14 Twitter Mistakes That May Be Hindering Your Results

Let me guess.

You visit Twitter every now and then. You follow some tweeps. You share some pretty nice stuff with them. You even share some of their posts.

People say you’re doing it right but you’re just not getting any results.No one’s following you back. No one’s re-tweeting your posts and your brand is failing like the Twitter whale.

And you can’t help wondering…

Do you need to be patient and spend more time on Twitter?

Do you need to tweet more often?

Or could it be possible that you’ve missed the most important aspects of reaching your goals on Twitter? Are you asking the right people for feedback or do you ask those who don’t exactly get what you’re trying to accomplish?

Download this 14 Twitter mistakes that may be hindering your results

Well, I’ve collected 14 of the most common Twitter mistakes. You’re not alone, so don’t worry about it. Just take a look and see if you’ve made any of these mistakes.

1. You don’t have solid and clear goals in mind.

People often complain that they’re not getting any results, but when you ask them what kind of results they want to get – they can’t really tell you.

We use Twitter for different reasons. We might use it for media distribution, for marketing, for promotions, for customer service, but it’s likely that we use it for “all of the above.”

How you use it depend upon your end goals. If you don’t have any end goals in mind, how will you know whether your campaign is effective?

Before jumping on to Twitter, write down a list of your goals. This will get you farther than any other strategy. Don’t worry if you don’t know how you’re going to achieve them yet. An important part of the process is understanding the medium and figuring out its best practices.

2. You follow anyone and everyone.

We all like to have a huge following, but a huge number of followers doesn’t make sense if they are not targeted people interested in your niche.

If your target audience is coaches from Europe, shouldn’t you be focusing on following coaches from Europe?

Look for influencers in your niche. Check out who are they are following. If they keep a Twitter List, that’s a powerful indicator of whose messages they value. Follow their active followers and don’t forget to create your own power users.

3. You tweet too much.

I admit, I tweet a lot. But does that mean that I tweet too much?

You see, I follow a tweet schedule. I’m 12 hours ahead of my target audience, so there’s no point for me to tweet around 1-7 pm as they’re generally going to be sleeping at those times. Right?

Don’t send your tweets all at once. Instead, try sending your messages throughout the day. Keeping your goals in mind, measure your results. Use applications like Social Pilot to help you schedule your posts.

socialpilot

4. You don’t have a warm and welcoming picture on your profile.

I see this mistake almost everyday. They’re active on Twitter. They tweet a lot of nice stuff. But when you visit their profile they have an egg head, a cartoon picture or a picture of their pet.

Generally, a clear picture of your face is a must for your brand. It not only helps your follower build trust in you. It also adds value to your profile and lets us appreciate you.

After all, how are we going to really connect with you if you don’t show your face?

5. You’re using an irrelevant or difficult-to-remember Twitter name.

Use your real name or your company brand name. Make it easy for your target audience to remember you. Your brand is your promise behind your product or service that assures your customer of quality. There is nothing more powerful in building that trust than to extend your hand. Online, using a warm friendly photo along with a relevant name adds up to making a good impression.

Don’t use numbers and underscores if not needed. If you really want to be noticed, isn’t it time to catch their attention?

6. You’re not filling in important details on your Profile bio.

Even if it’s just around 120 characters long, be creative and give us an idea of who you are.

Your profile bio serves as your reader’s first impression of you. Don’t miss that opportunity to make a great first impression.

7. Your social media networks are not interconnected.

A lot of people don’t realize that in every social media channel they’re in, there’s an opportunity for them to create engagement.

Share your Twitter account on your email signature, blog, website, Facebook page, or other online presence.

I bet you don’t want to miss any opportunity. Right?

8. You protect your tweets.

LOL! Sorry, but how can you complain that you’re not getting any followers if your Twitter feeds are protected? A related mistake is to use the third-party services that require your new follower to respond by filling in a CAPTCHA to ensure that you’re not a robot. If you use this type of tool, expect to get far fewer followers.

9. You’re sharing links without context.

Most of the time this happens when your Facebook or Google+ account is connected to Twitter and you share a link without adding any description.

For Facebook and Google+, this might be okay as it automatically displays the image and description. But Twitter will only shorten the link for you. Depending upon the viewer’s preferences and Twitter client being used, that important image that you’re sharing won’t even be seen until the viewer clicks on the link.

It’s great to connect your Facebook and Google+ accounts to your Twitter account. Just make sure that you make your post appropriate for all three venues.

10. You schedule tweets without following up.

Scheduling tweets, without engaging with others afterwards, is a no-no! Twitter is not just a media distribution platform. Hopefully, you’re building relationships. Start conversations. Ask questions. Listen. Hear what your tweeps are saying. Just like in REAL life, real people want to connect with real people. They don’t want to feel used. They want to be acknowledged.

11. You’re not being helpful.

If you want to build community, be helpful to people around you. Help them fix their problems. This will help you gain their trust and it shows everyone that you care. If you want to build a strong relationship with your followers, listening will always be the first step, as outlined in the previous step. Once you have their trust, the second step is to dig in and ask how you can be of help. Engage with your tweeps. Start conversations with them. Know their wants and needs. By getting to know them as individuals, you really help them to remember you. Can you think of the last time that someone really wanted to help you? I’ll bet it made an impression!

Be AWESOME and good karma will come your way.Click To Tweet

12. It’s too much about You.

It’s okay to tweet about yourself once in a while. But you should be tweeting other people’s thoughts, inspirations and silliness much more.

Share other people’s stuff that grabbed your interest. Ask what content your tweeps would like you to share. Make your posts interesting!

Remember it’s not about you. It’s about them and what you can do for them. “People don’t care about what you know, until they know how much you care.”

13. You didn’t provide links to your landing pages.

If your goal is to get more leads, shouldn’t you be providing links to your landing pages? It won’t hurt your brand if you promote once in a while. Just don’t overdo it.

14. You publicly shame those who unfollow you.

I occasionally see abusive posts when I unfollow people. Don’t fall into that trap when someone unfollows you. Always take the high road and you will be more respected and valued.

I won’t lie to you. I unfollow inactive and quiet people every week. It’s a Good Thing. I use ManageFlitter to do it.

You can’t blame me. Well, I suppose you can! But what value is there in following people who barely even tweet?

Update: On 31 January 2019 without sending any prior warning to ManageFlitter, Twitter removed ManageFlitter’s Twitter API access.

We are humans.

Let’s be honest here. You may have done some of the things I’ve listed here.

After all, we are humans and may even make mistakes once in a lifetime. But that doesn’t matter.

The fact that you’re reading this post right now, challenging yourself to avoid the mistakes I’ve listed is a good sign. It means you want to improve. It means you care.

So what are you waiting for?

Get started, Baby!

It’s time to get some results.

Download this 14 Twitter mistakes that may be hindering your results

7 thoughts on “14 Twitter Mistakes That May Be Hindering Your Results”

  1. Wow, what a useful post, Valerie. You’ve touched a bunch of really important points. This had some great reminders for Twitter veterans. But it also offered a fantastic tutorial, of sorts, for a newer Twitterer. Thanks for sharing. I followed you after I read this!

    Reply
  2. Hi Val, great points! I value especially number 4: there needs to be a face behind the tweets–many tweeps fail to realize this. A face puts trust in the tweets. As a tweep myself, I fail to remember that my own target audience is 12-14 hours behind and yet I post between 2-5pm (11pm-2am West Coast; 2-5am East Coast). Sometimes we do fail to think of our audience, but every failure is a chance to learn. Cheers!

    Reply
  3. “Enrich lives” is one of the hallmarks of the Apple retail stores. As you say in your 12th point, “It’s about them and what you can do for them.” It’s a challenge not to simply use Twitter as a CraigsList-type tool to sell your products. I know I’ve been guilty of it. People don’t generally buy from people or companies where they haven’t established a bond. In the long run, the value that you add to other’s lives will bridge that trust gap. Once you’re seen as a person that can be trusted, your products and services will be highly valued.

    Reply
  4. Thanks for this Valerie! I often wonder about whether I’m using Twitter productively. Have tried a number of different strategies and have a decent following but would love more conversions.

    Reply
  5. Great post and really agree with number 2 where you say follow their “ACTIVE” followers. As we know Twitter has 1.2 billion accounts, but only 300 million MAU’s, thus the active part is really important (making sure they’re engaged users with a pulse).

    #3 is interesting. Recently did a guest post for Kim Garst on some data we learned from analyzing 1 billion Tweets. We found that the ones driving the most “clicks” back to their website were those tweeting 8 times more, but the clicks weren’t 8 times more…..it was actually even more. It was exponential. To your point though, tweeting in a machine gun style and then doing nothing doesn’t work and is where great scheduling tools like Buffer comes in.

    Great post!

    Reply
  6. I confess, I’m bad at Twitter and I know it. I hardly ever go there anymore, because I’ve found my audience is more active and engaged on Instagram and Facebook so I focus my efforts there. I kind of miss when Twitter was new, but maybe I need to give it a shot again.

    Reply

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