We've all made mistakes when tweeting or posting on our social media platforms. Who hasn't posted something with a spelling mistake or syntax error, right?
However there's a difference between making a mistake on Twitter, which we're all good at forgiving, and looking bad on Twitter. When you begin to look bad on Twitter, people don't want to follow you anymore. Ideal prospects can become annoyed, or frustrated, or feel that you are insincere.
Looking bad on Twitter can hurt your brand and your bottom line. Avoid these 10 mistakes to ensure that you will keep the community you've built.
1. You LOVE the CAPS LOCK button
When you type in ALL CAPS it translates as 'screaming' or 'yelling'. No one wants to be yelled at.
Instead, if you're going to use all capital letters, use it for a single word. For example, "Don't go through life, GROW through life."
In this instance, I put the word "grow" in all caps because I wanted to emphasize the word change. I wanted to add further power to the word "grow".
With all caps, it is best to use the philosophy; less is more.
2. You like to complain!
Ever read a friend's tweets, only to feel bombarded by their endless tirades and complaints? It's like they've found their 140 character soap box. How does it make you feel?
Twitter is not a place to voice your complaints. It may feel like an easy outlet because you can release without experiencing any sort of major backlash. But, behind the scenes, in a quieter, less obvious way, your followers are beginning to 'unfollow' you and you are losing your good reputation.
Remember, what you post on the web, stays on the web forever. If you're feeling out of sorts or need to complain, pick up a physical journal and then burn the paper afterward. You'd be surprised how much more satisfying and freeing this can be.
3. You Act Like a Know-It-All
No one likes a know-it-all. We didn't in Elementary school and we certainly don't now. Part of the beauty of being an expert is that you are comfortable with the fact that you don't know it all.
Followers have more fun engaging in a conversation with you than they do in simply gleaning facts and tips and techniques from you.
4. You Only Share Quotes & Pictures
Quotes and pictures are fun. They can be inspiring and engaging. However, if that's ALL you post, followers will lose interest. They want to read what you have to say. They want to know about your thoughts and ideas.
In only sharing quotes, you put up a wall and make it harder for your followers to get to know you.
Share your own thoughts and ideas! Then, ask for feedback.
5. You Ignore Your 25,000 followers
You worked HARD to gain your 25,000 followers, or whatever number it is for you. Don't blow it by ignoring them. Each one is a potential customer or joint venture partner. If you never truly engage with them, you will never make a sale on twitter.
Not convinced? Okay, so maybe you only have 1000 followers. However, through real engagement you can convert many of them to customers. Even if you only convert 5%, that's still 50 new customers! Wouldn't you like to have 50 more sales?
6. You don't leave space to Retweet!
Yes, you have 140 characters, but if you use them all, then your followers have a hard time retweeting. Worse yet, you leave it up to your followers to butcher or abbreviate your tweet.
Part of the fun of retweeting is that you get to share why you like the tweet so much. If there's no room to do that, where's the joy in retweeting?
Instead, as a rule of thumb, keep your tweets to 120 characters or less.
7. You don't share the love
You love it when others promote you on Twitter, right? Therefore, keep the energy of giving and receiving high by promoting others in your tweets as well. Retweeting or @mentioning a follower can go a long way in building your know, like and trust factor.
8. You self-promote ALL the Time!
It is important that you talk about your business and share links to blogs and promotions and the like. However, this should not make up more than 25% of your marketing message!
Anything more than 25% and it feels like you care more about your bottom line you’re your connections. We've all seen the people who do it. Suddenly your Twitter feed is full of self-promotion tweets from the same person. Or, you recognize a tweet from a specific person and don't click on it because you know it's a sales pitch. Right?
Don't become known as the over-self-promoter.
9. You Overload on #Hashtags
Ex. I #love #earlgreytea in the #morning!! #inspiration #wakingup #am
Just because you can use hashtags, doesn't mean they need to be apart of every sentence. Hashtags should be left to your keyword phrases and one social linking phrase.
For example, with the above tweet, I need to make a decision: Do I want to connect with earl grey tea drinkers, or do I want to connect with those just waking up? Going for both is splitting my focus and hurting my chances of connecting with either group.
10. You Ask General Questions
Don't be the person to get onto Twitter and ask, "How's everyone doing?" This is a vague question that makes no one feel special.
A vague question leaves the follower wondering, "do you really want to know, or are you just asking because you think you should?" Insincerity can quickly hurt your know, like and trust factor.
Get specific with your questions, "What are you doing to boost your energy this afternoon? I'm eating a #lunabar." ßAren't you more interested in engaging, now?
Who knew that there were so many things you could do "badly" in 140 characters. Don't worry. We're all learning and everyone makes mistakes. You are doing the right thing by becoming aware of twitter do's and don'ts. Take what you've learned here and begin watching how you tweet.
What's one action you are going to improve upon with your tweets now?
Please comment and share…
Some great points, Kim! I especially like the last 5 but all 10 are on the money … I might also add that while it's nice to be 'conversational,' a little of this goes a long way … To this end, if I'm following someone who's constantly tweeting "Good one @soandso!" … "Can you relate @soandso?" … "Did you catch that @soandso?" etc., since I'm not in the convo loop (and have no clue what they're referring to!), I'll unfollow even if I enjoy some of their other content …
Hi Kim,
I love you emails and the suggestions you have. Been there done that. I've tested questions, and the ones that actually get the best feedback and interaction are the ones with specific questions and interaction from my side.
Many thanks
Great information, Kim. I learn something from you every time we "meet!" I will leave room for retweets going forward. Thanks also for the official reminder calling for less self-promotion; too many of my clients want to avoid social media altogether because they don't want to appear like all they do is bang their own drum. I tell them their instincts are correct — and encourage them to jump into social media.
Kim, this was a great article! My change: keep it under 120 characters! Thanks.
These 10 Do's/Don'ts are very helpful for building your brand awareness and connecting with your target audience.
Thanks Kim!
Glad they are helpful Ceil!
Great article Kim. These should be guidelines for everyone who signs up for Twitter!! It's great having all of these tips in one place as a reminder of just how important it is to be engaging in the right way. Probably my biggest pet peeve is the "self-promotion" tweep! It definitely will make me think every time I tweet!!! Thanks for sharing!!
Great tips for newbies, but also good reminders for the experienced tweeters out there. Knowing the rules makes it much easier to play the game!
Absolutely!
IMHO, saying do not self-promote ALL the Time! it's a too wide statement. There are brands that precisely do that on Twitter and they are very successful. If you build a specific audience interested only in your products and services (e.g your discounts& offers), I don't see any problem with self-promoting.
Oh how I dislike all caps and too many hash marks blah! They just get on my last nerve. People should have to read your blog before using Twitter. It should just be a rule!
Hi Kim! Thanks for sharing with us this tips. I find them very useful since I have started using Twitter recently and I have noticed that most people tweet based on quotes. Don't get me wrong, i like quotes but this makes everything sound kind of impersonal to me. Flors
Thanks for stopping in, Flors!
Hey Kim great post, I agree with most of your list. There are some people, businesses or blogs I follow or follow me in question. Yes it is true that there are self loathers that clearly do not understand the word over-bearing.
I can appreciate HI SOCIALS(sorry for the CAP LOCK button thingy…haha)statement, but also I am in agreement with you. So if we were taking a poll right now, we would have just come up with 50%.
See you, everywhere! Promote you, everywhere! Be you, everywhere! Just made that up.
~ Cheers
Love seeing your comments, Bryan! Hope you keep dropping by!
6. is wrong. You can press the retweet button which will retweet the whole thing.
#6 doesn’t address the retweet button. It is simply a suggestion to allow room to retweet.
These are some of my pet peeves too! Plus the fact that so many people only autopost. It is hard to engage with a robot.
Right?
Thank you for the advice…. no matter that we know these things in face to face dealings…. it is often the small things we miss, that actually make the bigger picture worth looking at…
Q: is a personal/business website more effective than the social media one?.. and if one has a personal/business site with the appropriate social media links… How does one get the "traffic" – I write music reviews and want to now go off on my own…
Wonderful tips! Every Twitter user should read this and should not abuse their freedom of speech.
thanks for the share.
Sorry to be late to the discussion…
I'm not too thrilled with auto DMs. Especially from people who don't follow back. Or when it's just an excuse to spam. Or both.
DM’s work if used properly. Most don’t use them properly, unfortunately.
I have a confession to make – I tend to trim the people I am following, simply because my newsfeed tends to become nightmarish and I miss the tweets that matter the most to me. I must be a slow learner – what do I do?
Meanwhile, thanks for a very informative post.
Build some lists on Twitter, Victor…it will really save you a ton of time and you can keep up with those that you want to very easily without ‘trimming’ followers
Posts that are just a link to a facebook post. I use Twitter in a school (for work!) but facebook is blocked and so links don't work.
Totally agree, Linda!
Hello Kim,
. I will be doing my best to apply some of your tips. Have a lovely week!
Thank you so much for the tips! I am the one making lots of mistakes
Hope the info helped, Marilda!
HHi have just opened a twitter account for the first time and haven't even sent a tweet yet just been on it a couple of time to get the hang of it.
the info from this post will come in very hhandy so thanks lee
Welcome to Twitter Lee!