Your business is on Twitter your doing Social Media..

Okay so you’re on the shiny new uber digital thing-emy-whatist- you’re officially a Tweep! Happiness is pushing out your PR and insightful thoughts to the waiting Twitter sphere and awaiting the rush of sales and praise.

However….. Just take a few mins to look through the below list of common Twitternewbie mistakes and start your Tweeting with your best foot forward, it’ll improve your chances of making it work!

1. CAPITAL LETTERS = shouting.

You may be ecstatic about winning Estate Agent of the Known Universe or New HomesBuilder of the century and shout about it around the office, but please DON’T use capitals in Tweets your shouting (in a bad way) at your followers.  It’s very off putting and could result in a loss of followers and credibility.

2. # = #Hashtag #abuse = it’s all about me

Hash tags # are a great way for you to search on popular subjects or create a keyword in your tweets you can track,  like #thinkdigi, just click on a tag to see all the tweets with it in to follow an interesting line of conversation.  However, using more than two in a tweet is a bit spammy and really does not add anything for you or your readers.

3. PR Overload = you’re not listening

The most essential skill to learn when using Twitter is to have big ears and a small ego. While its great place to share news about you and your business just banging out your Press Releases (even worse without keywords or thoughts about who you’re targeting or just letting your agency do it) just says I am talking at you not with you.  It’s a big turn off for both consumers and journalists.

4. Concentrating on follower numbers = quantity not quality = You are a number

Is it better to have ten followers who’d recommend you (which is really that Twitter is best at digital word of mouth) or 500 who do not care about your brand, service or product? What will others think about you and your brand if you are followed by and then follow spammers, dodgy businesses and alike? The rules about protecting your brand reputation are no different just because it’s social media.  Be picky and block unwanted followers, while nurturing your Twitter friends.  Number of followers is not important and it’s really not apt to Tweet out “we only need 10 more for 200 followers” makes your potential and actual audience feel like a bunch of meaningless numbers.  This is not a measure of success or influence.

5. Auto follows or Auto responses = I am a faceless robot

Social Media is about people making connections. While it may seem a good piece of time management to set up an auto thank you to all who follow you (see points 4 and 3) what is really says is I am plainly not interested in you personally/ your another number on my follower count. If you manage a quality follower approach taking a few seconds to say “thanks Dave we look forward to reading your tweets on light bulbs” is far more productive than “..see out blog/website/sale get a discount now”  - which is an approach which is only one removed from the bots that send spam to Tweets on a certain subject.  (I had one from a bedroom company when tweeting about planting out in flower beds?? Needless to say my reaction was negative and shared with my fellow tweeters- result bad PR.)

Effective Social Media, Twitter in particular, can be a powerful tool in developing both on and offline word of mouth, recommendation and testimonials and an effective marketing and sales tool.  This is especially true when you apply the same principals as you would for all your marketing and communication activities- speak to the right person, about the right thing, at the right time in the right place!

See you on Twitter - @thinkBDWdigital #thinkdigi