This is the third of three articles that share findings from The State of Inbound Lead Generation, a new HubSpot report based on statistical analysis of 1,400 customers’ inbound marketing activities. The study identifies lead generation best practices based on results from these companies. The report and this article were written by Sophie L. Schmitt.

The third key behavior worth noting for its strong impact on leads is setting up a Twitter account and growing followers. The positive correlation between Twitter usage and leads was statistically confirmed for B2C companies in our sample. For B2B customers, however, the results are less reliable.
Growing Twitter Followers Increases Leads Up to a Point

The graph below shows the relationship between Twitter reach and median leads. Median leads jumped almost 30% once customers achieved follower numbers in the high double digits.
Twitter Follower Impact on Leads

The largest jump in leads took place once customers garnered several hundred followers. As the graph shows, leads may not continue to rise with Twitter reach beyond multiple hundreds of followers (501+). Perhaps this is due to the challenge of growing engaged followers. These more engaged individuals are those who will retweet content to their own followers, visit the company web site when enticed to do so, and/or post updates on topics related to the customer’s areas of interest. Leads are more likely to come directly and indirectly through these more engaged individuals.
B2C Twitter Users Generate 2x More Leads Than Non-Twitter Users

In addition to looking at Twitter reach, we also looked at Twitter usage. As the graph below indicates, B2C customers who use Twitter generated two times more leads than B2C customers without a Twitter account. These results are consistent across company size.
Impact of Twitter on Leads Chart
Marketing Takeaways

As the data reveals, Twitter can help marketers generate leads by growing followers, but only up to a certain point. Once accounts achieve multiple hundreds of followers, growing reach appears to lose its impact on leads. More research will be necessary to confirm and better understand this phenomenon.

In summary, Twitter allows marketers to:

* Build relationships with individuals who prefer shorter-format content. Consider building your Twitter reach by following companies and individuals related to your industry. These individuals are likely to follow you and share your Twitter updates as retweets.
* Enhance relationships with individuals who are already blog subscribers by serving them blog content in a shorter, more digestible format that they can consume “on the go” through mobile devices.
* Increase their presence in Google. Tweets are now searchable in Google through Google real-time search.

What are your thoughts on the impact of Twitter on your marketing results?

Read articles 1 and 2 in this series.

Want to read more? Download the full State of Inbound Lead Generation report.

Live Webinar: The State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation

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Date and time: Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 1:00pm EDT

Posted by Pamela Seiple on Tue, Apr 06, 2010 @ 07:00 AM
COMMENTS
This is a great post and very promising. Could you share some insight into the statistical significance of the findings?

Also, does finding by holding ALL other marketing activity at ZERO or some other minimum?

posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 at 7:05 AM by Taariq Lewis
Thanks for another great article. I love the fact that your stats show B2C Twitter Users Generate 2x More Leads Than Non-Twitter Users. Twitter is so easy to use to grow and build relationships for busy small local business owners who seems to be struggeling these days especially with their local on line advertising budget.

posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 at 8:09 AM by Deb DiBiasie
Really interesting information but as above I would be interested in the factors involved such as average number of tweets, any other marketing (facebook, other social bookmarking, offline), is a blog fed into the tweets etc.
I know this a blog post not case study but the stats are intiguing and make me feel there could be more potential for research.
I think any business user looking at these stats would be daft not to sign up to Twitter today and start engaging with their customers

posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 at 9:35 AM by Seobelle
We tell all our clients that it’s the relevance of followers not the number that counts. It’s great to find some research to backs that up.

posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 at 9:41 AM by Janice Arnoldi
Keep the data coming. I love these articles. This one was especially enlightening since I depend more on B2B than B2C.

posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 at 9:45 AM by Allison A. Bailes III, PhD

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