While Twitter is an amazing tool to drive traffic to your website or to market yourself as a professional, it can also become a liability if you do not follow certain rules. In fact, there are certain blunders that many people commit, and end up wasting their time on Twitter and worse, harming their own business and credibility. Here are the top 10 blunders that you must avoid while using Twitter.
Being Impersonal
One of the biggest blunders on Twitter is bring impersonal. Agreed, that it is a micro-blogging service where you do not need to engage in personal conversations. However, it is still a social network where certain aspects of who you are need to be projected. First off, it is important to have a clear picture and then have links to your blog or website. Secondly, do tweet at times about your life and not just about the product or business you want to promote. Try and be nice to people, and maintain cordiality and a degree of familiarity.
Not Customizing Background
There are several great businesses and professionals who just do not use a custom background for their Twitter profile. This is a unique space where you could give out a lot of information that is not possible within the 140 characters bio. Also, don’t go overboard and write a story about yourself in the background image. That really is a blunder.
Not Being Active
There are great Twitter accounts that I unfollowed because they were just not tweeting anymore. It is very important to remain active and tweet at least a few times in a day. Consistent tweets that are informative, fun and useful are always appreciated. However, tweeting 10 times within a span of 10 seconds and not tweeting for the rest of the day is a blunder too. Space your tweets across the day.
Don’t be Noisy
One of the most annoying blunders is to tweet too much. How much is too much? Well, that is a difficult question but no one likes to see your tweets and links constantly appearing in their stream. It is important to resist tweeting all the time. If you really have to tweet anything that comes to your mind, have a different Twitter account for that. Do not confuse your business, personal and anonymous Twitter accounts. Each has its special purpose!
Following too Many People
The idea is not to follow everyone you see on Twitter. The trick is to follow only the most useful people in your industry and a few others from other areas of life. Following too many people will send a wrong signal that you are not an important business who has authority or influence.
Being Full of Yourself
Of course, Twitter is a great place to market yourself. However, it would be a nasty blunder if you tweeted only about yourself, your business or what you want to market. 70% of the tweets must not be self promotional. Only around 30% of the tweets could be used to promote yourself. Otherwise, you will come across as a hustler.
Being Cold
Many twitter users tend to be cold and non-responsive. It is not only rude, but a big blunder not to engage with your audience and talk to them. If you do not connect with your followers and audience, they will eventually get bored of you and will unfollow you. It is important to engage in Twitter conversations and participate in them.
Not Being Helpful
One of the most selfish acts could be to not help others on Twitter. Whether they ask for it or not, if you come across questions in your stream that you are in a position to answer, make sure you do so. Otherwise, you might be mistaken for a cold and profit minded business that cares about no one but promoting oneself. Not a great strategy to drive traffic to your website.
Spamming Your Followers
No matter how tempting it is to share links related to your products, your blog posts and just about anything that is related to you, you must not overdo it. You will come across as a spammer who has more malicious intent than just self-promotion. You can get blocked for appearing as a spammer.
Being Irrelevant
There is nothing worse than being irrelevant. If you are a design company and start tweeting about politics, you will confuse your followers, who may eventually unfollow you. The idea is to stick to what you claim is your mission on Twitter. If you need to tweet about other things, you can always have a second Twitter account that can be used for non-professional purposes.
