What is microblogging?

Live at the SiriusDecisions Summit in stark, dry, Henderson, Nevada this past week, where the big brains in B2B demand generation gathered to discuss current trends in the industry. 

Great presentation this morning by Jonathan Block of Sirius (welcome to the Blogosphere, Jonathan!), who talked about social media, it's use in business-to-business marketing, and how it should be measured.   

One of the emerging trends he talked about was Microblogging, popularized by the service Twitter, which allows you to update your own 140-letter blog from your mobile device, instant messenger or web.

As I was adding Jonathan to my list of Twitters, I found that Koen de Witte, head of marketing for Bulldog, was microblogging the conference on Twitter.  Here's what Koen had to say in real time as the presentations unfolded:

B2b and social media: if you're not on the bus then you'll soon be under it...-)

Sirius decisions quote from jonathan block re: corp blogs. Stupidity is charming, but ignorance is not :-)
   
sirius decisions summit: traditional media is not dead, it just smells funny..(courtesy frank zappa)
   
sirius decisions summit update: conversion rate; inquiry to Mktg Qualified lead ranging from 3.9% to 9.7%. This is 2X compared to last yr
   
sirius decisions summit update: avg marketing program spend in $ per sales rep. = varies between 30K and 50K depending size of the org
   
Live from sirius decisions summit: less than 58% of sales reps achieve annual quota

So why should you care about Twittering now, when you've got so much else to worry about?

We recently promoted a Webinar using traditional means (paid search ads, email) but also put Eloqua trackable links on Facebook, blog and Twitter postings.  And what we found was surprising.  We had as many people register from the free sources of promotion as we did from our Google paid ads.   

So can you dial back your paid SEM programs in favor of blogging and microblogging and social networking sites?  Probably not yet.  But consider adding it into the mix to get a low-cost channel to reach prospective customers.

**Update:   MarketingSherpa has a comprehensive review of Twitter and how to get started article on their site now.**