Businesses on Twitter Double Their Leads

A recent eMarketer post showed evidence from HubSpot that small businesses on Twitter can double their monthly lead generation figures. The "Twitter effect" was consistent whether businesses generated 1-10, 11-50, or more than 51 leads per month, and also held across company size. The Twitter effect was stronger for businesses targeting consumers (B2C companies) than business to business (B2B) organizations.

The amount of Twitter followers is critical to increased lead generation. Companies with a Twitter reach between 100-500 followers generated 146% more median monthly leads than those with 21-100 followers. Interestingly, companies with more than 500 followers did not show any increased gains, suggesting that the quality of interactions, as opposed to quantity of followers, should the backbone for a good Twitter strategy.

Blogging also increased lead generation for small businesses. Unlike Twitter, the effect was similar for both B2C as well as B2B companies. For blogs, the crucial component for increased lead generation was the amount of content produced. According to eMarketer, 24-51 posts are the minimum "tipping point" at which increased lead generation occurs.

Additional benefits of Twitter usage and blogging include better search engine visibility. Blogs increase the number of indexed pages for a business, and every 50-100 incremental indexed pages on Google can lead to significant growth. Twitter, which is now being crawled by Google and included in their results, can also impact search engine visibility.

London Technology Summit 2010

For those of you based in Europe, early bird tickets are available for the London Technology Summit, which will take place on February 19th, 2010. The theme of the conference, sponsored by London Business School, is entitled "New Models for a New Decade" and panels will include:

• New Models for Real Value: How Companies Can Be Game Changers
• New Models for Social Networking: Can Advertising Support Growth?
• New Models in Telephony: Who Delivers Value? Who Gets Paid?
• New Models for Sustainability: Save the World by Making a Profit

Last year's conference included top executives at Google, Intel, Amazon, McKinsey, Vodafone, and more. For more information or to purchase a ticket, click here.

Full disclosure: I am involved with the organization hosting the conference.