COMMENTS
Useful advices!"
My 10th: Tweet constantly: overflow your followers' stream.
Writing many tweets a day is a sure way not to be followed. Time is a precious treasure: don't waste yours and most important, others' time.
Conxa
@innova2
These are excellent tips and advice - especially for people new to Twitter and using it for business. Thanks for sharing - am off to share on Twitter now. :-)
Thanks. I put some of these suggestions into action right away! I love your articles and webinars. You have been my greatest teacher as I am new to so much of what you share.
10. Thinking too much about it all and becoming a bit bland
11. Adding comments to articles about Twitter without including your own Twitter account details...
I'm @oolopse ;-)
Thanks for this post. It is nice to see some do's and don'ts that includes some examples of what top companies are doing. I frequently hear "use a photo, not a logo" but I have not personally come across a big brand that does this.
Good post. We're just getting onto Twitter, but have already noticed the accounts on there that are clearly after numbers and not relationships. If anybody is interested in connecting: http://www.twitter.com/webloftdesigns
The previous suggestions are great. My #10 or part 2 of #2 would be thanking those Twitter friends that retweet or mention you. Remember your manners and thank someone for taking time out of their day to mention you.
Corie
@MARCAJourney
My #10 would probably be 'Lose Your Grammatical Skills'. Not sure what about 140 characters makes everyone result to acronyms like LOL and :)
Thank you for these very interesting advices and very useful for small biz like mine.
New technologies need new politeness and you show the way
Thanks for your comments, everyone. There are some great #10's here!
What's interesting is that several of these points apply not only to twitter, but to nearly any social network.
Some good points but #3 is off the mark! For one thing, you
cannot follow 10,000 without being followed back by a good portion of the people you follow. Twitter will
not allow it. In fact, you won't get over the 2000 barrier if your following/follower ratio isn't in sync. After 2000 Twitter still monitors the numbers to make sure you don't get out of balance.
Additionally, numbers do not necessarily mean spam. In fact, most of the spam I get are from new accounts that follow almost no one but are followed by people using automated systems or blindly following anyone.
The spam pages all look about the same and they are most certainly set up to promote one product or one group of products.
I follow anyone who follows me! IF they are not porn-related and/or engaged in some other morally objectionable activity. I also refuse to follow someone if every other word is profane. Not cool!
I block and report blatant spammers, period! Social media is about meeting new people and experiencing new thoughts, ideas, products, and perspectives.
Yes, products!
How can you do that by categorizing people going in? The idea is to be
social!
How can you do expand your horizons by not listening to alternative points of view?
Social media should be interesting, informative, and enjoyable! If you engage in
social media myopia, following only those who reflect your mindset and point of view, monitoring it with a middle school hall monitor's mentality, you will get out of it just what you put into it, nothing.
Open you eyes and your mind, expand your horizon, and engage! Do that and, before you know it, it will be 22 months later and you will have 26,000 followers and be ranked #1 in your city by HubSpot!
Hey, Cleveland is #52 as far as cities go with HubSpot...but I love it!
Open up, be engaging (talk to people!), RT when appropriate, and you never know...stranger things have happened!
John Zajaros
Twitter.com/JohnZajaros (and several others)
Nice informative but one thing i found, twitter may also one cause of increasing the bounce rate, in some cases.
Nice informative but one thing i found, twitter may also one cause of increasing the bounce rate, in some cases.
I think my biggest pet peeve are the people who simply duplicate all their messaging between Twitter and Facebook. It's lazy and it also lets the people in those respective communities that it's just a cut and paste job.
Some very good points were pointed out. I especially the part that said
“If you follow a ton of just anyone, not only will your Twitter stream be filled with irrelevant content you don’t care about, but you’ll look spammy to people who see your skewed follow numbers. Be picky about who you follow, especially in the beginning.” This blog post was very enlightening. Thank you
Great points! I would like to add to your list - brands with multiple users; 3-5 people using the same logo on their profile.
Of course there are other ideas to contribute to this fine list as many have submitted but, numbers 1 - 9 are a great start!
Windtee - Aviation T-Shirt Art!
We have tried to give our small parks department an identity - Wilf. We want him to engage with our followers. This is particularly important to us in our local area - Wolverhampton.
http://www.twitter.com/wolvesparkies
Really useful advice - I think the biggest error people make is to chase numbers - sure, measurement is important - but its quality over quantity.
Its better to have a great reputation with a small number of people you have a genuine dialogue with than to have millions of followers who you don't really connect with.
Matthew
Interim Marketing Director
Great post especially for a newbie like me still trying to get the hang of this "twitter thing" As somebody who likes "rules of thumb" what is a good target number on item #10 for average nr of tweets per day you should try to maintain?
I enjoyed reading this. A nice twist on the angle of how to do things right and it gives the messages some clarity.
I hope I already adhered to the basics of this but I definitely will now!
Herb, to answer your question about "how many tweets per day," I think you are asking the wrong question. Too many people get into social media just to "be there" when the best way to use it really effectively is to determine WHAT you are using it for. You want an audience who is INTERESTED in what you have to say because it is relevant to them, so the number of tweets is determined by how often you have something that fits the puspose behind your twitter feed. I do several for businesses (my own and others) and also have a frivolous random one for crazy musing that are unrelated to any particular goal. I have written a few short articles about twitter on my site if you are interested. http
www.wswilliams.com
Thanks for the comment Wendy I will check your articles! I guess as an old "finance guy" and born again social media marketing enthusiast I am still always looking at quantifying which led to the question also to establish some parameters for myself not too much not too little as far as traffic but agree they must be of value to the readers which we do try to do. Thanks again
#10 @industry415 when gaining new tweet followers, be sure to reach out and personally introduce yourself and thank followers for taking the time to follow you. Being professional, courteous and showing appreciation for someone's time, can go a long way and actually shows people that you care.
Lucciano
Agency Director/Industry415 Creative
No problem Herb. My advice would be to put out specific types of news on certain days, so that you become a reliable source for expected information. You can build a lot of flexibility around that, but it's good to have a core "mission" for your social media outreach ;-)
Great list, and I particularly like the first comment by @innova2. If I log on to Twitter multiple times per day, and the first thing which greets me is a screen full of the same avatar -- the result of tweeting too hard by one user -- it's an "unfollow." I don't want to see one person's face in a constant stream down my screen.
Ha, ha, thanks @Kristina!
@innova2
Diana
Your post is a "keeper." I might just add another few items to your terrific list, though.
"Don't categorize your Tweets with #hashmarks" so they are more easily found; "Don't retweet other Tweeters interesting tweets often enough" and "Don't recommend other good Tweeters to #FF follow." Share the stage - it's not all about you. It's about those you meet and what THEY have to share.
Twitter really represents different things for different people. There are the "people collectors" overly obsessed with trying to add thousands of followers just to impress others. There are the relentless affiliate marketers that retweet the same EXACT message over and over and NEVER anything else. There are the narcisistic tweeters, who feel they have to share every life detail with the entire stream; and then there are the serious tweeters, who really want to exchange good stuff and build relationships on Twitter. I am sure there are other profiles I neglected to mention.
Your tips are great, though. Thank you for sharing them.
Marc LeVine
Director of Social Media
RiaEnjolie, Inc.
Follow on Twitter @RiaEnjolie
Good tips. One more "don't" I'd add is don't tweet too many inside jokes or comments that no one else will understand. A few personal tweets are fine but at some point you'll lose everyone's interest because they don't "get it."
Great post. It's always good to tell newbies what not to do and to remind seasoned users to engage their social media connections.
#10 Forget to thank your ReTweeps.
This will be encouraging to small brands and novices (like me) to get ackowledged.
Thanks hubspot for all the help--blogs, webinars everything.
My #10. Automate everything. Set it on autopilot with auto-DMs, auto follows, automated tweets of your posts, RTs from just anyone without reading them, auto-tweet silly quotes at random. Basically turning your feed into a broadcast channel without engagement. FWIW.
How about this? I recently noticed that four or five local companies all started following me at the same time. I then noticed they were all clients of a local marketing company that I follow. Apparently the marketing company sets up Twitter accounts for clients. A short while later, all five companies are sending out the exact same message about how great the marketing company is and how to get the great deal on business cards (Business Cards of all things!!!) That's a bit much wouldn't you say???
Just RT.
Brilliant. 99.8% of everyone I know (including myself) has made at least 2 of these mistakes... this week.
Suggest you post this on the Twitter sign up page.
Great post.
I agree that it is best to tweet as often as possible. But only if you have something compelling to say.
One compelling tweet per week is far better than a constant deluge of spam and rubbish.
It's so funny, this post goes so well along with one I wrote not too long ago titled 7 Ways to Be Hated on Twitter: http://210consulting.com/2010/09/21/7-ways-to-be-hated-on-twitter/
#10 Making your Twitter account an auto-update of all other social media accounts (especially Facebook). Appears lazy and uninterested in forming personal connections.
<a>www.twitter.com/Andrew_K_Kirk
Great list. It makes very good sense and you write succinctly.
There is so much noise out there in the Twittersphere. In order to rise above it, it's important to take the time to build a good foundation. Deliver interesting and diverse content. Refer people to your followers and who you are following. Respond and participate. Pay attention to your follower/following ratio.
Your tips are conducive to building that foundation.
(And honestly, I almost get angry when someone starts following me who's clearly a spammer. Usually, I call them out and block them.)
Your article is very good because most people on Twitter to follow people who might actually interact with them. So if you just put the content out there, even if it's interesting content, you may turn away people who want to know you will answer.
This would be much better if it were called "The 9 Best Ways to Use Twitter for Business" Some good ideas would be better understood in a positive tone. :)
For business users my #10 would be - no moaning. If you want to use Twitter to promote your business then everyone should see the best side of you. No-one wants to connect with and/or do business with negative people.
It might be 'who you are' or 'showing the real you' but after a while it's just dull.
@uturnjules
Being a Twitter novice I find the comments very helpful and interesting.
Internet marketing is quite a science I wish I had spent more time researching the subject a few years ago, who knows I might be rich by now. :-)
Excellent article, I'm Tweeting it ;-)
Don't be scared of Twitter, have fun with it.
Overly Self-Promotional, I think Overly Non-Self Promotional is a problem as well.
I do enjoy hearing about the rainforest, oh, that one is out of style right now, and I do enjoy hearing about the grave injustices that strike down everyone, everyday, but too much of it comes off as extremely shallow and rather self-righteous.