We’re passionate about social media and helping businesses to gain more from it.  With this in mind we’ve taken a look at five common errors you should be avoiding with your Twitter account.

Not having objectives or a purpose

There are two phrases that we here more than any others when we talk to businesses about their social media and Twitter presence:

“I know I need to be using it but I’m not quite sure how or why!”
“I’m too busy to be tweeting all the time!”

The two are linked.  Without focus to your activity your time will be less well spent; it will take you longer to achieve the same goal because you’re not sure what your objectives are.  You’re unfocused.
Who you’re trying to reach, what you’re trying to gain and how it links in with your other marketing and promotional activity should be at the heart of everything you do on Twitter.
What you’re tweeting about, who you’re interacting with, the content you’re favouriting and re-tweeting should all be inextricably linked to the objectives you have.
If you don’t have a reason then why?

Not using social media to be social

So the hint is in the title here; at the centre of all social media activity should be social interaction.
Take a look at your last 100 tweets.
How many of them are outbound tweets from you?
How many are retweets?
How many things have your favourited or commented on?
How many tweets form part of a conversation?
The sum total of the bottom three points should by far outnumber the first question.
The example I always give is if you’re at a dinner party or an evening gathering what impression will people have of you if all you talk about is yourself?  You’ll quickly find people moving toward the other end of the room or making their excuses to head to the bathroom.
Social media is no different.  Show interest in other people and what they do and they’ll ultimately return the favour and you’ll begin to develop social relationships.
The ability to attend an event, to meet new people in the real world and for them to instantly know who you are as a result of your Twitter account is an incredibly powerful tool but you’ll only get to that stage by holding conversations, by interaction and by taking an interest in others.
This will ultimately help you fulfil the goals you’ve set for your activity, no matter what they are.

Thinking it’s all about getting your sales message across

Social media gives us and every other business an audience.  It can therefore be tempting to focus on getting our sales message out there, to tell people what it is we do and who we do it for.  Find a happy balance and don’t make all of your tweets about your services.  This is where content comes in; be informative, give them information of value and once more make it targeted to whom you want to reach.
If you’re sales message is too strong the only thing on the increase will be social dissonance for your message, and not your bottom line.

Following and then Unfollowing

Bit of a bugbear of ours is this violation of social media etiquette.  Now we know there isn’t such a thing but if there were then this would be on the list of definite no no’s!
You’ll get people following you, waiting for a short period of time and then unfollowing if you don’t follow back.  If you do this then why are you doing it?  More often than not it will be to boost your following numbers.
We all love big numbers; website visitors, Facebook likes, Twitter followers, we all want them to be as big as possible but they need to be the right people.
Even if brand awareness is our goal it still needs to be with the right people.
Simply following people to get them to follow you back shouldn’t be the goal.  Following people that are of interest that fit with your objective and then interacting with them should.

Following everybody

The account that is following more than 10 times the amount of followers they have.  You should want to reach the right people so when you follow someone make sure it has a purpose.  We don’t just follow everybody that follows us because our goal isn’t to have the Twitter account with the most followers.  It’s to have the account that has the most value to our business.
The more unfocussed you are with your following the more cluttered your news feed will be.  You’ll miss things and ultimately spend more time trying to keep up.
For more information on how we can help you with your Twitter activity or social media presence please give us a call on 01566 784860 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk