Five years on Twitter doesn’t sound like a long time, however in the world of social media, it is, says Carolyn Hyams from marketing recruitment agency Firebrand Talent.

I have learned so much along the way, building my own following, but also that of Firebrand’s, which now has more than 33,000 followers.

Here are some things I learned you should not do on Twitter if you want to market yourself or your business.

Twitter #fails

1. Do not set up Auto DMs for new followers. It really annoys people.
2. Do not “protect your tweets”. What’s the point of using Twitter for marketing if people can’t see your tweets? It’s particularly amusing when I see marketers do this.
3. Do not set up a spam filter for your tweets. Most people won’t follow through with the filter and follow you. This is a red flag for why you’re not getting new followers.
4. Do not schedule your tweets so that multiple tweets suddenly appear in your stream at the same time. You will be labelled a spammer and people will unfollow you.
5. Do not use anything other than a photo of yourself or company logo for your Avatar if you want to be taken seriously (eg. your pet hamster). People prefer to engage with people, so a photo of yourself is recommended, even above a company logo if possible. Put the company logo on your Twitter background instead.
6. Unless you’re a food blogger, don’t tweet what you had for breakfast/lunch/dinner. People don’t care and you’re wasting their time.
7. Stay away from banal tweets. I read one the other day that said “Went to scratch my nose and poked myself in the eye”. Immediate unfollow! Am I being harsh?
8. And while I’m at it, don’t tweet about sex or religion unless this is your area of specialisation and that’s what you’re marketing.
9. Don’t treat Twitter as a broadcast channel – do more listening and engaging than talking.
10. Do not overly promote yourself. Be generous, add value and share a lot. It’s the best kind of promotion you can do.

To see the rest of Hyam’s list of 18 Twitter fails, click here.