12 Twitter Mistakes You Should Avoid

Posted by John Paul in Twitter

Twitter Mistakes To Avoid

Twitter can be one of the best things you can do for your blog, brand or business and at the same time, Twitter can be your biggest waste of time.

Trust.. I know by experience that Twitter can EASILY become addictive and suck time out of your day haha

That’s why you need to have your end goal in mind from what you want from Twitter. This will help you stay focused and on point and not get sucked into wasting unproductive hours on Twiitter.

To get the most out of Twitter, knowing what NOT to do is just as important as what you NEED to do.

Some mistakes are small and some are bigger

and have more of a negative impact on your efforts, but either way, they should all be fixed to give you the best chance at reaching your goals on Twitter.

Today I wanted to share 12 Twitter Mistakes that I have learned from personal experience and some from common sense.

1. Not Sharing YOU

For me, I believe keeping it personal is best and that means using your own face as your avatar and using your name.

If you have a blog, then you want to be your brand, that way that brand can be taken to any website or product you release in the future.

Also this is SOCIAL media, and sharing you will make it easier for people to follow you and engage with you since they feel like they know who they are talking to after seeing your face and name.

The only time I would say go with something besides YOU, would be if you have a Twitter account for a product or service, ex: I have this account set up for a new project @MYBLOGGERBUDDY

For that I used the logo image as my avatar and also kept the name of the website, since this account will be mainly sharing info on the site and the users.

Even if you have an account set up for a product or service you should still have a main account that is you, branding you.

2. Not Using Your Background

Your Twitter background is a great place to show your brand, share more info or contact info.

Not taking advantage of this real estate is a big mistake.

Now I will say don’t go overboard, a little branding and info will go a long way.

3. Not Being Active

The best way to get results from your efforts on Twitter is to be there, be active. Now the question is, how much do you need to be there?

I don’t really know haha But I do know the more your there the more you will get out of Twitter.

You need to find what works for you… keep in mind what I shared in the intro

But tweeting twice a day or spending only 10 min a day on Twitter really won’t cut it.

At the same time, being there all day or sending tweets every 10 min 24 hrs a day won’t cut it either.

I recommend a tweet every hour or so in chunks.  Meaning, tweet a few messages in morning then a few in afternoon and then a few at night.  That way you get in front of the most people thru the day.

You don’t want to be a spammer, but you need to show activity, people will connect with you faster if they see your active daily.

4. You Talk Too Much

I learned this the hard way, when I started Twitter I never shut up lol

I blame my childhood, people always said I would be a great lawyer

On Twitter you can talk, but you need to listen much more. You need to engage with people, share with people.

If you share a post, then be available to chat it up after the fact with anyone that makes a comment or has a question, this applies to your posts or any post you share.

Ok off topic a little but if you share something make sure you read it first.  Many many times when I share someone else’s post or a websites post, people will come to me to chat it up or ask a question, sometimes in a negative way haha  even though I didn’t write the post.

Your followers will come to you because they know you and will chat up the post with you even though it’s not yours, so read everything you share and be ready for the feedback.

5. Following Anyone

I know the power of having a huge following has on people cming to Twitter, but you have to resist, you need to focus on following/connecting with targeted people in your niche.

If you’re a blogger then follow or find bloggers, it makes no send for you to follow people that don’t even know what blogging is.. right?

Ex: if you sold tanning lotion, would you go to make sales?

Miami Beach or Anchorage Alaska?  I hope you said Miami haha

You want to view your following the same way.

6. Tweeting Too Much

This builds of Mistake #3 above.

Here is what will happen if you tweet to many times.

1.    You will annoy your followers and lose them
2.    Your messages will lose power and people will start to ignore them
3.    You will get much less RTs on your posts
4.    You will lose traffic to your blog

Now to me, those are all BIG reason to watch how you tweet.

You should follow a tweet schedule.. I have one that has taken me 2 years to perfect for me.

Like I shared in #3 above, you want to tweet a few messages in the morning a few in the afternoon and few at night.

If that is working for you, then test sending a couple more messages thru the day and see how that works, till you find a nice schedule of having an active stream that isn’t annoying.

Once you have a system in place then you can add some random tweets of what’s happening in your life or whatever.

7. It’s Too Much About You

I know I know you are so wonderful that you want the world to know it.. but on Twitter this just won’t work.

Sharing “Your Stuff” is ok, but you should be sharing other people stuff much more.  Keep it to about a 70-30 or if your new a 80-20.

This way, you don’t come off as a bot or pushy.

When you share other people stuff, you will still benefit, remember what I said in #4, “people will come to you to chat up a link you shared even when it’s not yours”: so you will get the feedback, the engagement.

You will become the go to guy/girl for great tweet shares, which will help your own shares get more attention.

8. Not Connecting

I have said this one pretty much EVERY Twitter post I have written, and yet it still needs to be said.

If you are on Twitter and are NOT engaging with your followers then you might as well go back to Myspace.

Engaging on Twitter is as important as it is in a relationship or marriage.

How long would your marriage or relationship last if you never communicated together?  Not long right?

On Twitter, if you are not engaging your followers, you will not last!

9. Scheduling With No Follow Up

I know this is a hot topic for people, to schedule or not to schedule haha

I say schedule schedule schedule

You see scheduling is not the issue, the issue is scheduling with no follow up.

There would only be one difference between these two groups..

Group A schedules and is there to engage after each and every tweet.

Group B doesn’t schedule, but they look for tweets as they need and send them out and are there to engage after each and every tweet.

What would the difference be?   Group B would have wasted a lot of time thru out the day.

How the tweet goes out doesn’t matter, what matters is what you do once the tweet is sent!

10. Not Being Helpful

Want to know the best way to build a community on Twitter and drive traffic to your blog?

Be helpful. Fix Problems.

Helping people with a problem they have will get you a follower for life.

When you help people, you automatically make yourself the “expert” in that area, or at least the expert to them.

11. Do You Have A Personality

This goes along with #1 above.  People connect with people they know, or feel they know.

Same advice you have been given to build a successful blog is to write with your personality, can and should be applied to Twitter

If your funny, then be funny on Twitter. If you have a love for sports then share some of that on Twitter.

Again here, a little bit goes a long way.

For me, if you ever met me in person, you would see that I am the same guy I am on my blog and Twitter.

Be Real, Be You

12. Spamming – Spammer

This is a BIG pet peeve for me lately. Getting spam from spammers pushing teeth whitening, or electric cigs is bad, but you deal with it.

The spam I been getting lately is from fellow bloggers I respect and think of as friends.

Tweeting people your link to a new post or something of yours is spam..PERIOD!

Here is why… whatever you @me all my followers will see, now when you spam me your link you took away the ability for me to review what it was first before I shared it with my followers.

For me, and I hope for you, you should be very choosy with what you share whether it’s yours or not.  What you share makes you who you are on Twitter and @me your link takes that away.. hence.. Spam

What you should do, is DM me the link, that way you give me the op to read it, and if I like it, I will share it.  This is the way RIGHT way to share with people on Twitter.

OK, now for my buddy the Direct Message.

Kinda like scheduling tweets, DM’s are not the issue, what you send in the DM is the issue how many times you say it.

Sending one DM to a new followers saying something like.. “Hey thanks for the follow, learn more about me at “your about me page” or your “Twitter landing page”” is perfectly fine.

Now if you send that DM with a new biz idea, or selling a product, that is when your DM becomes Spam.

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Wow.. a lot of negativity in this post haha  But sometimes you have to share the bad things to help.

Hopefully this post helped you see a few things you may or may not be doing and how to fix them. Keep your learning going and grab my Free Marketing With Twitter Guide and get all my Twitter tips.

If you have any other Twitter Mistakes, share them in the comments below

Tags: Twitter, twitter dummy, twitter followers, twitter marketing, twitter mistake, twitter mistakes