Top 4 Twitter Traps to Avoid

As more and more people discover the power of social networking and jump on the Twitter bandwagon, the social media landscape will become more cluttered. Somewhere in that Twitter chaos is your brand. How do you avoid getting overlooked and dismissed? Provident Partners synopsizes several important traps to avoid:

1. Me, Me, Me!

 Tweeting constantly about what you’re eating, wearing and sneezing in the past hour is a guaranteed follower dropper. The key to having a good Twitter presence is balancing your personal Tweets with Tweets that interact with your followers. Make sure your tweets are interesting enough to let your followers know who you really are. They should be informative, giving your followers access to the content they want. Think of your Twitter as a way of mixing business with pleasure.

2. Insane Follower Fridays

When Friday rolls around, be sure you have a list of users to plug to your own followers. These should be your favorite users, those who reciprocate online love. Be proud to suggest them to others. Limit your suggestions; otherwise your followers will think you’re just looking for someone to scratch your back. Along the same lines, don’t go crazy following bunches of accounts in hopes that they’ll follow you back. This screams nothing but desperate!

3. ReTweeting Everything

ReTweeting everything may give you a risk of bombarding your followers with information they already know. Think about it- if you operate within a specific niche, and many of your followers operate within that niche, then reTweeting other’s Tweets simply clutters the timeline with the same content. If you must reTweet, have a good reason why and try to include your own spin on it.

4. Unnecessary @s

It’s exciting to get your first mention, but it’s also easy to get caught up in the moment. Before you respond, carefully evaluate your options. First, you need to make sure the user is not a robot by checking their profile. Second, look at their Twitter history and followers. Always remember to ask yourself, is that a brand you want to associate yourself with? If so, go ahead and give them a mention. (Note: Don’t let the conversation go for more than a response since it is often frustrating for the other users to read.)

There’s a learning curve but a solid and successful twitter presence will take into account all of the above ideas. Twitter followers can be a great ROI when treated correctly, an important aspect of any marketing campaign.