7 Social Media Tips: What Not to do on Twitter

7 Social Media Tips: What Not to do on Twitter

By Jesse PenningtonMar 6 /2012

What not to do on Twitter - Don't be a NoobDon't be a Noob...

With more than 100 million active users and growing, Twitter can be a valuable social media marketing tool to give you insights about your customers, products, services and competitors. However, there are common mistakes that new people (Noob’s) can make that will have people on Twitter avoiding you like a spammy plague of viruses.

So, if you’re new to Twitter or you just plain don’t have a clue about social media, here are seven things to avoid so you don't look like an uncool Twitter Noob:

  • Staying an Egg – Make sure to upload a real profile picture. If you want to be artsy and put up an interesting abstract photo of a skyline or something, that’s fine, too. Just make it look like someone real actually set up your account.
  • Forgetting to fill out your profile/bio – Often times, Tweeps (people on Twitter) will make decisions whether to follow you or not based on what you write in your profile. So if there is nothing there, people aren’t going to take you seriously.
  • Plugging your company in every tweet - Just because you’re using Twitter to further your business doesn’t mean every Tweet should be an advertisement for your company. There’s nothing that kills an online marketing strategy faster than people thinking you are just a self-promoting spammer. Ask yourself, would you go to a trade show and just hand out promotional stuff and business cards without actually trying to talk to anyone or build any business relationships? Why would it be any different online? Consider following the rule of thirds
  • Mixing up Twitter and Facebook Lingo - Note to the Noob: This is not Facebook and Facebook is not Twitter. So don’t use hashtags on Facebook and don’t try to write that you “liked” something on Twitter. Faux pas like that will make you the fodder of snickering mac owners over lunch at Starbucks. You might as well change your profile to, “Hi, I’m a 48-year-old aspiring pop star with 3 kids trying to connect with the young crowd in the online places. If you get time, check my blog about my cat!”
  • Updating once a week – If you only have time to update your Twitter once a week, you should probably ask yourself why you are on Twitter at all. Twitter limits your Tweets to 140 characters; that’s not a lot. Then you’re telling me you can only come up with ONE THING to say PER WEEK that is less than 140 characters!? As Chris Carter once said, “Common, man.” The whole point of the entire site is for people to send out quips from their daily lives, businesses, “happenings,” etc. It’s designed to be frequent! So get with it or don’t bother at all.
  • Auto responding to new followers – Please, please, do not auto respond to new followers. It is, in a word, tacky. It comes off as cold, unprofessional and thoughtless. This is because an automated response to a new follower is the antithesis to the whole point of social media, which is to connect online and form real relationships with real people.
  • Adding “Please RT” to every tweet - Asking for a ReTweet on too many posts, or heaven forbid, every post, completely negates the purpose behind “Please RT.” Only ask for RTs when it’s for something truly important. And no, not every tweet is important, so try and dial it back. Otherwise, people will begin to completely ignore your requests, and eventually, you.

So, there you have it. Hopefully these tips will save you from a little digital embarrassment. Good luck out there…



Jesse Pennington Author BioJesse is a Web Developer at Kuno Creative who regularly contributes his technical expertise to Kuno's blog. He carries a Master of Science in Mass Communcations and has over 3 years of experience in web development and design.




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