5 Common Twitter Mistakes to Avoid

Do you use Twitter? If so, you should be aware of some of the most common mistakes made by those attempting to establish a business presence. As a social media network, Twitter is fairly flexible, but what you say and do there can affect your online reputation.

What should you avoid? Here are five common mistakes.

1. Auto-responses. When someone new follows you on Twitter, you can set things up to send them a direct message automatically. Entirely too many people use these to send out an ad. While a simple “thanks for following me” is usually not unwelcome, ads are considered poor taste.

2. Dropping out for a while. Social media requires regular posting and updates. If you drop out for a couple of weeks, you’ll come back to discover that the world has gone on without you and you have fewer or no followers. Try to post regularly. There are sites like Tweet Later than will allow you to set up pre-scheduled posts if you are going to be away from the computer, though these shouldn’t be used all the time.

3. Following everyone who follows you. First of all, this is a waste of time because there will be many people who just want to spam you and are relying on your auto follow. You will also end up with a feed that is full of uninteresting tweets from thousands of people, which is impossible to follow. Stick to following those who worthy of screen time.

4. Posting only links or retweets. While retweeting and promoting other people’s links is a good way to build up relationships and share quality information, too much of this and people will think you have nothing original to say. Make sure some of those tweets are 100% you.

5. Posting “junk” tweets. Does everyone really need to know that you’re doing laundry? If you are doing business online, you need to be very careful about posting mundane, personal things. This is the place to discuss things related to your niche and your business, not your fight with your spouse. Some personal notes are fine, but keep them relevant and interesting.

While Twitter is a great place to make new business contacts and gain traffic, you can make it that much more useful by avoiding these common mistakes. Start out right and you’ll get far more benefit from your social media.