Twitter is my favorite social media platform after blogging. Believe it or not, I actually can talk to every one of the 3,000 plus people following me, although I have limited myself to just over 850 of them. You never know who I’ll talk to or when, but I pride myself on at least trying to talk to people and share things with them and by them.
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However, there are people who don’t quite get the nuances of Twitter. There are a lot of people following way more people than I am and have a lot more people following them. But are they effective? Some are, some aren’t, and some are just irritating. Let’s look at 5 mistakes people do on Twitter.
1. They either only post links or chatter all day long. If someone keeps up a diatribe all day long of what they’re doing or just posts links, it often means they’re not trying to communicate with anyone else. Unless you’re just someone I need to follow because you’re giving me exactly what I need to succeed, I’m not following anyone that selfish, and it is selfish, and not too many other people will either. If they do, you can bet they’re either bots or people who aren’t reading what you’re putting out, and are only in it for the numbers.
2. They never respond when someone writes them directly. Twitter sends everyone a notification whenever someone writes them directly. If you don’t respond it means you’re not paying attention, or you’ve possibly turned it off, in which case you’re showing you don’t care. Someone like me will unfollow you as soon as possible; then again, someone like me checks to see if you ever talk to anyone before I even think about following you.
3. You never put out anything original. Many people find that they can get a lot of following by retweeting the content of others; retweet basically means sharing what someone else has already posted with the people that follow them. It’s not a bad strategy unless you never put out anything original, which means someone you write, or ever offer an opinion about anything you share. That often means what you’re doing is automated, and even though some people appreciate it no matter what, others know they’re missing the chance to engage you personally.
4. When you do engage people, or share your thoughts, your language is that of someone who doesn’t know any better. I hate cussing; have never uttered a single word. I’ve gotten used to seeing it here and there online, but some people use bad language as a badge of honor. It’s not, and it makes you look ignorant, even if a few people laugh. If you’re on Twitter for any business purposes you’ll want to restrict that kind of language. Remember, everything you say on Twitter stays on the internet forever, and now is being recorded by the Library of Congress; how’s that for forever?
5. You haven’t set up your bio properly. When you set up a Twitter account you get to create a very short bio. If you’re there for even a little bit of business you need to remember to put a link to your website or blog, and not a shortened or hidden link because that looks suspicious. Some people don’t put a bio at all; that won’t do. Some people try to get cute; if it’s for personal use then by all means, but for business tell people what you do. On my Twitter bio I have a link to one of my blogs as well as my main business site. And you need to put up a picture or an avatar of some kind; no one likes to follow the little egg they give you when you sign up.
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