Quenten, the name of our logo mascot, is a gentleman. He never spams, and he’s an ethical little bird. Here are 6 things you should NEVER do on Twitter. Enjoy!
- Direct Message Spam. “Thanks for following me, make a million dollars in an hour…. link” Never a good idea. It’s an instant way to get someone to click the unfollow or even the BLOCK button. If you do direct message, you can say “Hi, Thanks for the follow, this is my site if you’re interested” but honestly, most people are so wary of DM spam that it’s become a fairly useless function at this point.
- Post constant links with no real updates. People want to know they are tweeting with a real person. It’s perfectly fine to tweet about your business and make connections, network, etc, but bear in mind, your account will get much more mileage if you take the time to engage your followers. Tell them about something new you’re working on. Wish all your followers a Merry Christmas. Reply to people who @ message you. Mix it up! Then….when you casually throw in some links here and there, people are far more receptive and your click rate goes way up!
- Tweet the same thing over and over again. Please don’t do this. Every 10 minutes tweet the same thing. Not only will twitter themselves get annoyed and potentially block you but your followers will soon cease to be followers. There’s a lot of different ways to say something, so get creative. We know you’re not THAT boring anyway.
- Link to your own twitter profile on twitter. We’ve seen this so many times. People have a golden opportunity to actually put a web site, and they choose to link to their own twitter profile. Even your personal account, link to a facebook page if need be, but it just seems like wasted traffic to redirect people to where they already are. Don’t discount twitter traffic. Soon it will be showing up in google results, the effects could be huge. Don’t waste it!
- Tell people how much money they can make using twitter. Ok, we all know affiliate programs when we see them, and there’s nothing more tiresome than seeing “make a fortune with twitter” nonsense all over the site. However, if you take the time to build up a relevant, targetted following, there’s no reason why twitter couldn’t be a tremendous tool for generating affiliate incomes!
- Ignore the @ message function. Never ignore this. It’s a very powerful way to engage your followers. If you see someone tweeting about something you have something to say about, let them know. It opens up dialogue, gives them exposure, they’re more likely to RT for you, and so on!