Twitter is one of the hottest marketing tools around with more than 200 million people tweeting back and forth at any given moment of the day. However, if you don’t know how to use it, this phenomenal tool can turn into your business’ worst nightmare. Here are some Twitter Do’s and Don’ts to refer to so that your company will be properly using this social marketing platform to help to soar your business to success:
Twitter Don’t
Don’t put anything embarrassing or offensive in a tweet—That means don’t tweet anything that you would be sorry to have your boss, your mother, your spouse or a police person to see. Everything that goes on the Internet stays there forever, and you don’t want to be haunted by something you said online several years into the future.
Don’t use Twitter as a weapon – Tweets can often be read by anyone on Twitter, so don’t fly of the handle and use one to complain about your boss or say evil things about a co-worker. It’s very likely to go wrong and you’ll be the one in trouble.
Don’t Tweet when you are drunk – This may sound funny, but it can have horrible consequences. If you are impaired in some way or fashion through drinking or even if you are on prescription medication, it’s best to wait until it all wears off before typing out that tweet to your clients or your CEO.
Don’t Tweet too much – Even if it is vital to tweet several times a day, be sure not to overdo it by tweeting nonsense and irrelevant things or your followers will get bored and quit following you.
Don’t brag – No one wants to be constantly reading tweets where a business brags about things like how much money it is making, how many followers it has, etc. You can talk about some things your business is doing well, but be sure to do it in a manner that is not condescending to others.
Don’t over promote – It’s best to use an 80-20 ratio of when to talk about yourself and your business and use at least 20 percent to promote and put out the interesting things going on in your field or in answering client’s questions and helping them to solve their problems. This makes your business the “go to” company that helps and cares about their clients.
Don’t use too much business jargon – If you tweet a lot of business jargon and abbreviations your followers won’t be familiar with, then no one is going to understand what you are trying to tell them and you will lose followers.
Twitter Do’s
Do have proper etiquette while tweeting – Remember to always phrase your tweets in a business fashion and be professional at all times.
Do follow the people who follow you – If you have loyal followers, it’s proper etiquette to follow them back, if something changes to make it a bad idea you can always change your mind later on.
Do thank your followers – By thanking your followers or others who mention your business on Twitter, you are helping to make your company seem more human and are showing that you deserve their praise.
Do Tweet interesting and up-to-date content – Engage your followers by always being the business that is first to tweet about something new and trendy in your niche.
Do learn how to use those 140 characters – Since you are limited by Twitter to 140 characters in a tweet; be sure to use them wisely. Learn about shortcuts like tiny URLs and appropriate business abbreviations.
Do retweet – Retweeting interesting content makes it more likely someone will also retweet the things you send out. If you do retweet, always give proper credit to where it came from.
Do tweet photos and videos – Now that Twitter allows connecting sites like Vine or YouTube, help to make your tweets even better by including a link to a relevant video or photo that provides some great info on your business.
Do have a Twitter usage plan – Be sure to have a solid idea of how you are using your time on Twitter. For instance, if you always send your tweets out at 9 am as soon as you get to work, then your followers will know when to look for them.
Do mix Tweeting with other media – This means that it’s a good idea to cross promote your business on not only Twitter, but other social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as your business blogs and websites.
Do keep your Twitter profile up-to-date – It’s useless to have hundreds of followers if you have the wrong address or phone number on your Twitter profile. If you don’t keep the contact data current then you will lose business and profits.
