There are some actions on Twitter that can easily annoy your Followers and may even cause them to unfollow you. So avoid making any of these easily fixable mistakes:
1. Your Tweets Are Too Long
Even though the maximum length of a Tweet is 140 characters, you should try to limit your Tweets to a maximum of 120 characters. This leaves room for others to Re-Tweet you. Getting your message across in 120 characters or less may be challenging at first, but think of it more as writing headlines than writing copy. The more you use Twitter, the easier it gets to compose shorter Tweets.
2. Your Tweets Contain Broken Links
It is a good idea to check the links you post to make sure they work (especially if using a third-party application). If you discover a broken link in a Tweet already published, just send another Tweet with the correct link.
3. Your Tweets Are Mainly About Your Business (Too Much Self-Promotion)
Share links to helpful articles or resources and Re-Tweet others’ Tweets more often than you Tweet about your business. A good rule of thumb is the 80/20 approach: for example, if you publish 10 Tweets a day, keep self-promotional Tweets to a maximum of two.
4. You Subject Your Followers to Tweet “Overload”
Tweeting too often in a short amount of time can annoy your Followers (and at some point, temporarily “freeze” your account). This is one of the reasons we recommend applications like the Buffer App, Social Oomph or Hootsuite to schedule Tweets throughout the day.
If you are attending a Twitter Chat or event, where you are more likely to be posting a lot of Tweets, send out a Tweet that prepares your Followers: something like – “Please note: I am attending the #TwitterChat so you will see more Tweets than usual from me in the next hour.”
5. You Automatically Send Your Tweets to Facebook
Okay, this is really a Facebook mistake because of the way it can turn off your Fans, but I wanted to mention it here since you control this option in Twitter. Do not link your Twitter account to Facebook.
If you want to share any of your Tweets on Facebook, it is much better to set up the Selective Tweets App on your Facebook Page. When you set it up, only Tweets with a #fb in them will be shared on Facebook. Even with the Selective Tweets App, I do not recommend sharing more than 2 Tweets a day on your Facebook Page. Other types of posts (with images or videos) usually get better Fan engagement.
Hopefully this list of common mistakes will help you be more effective on Twitter and keep your Followers more engaged!
top photo credit: ilouque via photopin cc
About Terry League