It can be somewhat challenging to find examples of Twitter being used effectively in the business to business environment. And even more so when looking for UK examples (I am not advocating that Twitter is the only way B2B social media can support a company’s objective. However, it can add value and meet particular social media goals.)

I have compiled a list (below) of some of the leading UK B2B twitter profiles. If you are contemplating launching a Twitter stream to stay connected to your customers, then these examples might prove useful. You can analyse them to see what works or use them as examples if you need to prove a case.

Delighted to see our friends at econsultancy with such a lead on follower numbers. There is a fair spread of businesses from finance and merchants, to the (almost expected now) tech and telecoms companies.

A quick dive into the Twitter streams shows a variety of techniques being used to engage. Yes there are a few that are just broadcasting, but there are many more that have built a strong community around their conversations.

The primary reasons for launching a profile appear to be (in no particular order):

• keeping connected to customers
• building new connections
• a little crowd sourcing around products/ services
• promotions and discounts
• thought leadership

Often there are knowledgeable and charismatic tweeters behind each profile. Even if they are not chattering under their own name (a couple of them do), you often see the personalities shine through. The more mature the Twitter profile is, the more you can see how pivotal the twitter host’s personality is to maintaining an active community.

We have just published a report in how you can empower your employees for B2B social media. Giving staff the knowledge and confidence, whilst clearly outlining the parameters, can make all the difference in getting your Twitter profile up and working fast.

So, have we missed any UK Tweeters in B2B? Comment below and we will add to the list. We will then do a deeper analysis of activity and share the insights on this blog.

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Is it just me or is everyone talking about crowdsourcing at the moment? Every meeting or event I go to, it comes up. Crowdsourcing advertising (see T-Mobile, Berocca, Hyundai etc.) has been around for a while, providing ad agencies and brands with a new way of showcasing a brand or product (whilst also helping them save some budget, I’m sure.) More and more companies going down the route of taking product suggestions and improvements from its core audience:  innocent ask customers for new recipe suggestions, PlayStation’s US blog has an ideas section, whilst Dell’s IdeaStorm is the tech poster child for actually implementing people’s ideas.

For brands, it makes perfect sense, and we’ll see more and more companies extend their involvement in crowdsourcing, either by giving trusted advocates a voice on their official social media estates or giving supportive influencers the tools to actually create their own content, not just be one of the stars of an existing idea.

For the public sector, crowdsourcing seems like a perfect fit. Everyone has an opinion on how the country or their local area should be run. Public opinion of politics and politicians is at a low ebb; how better to get the public engaged again than to open the clandestine corridors of power for people to suggest their own ideas?

The problem with any crowdsourcing tactic is that there has to be some guarantee that, if you ask people for their ideas, something is going to happen with them. When the coalition government asked for people’s thoughts on policies, they received 9,500 responses. The only thing was that nothing happened with them.

In modern politics, it seems that only good old-fashioned public outcry gets anything done. Just this weekend, the government was forced into an embarrassing climbdown over cancelling free milk for nurseries after the media took umbrage at the idea. On one hand, this kind of action is great – mass movements still have an effect; a unity of voice gets things done. But, the government is ultimately there to make tough decisions. What would happen if something like Proposition 8 in California was proposed over here? Would the inevitable Daily Mail/Daily Express/Daily Star campaigns influence things so far one way that all rational thought goes out of the window? How do you legislate for personal agendas monopolising the activity?

I guess we just shouldn’t ask for, or expect, too much actual involvement in the way things are done. Just as Dell wouldn’t let an amateur into one of its factories to play around with the expensive equipment, we should hope that the government will keep at least of some its policy making and activity behind closed doors.

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I recently attended a WOM UK briefing run by Reed Smith on the subject of ‘the benefits and legal risks of Word of Mouth Marketing in Social Media.’ One of the subjects touched upon was moderation; when inviting comment from the public, how much responsibility does the publisher have for the content that’s uploaded to their website?

This is an issue that’s undoubtedly on the radar of the HM Treasury this week as they opened ‘The Spending Challenge’ to the public for the first time. For those of you unfamiliar with the idea, ‘The Spending Challenge’ is essentially a forum that allows the public to suggest ideas for where spending cuts could be made to tackle the budget deficit. Recent criticism stems from the fact that the site’s moderators have been allowing offensive comments to remain visible to anyone who visits the site. A quick search through recent comments on ‘The Spending Challenge’ website reveals a multitude of comments tagged by users under terms including ‘hate crime,’ ‘hate,’ ‘facist’ and  ‘racial hatred.’ There’s a witty summary of the latest posts here entitled ‘Race hate meets comedy gold.’

What’s actually a potentially brilliant tactic by the government to engage the public in the debt crisis recovery is now in danger of becoming drastically tarnished by negative media coverage and sarcastic Tweets.

Crowdsourcing is one of the latest buzz words in social media at the moment with many brands seeing the benefits of both customer engagement and business/product development. However, ‘The Spending Challenge’ shows that inviting opinions on any subject which has the potential for defamatory material and comment needs a carefully considered moderation plan. Is a ‘Notify and Take Down’ system always the right method in these situations?

It will be interesting to watch the steps taken by the government to control the current media backlash on ‘The Spending Challenge.’ Clearly, a more rigorous moderation process is needed to ensure the public’s suggestions are constructive and serve the website’s purpose. For those of us in the PR & Marketing industry, it’s a stark reminder of how unwieldy a tool the web really is. Whilst crowdsourcing might sound like a great campaign tactic, it’s vital to remember that we can’t control what people say on websites and social media platforms. The potential for damaging coverage and comments is ever present and it’s the average savvy webuser who is the most stringent moderator of them all.

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