Twitter is becoming more and more a part of marketing in today’s social media networking world. Deciphering how to use the different social media networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube and Twitter can be a daunting task. There is protocol and unspoken rules about what is appropriate and what is frowned upon. If you are already tweeting, or plan to start a Twitter account for your business these key four mistakes to avoid will help you create an account that is worth following.
1. Personality. Does your Twitter account have a Persona?
While LinkedIn is a very professional social networking platform, Twitter on the other hand is a more laid back, fun and personal realm. Being professional in the professional world is a good thing, but in the social media realm, users want to see a personality. Take a moment and create a persona for your company or the product/ service. Then decided who is the ideal customer for your business. From this information create a Twitter voice and tweet from this point of view. It’s fun and a strategic way to connect with your ideal customer. This way your tweets will reflect the proper personality for your business.
2. Are your Tweets RT-able?
You are allowed 140 character spaces in a regular tweet. This means you have to consolidate what you want to say and still leave room so the tweet can be re-tweeted. This means leaving approximately 12-20 spaces available. Look at this as a challenge! There are many standard abbreviations such as u for ‘you’, 4 instead of ‘four’ w/ instead of with, etc. Another space saver is using a URL shortener such bit.ly or Tiny URL. Another key to the re-tweet is obviously tweeting interesting or fun content.
3. Do Your Tweets have Value?
What is value? Value is sharing links you find interesting that coincide with your businesses or brand, answering questions from other tweeters, re-tweeting posts that your followers would appreciate. When you post about your business or with link to your website make sure it is interesting. Try post on a regular basis- whether it’s three times each day or your schedule is to post four times every other day it’s important to have a presence. You’re tweets are more valuable if you are consistent with your posting and don’t have large gaps when you don’t post at all. Think about what you would like to receive before tweeting. Providing value is the key to getting people to trust you.
4. Me, Me, Me: Too Much Self-Promoting
Twitter is a great marketing too, but you only use it to promote your business, your followers will see this and quickly tire of you. Create a ‘tweeting plan’ and decide what percentage of tweets will focus on to re-tweets, tweeting related content to your product or business and tweets focusing on or promoting you business. It’s important to find a balance because if all you do is self promote you will not encourage engagement with your followers and can potentially lose them as followers. Remember Twitter is a social media- it’s a shift in the marketing mindset. Traditional marketing was pushing out information through ads, flyers, postcards, TV, radio that was overtly selling your product or service. Social media marketing is using a platform that requires creating relationships with followers. If you keep this in mind and realize it’s important to listen to what others are saying, and thoughtfully engage others in conversation you can begin to build real contacts and connections.
