforce and @SAP. As always, let us know your thoughts about the list, and if there are other companies that should be considered in the next ranking.

Jeffrey L. Cohen is the Managing Editor of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter at @jeffreylcohen or on Google+.

Tags: Cisco, CMEGroup, ComScore, emarketer, Forrester, gartner, Hubspot, marketingprofs, marketo, radian6, top 10 twitter

18 Responses to “Top 10 B2B Companies on Twitter [March 2011]”

Charles Schmidt says:

March 23, 2011 at 10:12 am

Please have a look at @kronesag

Unmana says:

March 23, 2011 at 11:50 am

This is a cool list: thank you!

Tilman says:

March 23, 2011 at 12:04 pm

If you take out Consulting and Tech companies, what’s left?

Trish says:

March 23, 2011 at 12:40 pm

Jeffrey,

Great companies on this top 10 list. We work hard to stay connected to our community and our industry and hopefully that shows. We certainly appreciate being included!

All the best,

Trish (@Dayngr)
Community Manager | Radian6

John Earnhardt says:

March 23, 2011 at 12:41 pm

Thanks for including us on this prestigious list. We are certainly trying to utilize all forms of social media to engage and interact with those who are interested in Cisco. You can see our “social media footprint” (or some of it) at http://socialmedia.cisco.com

Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

March 23, 2011 at 1:01 pm

Charles: We will take a look at them in the next update.

Unmama: You are welcome.

Tilman: Technology, marketing and consulting firms are usually on the forefront of technology and marketing innovations. The one outlier in the list is the CME Group, a financial marketplace provides financial news. If you can provide suggestions of other B2B companies, we would be happy to include them in future rankings.

Trish and John: Thanks for stopping by and letting us know you are listening. Keep setting an example for other B2B companies.

Sergei Dolukhanov says:

March 23, 2011 at 3:02 pm

We aren’t quite as big as the guys on your excellent list, but as a startup we are worth a look!

You should check out EvoApp as an emerging social media monitor and customer service solutions specialist.

EvoApp is a centralized portal that does volumetric and sentiment analysis for all forms of communications including, but not limited to, emails, phone calls and all social media types such as twitter, blogs, social feeds etc. You can use the social media module to look at before and after marketing campaigns and do competitive analysis, sentiment analysis, media monitoring, etc..

You can use the direct communications module which archives and rates the polarity (positive to neutral to negative) of your customer’s communications to the company by tying into the email, phone, etc. This module I.D.’s problematic discussions quickly and allows you to pre-emptively rectify customer issues.

EvoApp in a nutshell: an interactive, integrated communications hub for visualizing, analyzing and interacting with the entire communications heartbeat of an enterprise. It goes beyond just social media monitoring, something we like to call “Relationship Intelligence”.

We look up to these big companies as major players in the B2B industry, we hope to be recognized up there with them one day.. Thanks for the article!

Charles Schmidt says:

March 23, 2011 at 9:18 pm

Thanx Jeffrey!
btw please have a look at this:
http://www.krones.com/en/press/10596_11500.htm

Ann Handley says:

March 24, 2011 at 9:35 am

Hey Jeff — Thanks so much for including MarketingProfs, and more importantly for the conversation about whether it should be part of this list or not. I appreciated that dialogue! Warmly — Ann

Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

March 24, 2011 at 12:22 pm

Charles: Thanks for the link to the press release. Congrats on being selected.

Ann: Thanks for stopping by our little home on the web. I am always glad to talk about the whys and hows of people using social media in a business context. @MarketingProfs is a great addition to the list, and provides some good lessons for B2B marketers.

Mike Biggs says:

March 25, 2011 at 1:51 am

Comment on the criteria: all criteria other than ‘reach, engagement and influence’ are distant in value. This is the key measure.

Considering number of followers, follow/followed ratio, and how many times listed are not good measures as they are in part irrelevant, and also may be manipulated.

Joe Zuccaro says:

March 25, 2011 at 11:12 am

The B2B Twitterer of the Year (B2BTOTY)Awards were started to recognize B2B organizations’ use of Twitter. It is a volunteer program of B2B thought leaders, consultants and practicioners who promote and judge the awards.

As the founder, one of the things I wanted to avoid was the awards being too dominated by the “usual suspects” of large tech companies that already have notoriety. Hence we’ve come up with ten categories from the very broad and diverse B2B community.

I encourage each and everyone of you to participate in the B2BTOTY program if you’re interested in B2B and social media. Please visit http://www.b2btoty.com or email me at jzuccaro b2btoty com.

Best,

Joe Zuccaro

Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

March 25, 2011 at 1:42 pm

Joe

Thanks for the comment. I have been thinking about the same thing and I want to add a subjective criteria to the listing, or maybe a listing of companies with under 5,000 followers, or even under 1,000 followers. I am the first one to acknowledge that if you are a small B2B company with 100 customers, and you have connected with them on Twitter, and you are engaging with them in a successful manner, why would you ever need more than 1,000 Twitter followers.

It would be interesting to see what some sort of mix of data and opinion looks like in a regularly updated list. Our approach is evolving and we appreciate the feedback.

Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

March 25, 2011 at 1:55 pm

Mike Thanks for the feedback. We wanted to start somewhere, and objective data is one way. We will definitely look at more “engaging” components for the next version.

Ashley Friedlein says:

March 30, 2011 at 8:52 am

Hi Jeff

Looks like we (@Econsultancy) should be on this list? We have 44,000+ followers, on 3,300+ lists etc.

We’re B2B (similar to Hubspot, MarketingProfs, Forrester, eMarketer in what we do) though best known currently in the UK.

Whilst sheer numbers and rankings are always fun I’d also like to highlight some of our thinking/approach and measurement/ROI behind all this. So for example:

1. Why we *unfollowed* 19,000 Twitter users – see details at http://econsultancy.com/blog/5249-why-econsultancy-is-unfollowing-19-000-twitter-users

2. How we measure the value/influence of Twitter using Google Analytics – see http://econsultancy.com/blog/7217-how-econsultancy-measures-twitter-via-google-analytics

Regards

Ashley Friedlein
CEO
Econsultancy
http://econsultancy.com/

Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

April 1, 2011 at 11:27 am

Ashley

Thanks for the comment with the links. We will certainly consider Econsultancy in the next listing. We will also review the blog links you provided as a way to add some subjectivity to the listings, rather than they be purely numbers based.

Charles Schmidt says:

March 23, 2011 at 10:12 am

Please have a look at @kronesag
Unmana says:

March 23, 2011 at 11:50 am

This is a cool list: thank you!
Tilman says:

March 23, 2011 at 12:04 pm

If you take out Consulting and Tech companies, what’s left?
Trish says:

March 23, 2011 at 12:40 pm

Jeffrey,

Great companies on this top 10 list. We work hard to stay connected to our community and our industry and hopefully that shows. We certainly appreciate being included!

All the best,

Trish (@Dayngr)
Community Manager | Radian6
John Earnhardt says:

March 23, 2011 at 12:41 pm

Thanks for including us on this prestigious list. We are certainly trying to utilize all forms of social media to engage and interact with those who are interested in Cisco. You can see our “social media footprint” (or some of it) at http://socialmedia.cisco.com
Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

March 23, 2011 at 1:01 pm

Charles: We will take a look at them in the next update.

Unmama: You are welcome.

Tilman: Technology, marketing and consulting firms are usually on the forefront of technology and marketing innovations. The one outlier in the list is the CME Group, a financial marketplace provides financial news. If you can provide suggestions of other B2B companies, we would be happy to include them in future rankings.

Trish and John: Thanks for stopping by and letting us know you are listening. Keep setting an example for other B2B companies.
Sergei Dolukhanov says:

March 23, 2011 at 3:02 pm

We aren’t quite as big as the guys on your excellent list, but as a startup we are worth a look!

You should check out EvoApp as an emerging social media monitor and customer service solutions specialist.

EvoApp is a centralized portal that does volumetric and sentiment analysis for all forms of communications including, but not limited to, emails, phone calls and all social media types such as twitter, blogs, social feeds etc. You can use the social media module to look at before and after marketing campaigns and do competitive analysis, sentiment analysis, media monitoring, etc..

You can use the direct communications module which archives and rates the polarity (positive to neutral to negative) of your customer’s communications to the company by tying into the email, phone, etc. This module I.D.’s problematic discussions quickly and allows you to pre-emptively rectify customer issues.

EvoApp in a nutshell: an interactive, integrated communications hub for visualizing, analyzing and interacting with the entire communications heartbeat of an enterprise. It goes beyond just social media monitoring, something we like to call “Relationship Intelligence”.

We look up to these big companies as major players in the B2B industry, we hope to be recognized up there with them one day.. Thanks for the article!
Charles Schmidt says:

March 23, 2011 at 9:18 pm

Thanx Jeffrey!
btw please have a look at this:
http://www.krones.com/en/press/10596_11500.htm
Ann Handley says:

March 24, 2011 at 9:35 am

Hey Jeff — Thanks so much for including MarketingProfs, and more importantly for the conversation about whether it should be part of this list or not. I appreciated that dialogue! Warmly — Ann
Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

March 24, 2011 at 12:22 pm

Charles: Thanks for the link to the press release. Congrats on being selected.

Ann: Thanks for stopping by our little home on the web. I am always glad to talk about the whys and hows of people using social media in a business context. @MarketingProfs is a great addition to the list, and provides some good lessons for B2B marketers.
Mike Biggs says:

March 25, 2011 at 1:51 am

Comment on the criteria: all criteria other than ‘reach, engagement and influence’ are distant in value. This is the key measure.

Considering number of followers, follow/followed ratio, and how many times listed are not good measures as they are in part irrelevant, and also may be manipulated.
Joe Zuccaro says:

March 25, 2011 at 11:12 am

The B2B Twitterer of the Year (B2BTOTY)Awards were started to recognize B2B organizations’ use of Twitter. It is a volunteer program of B2B thought leaders, consultants and practicioners who promote and judge the awards.

As the founder, one of the things I wanted to avoid was the awards being too dominated by the “usual suspects” of large tech companies that already have notoriety. Hence we’ve come up with ten categories from the very broad and diverse B2B community.

I encourage each and everyone of you to participate in the B2BTOTY program if you’re interested in B2B and social media. Please visit http://www.b2btoty.com or email me at jzuccaro b2btoty com.

Best,

Joe Zuccaro
Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

March 25, 2011 at 1:42 pm

Joe

Thanks for the comment. I have been thinking about the same thing and I want to add a subjective criteria to the listing, or maybe a listing of companies with under 5,000 followers, or even under 1,000 followers. I am the first one to acknowledge that if you are a small B2B company with 100 customers, and you have connected with them on Twitter, and you are engaging with them in a successful manner, why would you ever need more than 1,000 Twitter followers.

It would be interesting to see what some sort of mix of data and opinion looks like in a regularly updated list. Our approach is evolving and we appreciate the feedback.
Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

March 25, 2011 at 1:55 pm

Mike Thanks for the feedback. We wanted to start somewhere, and objective data is one way. We will definitely look at more “engaging” components for the next version.
Ashley Friedlein says:

March 30, 2011 at 8:52 am

Hi Jeff

Looks like we (@Econsultancy) should be on this list? We have 44,000+ followers, on 3,300+ lists etc.

We’re B2B (similar to Hubspot, MarketingProfs, Forrester, eMarketer in what we do) though best known currently in the UK.

Whilst sheer numbers and rankings are always fun I’d also like to highlight some of our thinking/approach and measurement/ROI behind all this. So for example:

1. Why we *unfollowed* 19,000 Twitter users – see details at http://econsultancy.com/blog/5249-why-econsultancy-is-unfollowing-19-000-twitter-users

2. How we measure the value/influence of Twitter using Google Analytics – see http://econsultancy.com/blog/7217-how-econsultancy-measures-twitter-via-google-analytics

Regards

Ashley Friedlein
CEO
Econsultancy
http://econsultancy.com/
Jeffrey L. Cohen says:

April 1, 2011 at 11:27 am

Ashley

Thanks for the comment with the links. We will certainly consider Econsultancy in the next listing. We will also review the blog links you provided as a way to add some subjectivity to the listings, rather than they be purely numbers based.

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