Twitter has proven to be a valuable tool in the world of business promotion, as many companies have set up profiles and started tweeting. While you may be familiar with Twitter and how to use it, there’s a good chance that you may be making a mistake in promoting your business through the social network. Many business owners don’t use Twitter correctly, and it ends up costing them customers in the long run.
Common Twitter Business Mistakes
Here are some of the most common business mistakes made on Twitter and how to avoid them. See if you are guilty of committing some of them.
1. Not Completing Your Twitter Profile
One of the most common mistakes that businesses make is that they do not complete their profile. They sign up for an account and immediately start sending out tweets. While there’s nothing wrong with getting involved right off the bat, you do need to take the time to complete your profile.
In the profile, you should upload a picture and put a link to your website. Provide some information about your company, so that people will know exactly who they’re dealing with.
2. Going Overboard With Sales Content
Although there is nothing wrong with occasionally sending a link to one of your products on Twitter, you don’t want to overdo it. People don’t get on Twitter to be constantly bombarded by advertisements and commercial spam. They get on there to get relevant information that they are interested in. If they are nice enough to follow you, don’t try to hard sell them all the time.
3. Not Following Others
Many businesses get on Twitter with the sole intention of getting as many followers as possible and then sending out marketing messages. While you do want to get a lot of followers on Twitter, you still need to follow some people yourself. When you follow others on Twitter, it shows that you are interested in the social networking aspect of the site instead of just trying to promote yourself.
When you follow others, you can also get some great information from the site. It’s usually a great idea to get involved with the network and have some discussions with other people.
4. Tweeting in Bulk
Some businesses make the mistake of getting online and sending out a large amount of messages at the same time. They think that they can just do multiple messages all at once and people will read them. If you want people to check out your messages, you need to spread them out a little bit.
There are automation programs that you can use to time your messages being posted. Just make sure you don’t tweet a lot all at once and then go for a long time without doing it.
5. Not Replying
When someone mentions you on Twitter or directly talk to you, it is important to respond to them. Many businesses make the mistake of not replying to people or not thanking them for the mention. You don’t want to seem aloof or as if you don’t care about your customers.
Whenever you have an opportunity, be sure to respond to the messages that you are receiving. It may not be possible to respond to them all, but you do need to make it known that you respond to as many as you can.
6. Retweeting Your Own Retweets
Another mistake that many businesses make is retweeting their own retweets. For example, when someone retweets one of your tweets, you then retweet that message. This looks like you are congratulating yourself, which is not really a good thing.
Have you found yourself making some of those mistakes?
If you have your own tips how to avoid messing up your business on Twitter, please share with us.
[Main Image by LeWeb, Flickr, Creative Commons CC BY 2.0]
This post was written by Andrew Handley, remembering his beginnings as a blogger. Now, as an experienced writer and blogger he works at midislandcollision.com.
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