Twitter is one of the ultimate social networking tools of it’s time. It’s so much more than 140 character updates about where you’re driving to, the lady who cut you off in line at the grocery store (who does she think she is?!), and random banter about horrible haircuts from the new barber in town. Twitter allows you personally interact with industry leaders who you haven’t had the chance to meet yet (networking), monitor what’s being said about your company and it’s services/products (online reputation management), build creditability, find targeted sales leads, and so much more. But with all that said, it’s all too easy to use Twitter incorrectly as well. If you find yourself not being able to build your Twitter followers up, here are 3.5 easy mistakes you could be making right now:
1) You’re inactive
No one wants to continue following you if you can’t provide anything of value. Whether it’s a crazy lifestyle that everyone wants themselves and accidently wants to hear about, or it’s good content and links, if you aren’t using your account, you have no value given to your followers. Tools such as Untweeps which will let Twitter users unfollow friends who don’t tweet often.
2) It’s all about you, you, you
You know the type, in fact you probably follow some yourself. All they Tweet about is themselves and to top it off, they don’t really provide anything of value. If you want to build creditability with your followers, network, and make new friends, it’s crucial that you engage with your audience. Ask your followers questions, give them feedback, do some retweets, or just say, “Thanks for that great link!” It’s not rocket science.
3) You can’t keep your twmouth shut
Depending on the audience you’re after, tweeting too much is just as bad as not tweeting enough. Just like email, no one wants their stream or lists spammed by any one person. Find a happy medium of tweeting especially if you are auto feeding your Twitter from RSS feeds.
3.5) You’re trying to please everyone
This is also another area of great debate but I think it’s worth mentioning. Mixing business and pleasure is sometimes a little tricky, too tricky if you ask me. Personally, I use my business Twitter account solely for business and my personal has a slight mix of the two. Granted, with my personal account I’ll provide personal updates as well as links to news people might find interesting, I don’t do any hardcore business work with the account. In reality, the main purpose of my personal Twitter account is for networking because for my truly personal updates, I use Facebook (privacy). That way I don’t need to worry about a random Tweet which clients might read and raise a red flag to. And with that said, I do have client’s on my Facebook account too, but only the clients who I truly call friends and who I trust 100%.
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What are your thoughts? Did I miss anything?
There’s a bunch of stuff that isn’t on the list but for the sake of this comment, I just wanted to expand on #2. I think the worst is when businesses try to use Twitter to give more exposure to their company but all they do is end up spamming with non relevant tweets or just keep trying to use twitter to advertise. I see it a lot in the dental industry…
Eric, DL Dental
@eric You’re right on both counts! True, there is a bunch that can go on the list and true, businesses spamming Twitter is all to real!