The Biggest Twitter Mistake Users Commit

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The Biggest Twitter Mistake Users Commit

I wanted to write this article to express my thoughts about the biggest mistake users commit on Twitter.

First of all, let’s define what Twitter is. According to Wikipedia:

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., that enables its users to send and read other user messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default, however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list.

So, Twitter is a social networking site AND a microblogging service.

Let’s talk about the word ‘social’ for a bit…

Twitter is a Social Networking Site

The word social, according to Dictionary.com, means:

seeking or enjoying the companionship of others; friendly; sociable; gregarious.

The words that stood out were ‘enjoying’ and ‘friendly’. Can you see what I’m trying to get at? A lot of people that use Twitter for their business are doing it totally wrong.

Let me show you an example:

In my opinion, this is not a good example on how to use Twitter.

Do you see what I mean? Who would want to ‘socialize‘ with this individual? All I can see from this page is SPAM SPAM SPAM! Spamming puts a lot of people off. I mean he could promote those free gifts a bit nicer and friendlier, which would attract more clicks. Also, this Twitter user is using FriendFeed which means his feeds are most likely automated using RSS feeds to post content automatically (which I’m not totally against as long as it brings value). But in this case, it’s like he can’t even be “present” while socializing. It’s important to be present when you’re using social networking sites.

Welcome to the Twitter Party

Yes, Twitter is like a party. You don’t go to a party to promote yourself or your business. No one would want to hang out with you. Being at a party is all about socializing and having fun.

“But Firas, how can I promote my business then…?”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you can’t promote your business at all using social networking sites, but you have to do it subtly so it’s not in your face.

This is where a lot of people go wrong when they do Twitter marketing.

Whenever I do my bit of marketing on Twitter, I always remind myself that Twitter is like a party so I don’t over do it.

1. if you do want to sell something on Twitter, make your tweets witty and funny so people click on them
2. post things that will make you sound and look human. (e.g. jokes, quotes, videos, articles, random tweets etc.)
3. Do interact with others. Answer tweets by using @replies.
4. don’t repeat the same tweets over and over and over…and over again! like you’ll see people tweeting the same thing like: ”download your free report now” repeated a million times.

So just be cool and subtle. At the end of the day you are doing it for your business but do remember that people get bored easily with the same repeated stuff. If you do have a report you want people to download or a website you want them to check out, entice them in a funny or witty way. Do remember that you need to post other things as well like I mentioned above to make you look like a human being with a personality.

Finally, if you feel I’ve missed out on anything please leave a comment below. Perhaps there are other mistakes users are making.

Righto, enough of all this ranting, I’m off to the Twitter Party!

Tagged as: Microblogging, social networking, Twitter