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
- Do not set up Auto DMs for new followers. It really annoys people.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
- Don’t treat Twitter as a broadcast channel – do more listening and engaging than talking.
- 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.
