This is a guest post by Anil Gupta from ScopeForMoney.com.
Twitter is a great place for bloggers, internet marketers and even celebrities who are making an entry into it. But most of these users are not fully optimizing the potential of Twitter. Celebrities don’t need to do that, but bloggers and internet marketers need to be careful with Twitter.
It is important to understand that Twitter is not all about setting up an account and start tweeting. Your Twitter followers can be a source of great profit for you.
But due to a few mistakes, it is easy for many bloggers and internet marketers to lose focus on how to really optimize Twitter. The importance of Twitter as a branding tool cannot be undermined.
Understanding this, here is a list of 7 mistakes made on Twitter by bloggers and internet marketers for you to get an insight:
1. Following 1000’s Of Twitter Users
There are many sites which have a list of users who guarantee a followback. You can follow thousands of Twitter users in the click of a button. And many of them would followback, except most of those of followers hardly care about your tweets and then of course there are many auto-follows. If you want real reach in Twitter then it is important that your growth in number of followers occurs organically and in a manual manner. Otherwise, no matter how many thousands of followers you have – they are ineffective sources of traffic and reach for you.
2. Eliminate Auto-Followback/Auto-Direct message
This is the number one sign that you are more like a spammer. Remove the auto-followback feature from your Twitter account immediately. If you were a celebrity or some really important person then sure you could have automated it. But unfortunately, if you are reading this, then it is unlikely you are such a person. Moreover, auto direct-messages and auto follow back make a person feel that they are not in connect with a real human being. This is why you should always make the effort to manually follow back your followers.
3. Excessive URLs
You should really stop stuffing URL links on your Twitter bio and in your profile page background image. Put your link where it is supposed to go and not all over the place. If you are able to catch a pattern then you will see that if you stuff URLs all over your profile – it looks spammy and desperate. You are distracting concentration from a single link which the user could have clicked and get access to all your other URLs. Be professional and keep a clean Twitter profile.
4. Maintaining A Poor Tweet To Promotion Ratio
It is true that all your followers know that you will definitely use Twitter as a promotional tool. They get turned off when you begin to maintain a poor tweet to promotion ratio. Your followers also want some extra value apart from links to your blog posts and your affiliate recommendations. If you fail to give that to your readers then automatically you are putting them off.
So, make it a point to share interesting tweets and facts once in a while. Even sharing a few general personal thoughts you have is a great way to keep your followers engaged. This will ensure that your tweets to promtional tweets ratio are optimal.
5. Don’t Market Via The Bio Section
The bio is what it is – it is a bio that should have brief information on what you/your company is about. Don’t try to put anything marketing on your bio section. A poor bio will not only turn-off real users but you can also ensure that most users will not follow you. The bio should let others know what you are about. You can always sell them your products at other places than your bio section!
6. Poor Avatar
We all know that Twitter gives you the ability to add an Avatar for your profile. It is small 73px/73px no doubt, but it is a major branding opportunity. There are many who underestimate the value of an avatar. What you should understand is that there are a lot of tweets to a user at a given time, and an avatar helps when the user is scanning tweets and save time reading the username. Always choose an avatar wisely; it can be your logo or your personal photo.
7. Poor Integration of Twitter With Your Blog
Some bloggers just don’t advertise Twitter enough on their blog. Twitter has quickly become a major way to connect with your readership base. The time has come that you use your blog and Twitter as a single entity rather than treating them separately. Don’t scrimp on space when it comes to encouraging your readers to follow you on Twitter.
Last Words…
Twitter is a super-powerful social media tool as it can not only increase traffic, but improve your brand image drastically. The points I have mentioned above might seem a no-brainer but they are common mistakes made by most bloggers and internet marketers.
Twitter is all about connecting to your followers and indirectly gaining their trust to promote your brand. Use it with intelligence and then you will have a lot of gain.
Thanks Anil for this informative post. I sincerely agree that I have personally not been utilizing twitter to its best use. Will start implementing this tips immediately for my blog promotion.
Keep such informative posts coming. You Rock buddy!!
Regards
In our industry, a mistake that is often made is being too self-promotional. A twitterer who is too self-promotional, then chooses to follow you is a turn off in my opinion.
I agree with most of your points.
Except following a large amount of followers.
Saying you shouldnt follower more people on twitter is like saying to not get to much google traffic.
When you follow people on twitter you are basically attracting new people to your world on twitter and your blog.
The more you follow, the more FREE traffic you get to your blog, the more followers on twitter you get, the more aff sales you will make on twitter and the more people available to now RT your blog posts.
As a blogger and Internet Marketer you should be using Twitter to build relationships and make money and not limit your following.
When i was a newbie in blogging i also did this mistake in the past but with experience i learnt that making 1000 followers is of no use because they are not source of traffic.If your content is good and you have properly integrated it in your blog then your followers will definately increase and they will be the source of traffic.
I recently got banned by Twitter for following too many people. They labeled it ‘Aggressive following’.
I asked them nicely to re-enable my account and that I would stop with it. Lets see what happens
Hey you’ve got loads relevant info here, the post included. I find twitter now to be a necessary tool for success in online marketing although it.can have zero effect if not mastered. I tend to disagree with #2 coz direct messages do work esp to twitter newbies, they wont easily know the direct message was auto. Anyway thanks for the tips, they are a step wiser.
These tips are pretty much accurate. Excellent lists and a good help esp for new twitter users. For a long time I considered Twitter to be less useful due to the character limitation. But lately, I have been using it and have found it to be pretty great.
I don’t do anything on auto, including tweet my own posts. it should all be as natural as possible.
Solid points. One thing I’ve noticed recently is a lot more accounts which only promo via “@ marketing” aka “@blahblah @blahblah2 if you like [generic keyword] you’ll love this [link]!” If this is all your doing stop! It’s one thing to @ people to stat conversation, but this isn’t starting conversation. Also when a person does go to your profile any cedibility is blown as they see a long string of the same tweet after tweet.
following a loads of people than ur followeers is a big turn off.