In our last blog, we touched upon the positive impact that Twitter can have on helping businesses build their pipeline, interact with their target audience, research what is going on in their industry and what marketing tactics have proven effective to drive business. We touched upon not only the benefits of Twitter, but included a few beginning level hints on how to start to best utilize twitter to your business’ advantage.

Just like all social media outlets provide great opportunity for business growth, there are common mistakes that are often made that hinder that success from happening. Oftentimes businesses will tell a Social Media Manager that they don’t understand why no one is following them when others in their industry are having lots of interactions. Here are 8 common mistakes that small businesses tend to make on Twitter than interfere with achieving the best results possible. By avoiding these mistakes and enlisting the help of a Social Media Management professional, you can turn Twitter into the lead and revenue generator that you want it to be.

1. Tweeting at the wrong times of day – While being active and consistent is key, if you’re doing all of your tweeting at 3:00 in the morning, you’re not going to get the same results as you would by tweeting at 9am when people are first getting to the office and checking their social media or in the evenings when folks are relaxing at home scrolling through their feed. Think about the time of day of your tweets. If you don’t have the time to actually tweet during key times, set up a social media management application such as Hootsuite to time your tweets appropriately. You can respond to inquiries and replies when you’re free, but make sure that relevant material is getting out there at a relevant time.
2. Not having an enticing avatar – Do you ever follow or pay attention to those Twitter accounts that have the egg as their avatar? Probably not. Make sure you have a clear company logo as well as an enticing, professional looking header if you want the right people to follow you.
3. Hashtag misuse- Hashtag misuse is a pretty broad category. Using too many, too few, or totally irrelevant hashtags is going to cut down on your interactions. Take some time to research how much others in your industry are using in relation to hashtags as well as the types of keywords their hashtagging.
4. Following everyone and anyone – This shouldn’t come as a total shocker, but when you follow everyone that pops on your feed, you’re creating a situation where you’ll have to scroll through a lot of irrelevant stuff to get to the meat of the content you’re looking for. While you may love Justin Bieber, following 100 fan accounts of his on your business page isn’t going to save you time or help you implement an effective interaction strategy. Keep your following to relevant people and businesses.
5. Not asking for retweets – While you don’t want to ask too often, Twitter is a powerful medium for getting others to share your exciting promotions, sales, and announcements. There’s nothing wrong with asking your audience to retweet carefully selected information.
6. Not interacting with your followers – This is a common mistake that many businesses make across the board with their social media outlets. While you definitely want to use Twitter to share with your target audience, interacting with them and commenting on what they’re sharing or have to say is just as, if not more important. Also keep in mind that direct messaging to engage them in conversations that will require more than 140 characters is key to converting customers.
7. Your posts are boring or too long – The great thing about Twitter is that it allows you to link your followers to videos, blogs, or other interesting content. You should keep your tweets short, sweet, and interesting. Throwing in some photos or graphics helps too.
8. Your tweets are not worth retweeting/sharing – Just like with everything related to social media and internet marketing, quality is the name of the game. If you want retweets, avoid making mistake #7 as well as refocus your relevancy as that’s what’s going to make your tweets retweet-worthy. If you’re tweeting out to folks interested in swimming pool repairs, they’re likely to retweet photos of your latest impeccable repair work, but not likely to retweet that you just bought tickets to the next Celine Dion concert for your wife.

Do you have any additional suggestions on how to avoid Twitter pitfalls as a small business? We’d love to share your tips in a future blog! Please email your suggestions to info@mrpipeline.com!