While it might seem like Twitter is just for teenagers and tech-savvy adults, it’s actually an incredibly powerful B2B social media marketing tool. In a world where 75 percent of purchase decisions are made before a customer talks to a supplier, the information available to your customer online becomes very important. And since Twitter has more than 288 million active monthly users, that certainly explains why 85 percent of B2B companies actively participate on Twitter.

Since there’s some evidence that Twitter is important, your next step is to figure out how to use the platform to achieve your goals more effectively. Some businesses are great at utilizing Twitter, but not everyone is; in fact, 81 percent of B2B marketers find online marketing moderately to extremely challenging. It takes time and focus to create a plan for how to use Twitter and then to put that plan in motion.

Of course, you need to start by investing time in a quick beginner's tutorial that offers video, images and text to explain the platform in detail. Then you can tap into a secret world of apps that will allow you make the most of your time on Twitter.

Here are five apps that allow you to use Twitter like a pro:

HubSpot Social Inbox

When it comes to all-in-one B2B social media marketing solutions, we can’t overlook HubSpot’s Social Inbox tool. This platform helps you organize Twitter (in addition to any other social media sites you might be using, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+) onto one dashboard and review analytics, scheduled posts, and even color-coded reports. The Social Inbox is particularly helpful with developing relationships with B2B customers that you connect with on Twitter because it tracks your conversations across platforms.

SocialBro

SocialBro is a Twitter tool that allows you analyze, engage, and monetize your Twitter audience. It’s most useful in that it allows you to capture a quick understanding of the status of your Twitter account. Some of SocialBro's most time-saving features include the following:

  • Look at the analytics of your Twitter account in one view
  • Understand the best time to Tweet
  • View a list of users who have followed and unfollowed your profile
  • Segment your community so that you know who you are looking at

If you’re seeing results from Twitter and you want to take it to the next level, use a free trial on SocialBro to see how you could further target your B2B social media marketing efforts.

Followerwonk

Followerwonk allows you to use Twitter analytics to find, analyze and optimize your Twitter account to grow your profile with more like-minded clients. The platform accomplishes this by allowing you to look at your followers and their information in a wide variety of different formats from charts to lists to infographics.

Followerwonk also allows you to act more proactively than simply searching your industry hashtags using the Twitter search tool. For instance, you can search bios on Twitter to find people who would most likely wish to connect with you, or identify new followers by location, bio, or contacts you have in common.

Tweriod

Tweriod is the best tool to help you time your Tweets for maximum impact according to your customized list of followers. Once you’ve been networking for a while, the platform evaluates the Tweets you send in addition to the Tweets sent by your followers to determine the times at which your audience is the most active. This allows you to target your tweets for times when your followers are most likely to retweet, engage, or follow up. You can also maximize the value of your tweets by rescheduling tweets you would otherwise send during slow times.

Trends24

If you’re well known in your B2B circle for providing commentary on breaking news and ideas within your industry, then you need to check out Trends24. Trends24 takes the Twitter capability of looking at trending topics a step farther. The platform lets you look at which terms have been trending at specific times and in different countries all around the world. With this information, you can identify valuable and re-tweet-friendly terms you need to include in your Tweets to get the attention of your customers.

Twitter is already a B2B social media marketing powerhouse. With a small time investment and a few of these pro Twitter tools, you will be able to shape it into an even more effective way to engage and interact with your customers.