The four C’s of social media success are: content, creativity, consistency and commitment. No where is this more critical than for Twitter? I occasionally watched the Twitter feeds of various companies to see what they are doing right and where they can improve. Marketing success in the digital realm is expressed through the business continuum, from sole proprietors to enterprise accounts.
Content marketing levels the playing field. Every person and company can express themselves and build relationships using inbound techniques and Twitter provides a powerful platform to do this. However, stay away from these common mistakes.
1) Nothing Useful – I was recently following a management consulting company who asked for my help with their social media campaign. As I looked at their tweets for the past few months, I noticed they were nice, sincere, and complimentary. However, I stopped following them because their was no relevant and useful information. It was like eating cereal for every meal night. You can only dress it up so much before you start to ask yourself, “Is this it?” Give your followers a link to your blog, someone else’s blog, or information they can use for their business. Cereal can be used as a filler, but not the main meal.
LinkedIn Profile Tips and Tricks
2) No Pictures – With more than 500 million tweets / day, there is a lot of information moving across this platform. How do you capture people’s attention? Pictures! When attending a special event, workshop, seminar or lecture, try to capture and post pictures of the you shaking hands with the speaker, your team, or unique activities. This will give people the chance to see the fun and excitement from the event. It also shows a personal side to the business.
3) No Analytics – After tweeting all day and week, it’s important to know who your audience is, where they are from (geographically) and what their interests are. Capturing this type of information tells you the type of content to post. It also tells you where your audience is located: US or outside of the US. I run Twitter analytic reports (free with the platform) to find out the interest of my followers. Twitter is a powerful marketing tool, but you need to know who you are marketing to.
4) Randomness – I see people send 10 tweets in a day, go silent for 2 weeks, and then start sending 1 tweet a day for the next month. In addition to marketing, Twitter is also a powerful communication tool. I wouldn’t call my clients 10 times in a day, stop for a few days, and then start calling them once a day. This called “random tweeting.” Have a Twitter strategy and follow through.
5) Themeless – Why are people following you? The majority of the information my company publishes is about social media and mobile technology. I also share information on presentation skills for technical professionals. I don’t post anything political, racial, or religious. Businesses need to have a focus and theme on Twitter. People need to have an expectation when they read your tweets: management advice, entrepreneurship, classroom best practices.
Twitter is a convenient and effective way to start and maintain conversations with clients and potential clients. Just like speaking to people at a party or networking event, follow those simple rules and engage with your clients.
Scientifically Speaking, of course.
5 Most Common Twitter Mistakes
