The Top 10 Twitter Mistakes

Avoid common Twitter errors

There are certain things that Twitter users do every day that are really irritating. This often results in a loss of followers or being blocked by users. You can avoid this.

It's what everyone does

Many of the top ten Twitter errors are made because people do 'what other people do'. Anyone can have an account - not everyone is an expert - and just because others do it, that doesn't mean it's right.

It might be simpler than you think

I've met a lot of people who are put off using Twitter because they take a look and just don't understand what's going on. What's going on is that they are seeing people making common mistakes! Friday follows? Hashtags? What are these things? Luckily, you don't need to know.

I hope these tips help

Instructions:

1. Social media is all about adding value.

This user added goodness knows how many photographs to Facebook and had them automatically tweet.

Yep,one tweet for each one.

How does that add value to me as a follower? It doesn't.

All it tells me is a) this person is too lazy to use the two media separately and b) um ... he / she uploaded photographs.Am I going to look at them? No. I have no idea what they are. They could be something nasty that would put me of my lunch.

2. This is even worse and again, is using the automatic facility. At least with the person above I knew that they were posting photographs.

Here I have no idea so there's no way I'm going to click through.

3. Just because you have 140 characters, there's no need to use them.

In fact, no-one will retweet you if you do.

See the example on the right. As you can see,there are eight more characters than Twitter allows. If I was to retweet this, I'd have to carefully edit it.

I don't have the time to do that and the chances are that your followers won't either. It would have been so easy for the person to shorten the message (1hr, he's etc.)

Make it easy for your followers and use 120 characters or less.

4. Don't be hard to understand.

Yes,it's possible to work out what this means but again, why make it hard for followers?Maybe they think that being cryptic encourages people to click on the link?

Nope.

5. The magical mystery tour.

Well, at least it's not a Facebook link, but why should I click? There's no reason at all.

In fact, the link leads to today's menu specials from a local cafe - I'm interested in that. But writing 'today's specials >' would have been much better than 'TGIF'.

The fact that the person who tweeted it is glad that it's Friday is no incentive to me.

6. Please speak my language.

I have never tweeted in Spanish. The extent of my knowledge of Spanish is, more or less, knowing how to ask for a glass of wine.

For some reason that is beyond me I also know that 'aspiradora' means vacuum cleaner but that's my lot.

Why are you wasting time sending me pointless tweets in a language I don't understand?

7. Don't spam me and do check your facts.

This was sent to one of my accounts. They want to help me grow my Facebook page - but that account doesn't have one.

8. Don't spoil useful information.

Leaving aside the typo on the very first word, this tweet gives useful information.

But why the link?

Firstly, it really doesn't give me any information that enhances the message. Secondly it takes me to a Facebook page that is totally pointless.I got the message just fine from the tweet.

I don't need a static weather map (that will be out of date in no time) to enhance my experience.

I am not three.

9. This is just wrong.

Like the tweet above, the first word is incorrect.

This is a fairly expensive hotel - if they don't know how to use an apostrophe properly, will they calculate my bill correctly?

Where does the link take me? YouTube. Not to a video about the hotel either; just a general guide to the area.

Think for a minute.Why am I following you? It's either because I live locally and enjoy your restaurants and bars. Or because I'm coming to stay with you soon. Either way, I don't need general info about the area.

And why aren't you taking me to your own branded website or blog where I can peruse your menus, see what special cocktails you have right now or see your special offers?

10. Don't use pointless hashtags.

In fact, don't do anything that you don't fully understand.

Why have the people who added #socialmedia to their tweets done so?

You can see that if I search for that hashtag, results pop up every few seconds. No-one will follow that.You'll see #FF (FollowFriday) and there's absolutely no reason to do that either.

Think of Twitter as being cocktail party - just share your information and chat.Be yourself - be honest - enjoy it.

From a marketing point of view, the worst mistake you can make is sending your followers to third party sites. Why send them to Facebook or YouTube when you can send them to your own site or blog?

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