Jay Leonard
Are you making these Twitter mistakes without knowing? In my youth, my Uncle George always helped comfort me when I made a silly mistake by saying “Gerry, you don’t know what you don’t know. So, make the mistake once, learn from it and never make it again!” Little did Uncle George know that this was great Twitter advice!
I have been a social media coach to over thousand marketers, sales executives, business owners and friends, showing them how to use Twitter to advance their business, selling and personal branding agenda. Knowing what mistakes to avoid is just as valuable as doing the right things!
As an adjunct marketing professor at St. Joseph’s University I challenge my students with one ‘mistakes’ exercise. I ask them to name ten things they would do to ‘kill a brand’, like Coke. By turning the cup upside down, they can understand the mistakes they can avoid when building a brand. The same advice about Twitter mistakes applies to your account and your brand!
10 Twitter Mistakes You Might Be Guilty Of Making
- Not Including Your Name In Your Twitter Settings. If you do not register the name that you most often refer to yourself, then no one can find you when they search fo you on Twitter. For example, when you search “Gerry Moran Twitter”, I show up as “The latest from Gerry Moran (@GerryMoran). Head of Social Media for SAP in North America. “ Even though “Gerry Moran” is not in my bio, Google can get access to the meta data that you cannot see. If you do not have your name in your bio, then no one can find you if you search for you on Twitter. They must rely on know your business’ name or some other identifier.
- Not Including Your Company Name In Your Twitter Bio. Sometimes people search for titles of people within an organization. If you work for a well-known, or even not so well-known, big brand, agency or other organization, then note it in your bio, so it will show up in a wider search. For example, if you work for HBO as a social media expert and someone wants to tap your expertise as a speaker at SXSW, then you will not be on the search list!
- Not Being You In Your Profile. You have lots of room for humanizing your personal or company brand in your Twitter bio, so take advantage of it. If it’s not working for you after you make your changes, then change it again. Your Twitter bio is the place you can be you in 16o characters.
- Not Allowing People To Follow You Without Your Approval. Why are you afraid of being followed? No one will steal your bank pin number if you are followed The only thing being stolen is a potential follower’s time, and that is the real crime.
- Not Including Your Picture In Your Bio. Without a picture included on your Twitter profile, you are immediately positioned you as a social media poser with no ‘cred’. This mistake is the easiest one to solve.
- Not Linking Your Account To Your Blog Or LinkedIn. Your Twitter profile does not tell your entire story. So, connect visitors to you other key landing destination like your blog or your LinkedIn profile!
- Not Keeping Your Account Active With Tweets. Emarketer reports (July, 2013) that there are 58 million daily tweets sent out by the 554, 750,000 registered and active Twitter users. You have to play to stay relevant on Twitter. This means you should be tweeting five to ten times daily so you can increase your following and contribute to the value-add of your current followers. If you don’t tweet daily then you will be left in the ‘twust’ (i.e., Twitter dust)
- Not Creating Lists To Effectively Organize Your Tweets. Lists are a great way for you, to publicly and privately, organize people you follow on Twitter. It’s a way for your to manage the ‘firehose’ of thousands of streams of Twitter content. Since Twitter allows you to have 1,000 lists with 5,000 accounts per set, you should use them to help you get a handle!
- Not Retweeting. Dan Zarrella reports that only 1.5% of tweets are retweeted. This low figure indicates your opportunity to get on the radar of others and build your social tribe with thought leaders! Don’t leave “social currency on the table” and invest in others’ content!
- Not Responding To DM’s, RT’s and Mentions. Even my old Uncle George taught me to say thank you and respond to people who reach out to you. It’s good manners and good brand building respond to direct messages and to thank others when they RT or mention you!
Do you have another mistake that you have overcome? If so, please share it below! Or, contact me directly at MarketingThink.com or on Twitter @GerryMoran.
Do you need some help with getting your Twitter profile and skills up to snuff, so you can avoid these Twitter mistakes? Then check out these posts to help you create the :
- Perfect Twitter profile
- Perfect Tweet
- Profile picture that won’t scare anyone
- Create the perfect retweet
Remember what my Uncle George said about making mistakes … just don’t make them when you know that you are making them. This list of 10 Twitter mistakes you might be making should be a step in the right direction.
Read more: Twitter Mistakes You Need To Avoid
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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Dear Gerry Moran
Nice post. Even I use twitter for promoting my projects and my own blog posts, I rarely writes about effective usage of twitter account for business promotions. Hope you will publish a new post about Twitter advantage in SEO and achieving better social signals
Hello Mr Moran
Lots of fantastic advice here! Could you please tell me how to create the ‘Twitter lists’ to better organize my Tweets? :-)
Thanks a lot
Kit