Common Mistakes on Twitter

When it comes to Twitter, mistakes lie in the eye of the beholder, or the tweeter. But if you’re serious about blogging, you need to understand the role Twitter plays in your online presence.

First of all, it’s a communication tool. We make friends, we follow celebrities, we network. We have fun on Twitter, offer support, provide a laugh. We help spread news, both good and bad. And we come together in a crisis.

To make Twitter valuable build your following the old-fashioned way. Follow people you like and then follow the people they follow. Engage in conversation. Start it or jump right into it.

Common communication mistakes on Twitter
1. Begging or bragging about followers

“I’ll follow you if you follow me.”

“Wow, I just hit the 8000 follower mark!”

Exceptions:

If you have a new friend who has just joined Twitter, invite your followers to welcome them.
“My friend @John finally joined Twitter. Follow him so he can finally see what the fuss is all about.”

Also, if you are approaching a significant number and want to round up, it’s okay to ask for followers.
“I’m at 798 followers. I only need 2 more followers to achieve my lifetime goal.”

2. Never answering back

My mother is on Twitter. She’s actually starting to get the hang of it. Since she is following so few people, she sees it more like a direct line to me and my tweets (Note to self: be careful of what I say online).

When I recently asked for a shout out for my mom’s birthday, I wonder why she never responded to any of her tweets. She never knew about checking her “Mentions.” I know she’ll kill me for admitting this to you but she had an excuse. Most of you don’t.

If you’re using Twitter for your own little circle of chit-chat and never respond to anyone except those that you already know well, don’t expect your followers to follow you to your blog. Your blog should be a community and Twitter is a great place to welcome people into it.

Twitter can be a lot of fun. But make no mistake, it’s also a powerful marketing tool. If you haven’t figured that out, let me know and I’ll fill you on the basics. In the meantime, there are lots of mistakes being made in this arena too.

Common marketing mistakes on Twitter
1. Tweeting only links.

A good rule of thumb, if you really get down to the business of it, is nine non-business tweets for every one business tweet. For a blogger, your blog post links are your business tweets. Don’t overload people with them. Typically, tweeting them three times per day is effective. Otherwise, they’re just annoying.

2. Setting up an automated Facebook feed

Don’t worry. I’m not entirely against this practice. I use it on several of my Facebook pages. It ensures at the very least that my page updates are tweeted. It updates my followers and also can help drive my followers to my Facebook page.

However, I have seen many Twitter accounts set up simply as a feed. And that’s it! It doesn’t make much sense to push content onto Twitter which encourages engagement if you are only on Facebook and never on Twitter. I know that sounds overly logical but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this. And yet these people follow me!

3. Not monitoring your content

When I say monitoring your content, I mean monitoring YOUR content. What are you saying on Twitter? What kind of language do you use? How much are you sharing (or oversharing)? Are you drinking and tweeting (a sometimes deadly combination)?

I’m not suggesting you should become someone you’re not. Be your silly, goofy, sexy, funny, passionate, raunchy self. Just understand that your Twitter stream is a big part of your online presence. Don’t say something you don’t want a brand, business, boss, or even your mother to read. Sometimes too much is too much.
Did you catch all that? Are you doing it all correctly? There’s a lot more to learn even if you’ve been on for years. For those of your just getting started, I recommend you read one of my all-time favorite posts at the new Momcomm.com blog, Making Sense of Twitter – It’s the Never-ending Cocktail Party.

Now go tweet your heart out!

Adapted from an article by Fadra Nally on May 3, 2011 on socialdialect.com