August 16, 2011

For a few months now, I’ve been putting a lot more of my time into learning and understanding online marketing, specifically on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve come to learn a lot about both networking sites by reading online blogs about social media marketing as well as doing a bit of my own trial and error. Because I’ve done more of my trial and error on Twitter lately, I figured I’d write a quick post about how not to be annoying on Twitter.

1) Don’t always try to sell yourself or your product – This is easily the thing I find most annoying about some of the people and businesses I follow on Twitter. They’re always trying to sell me on something. They never post any quality tips or hints about their product and each of their posts links to some type of online marketing strategy.

2) Don’t have all of your tweets auto-posted – A person or business who auto-posts all their tweets from their blog or Facebook couldn’t be more boring. Just tweet after tweet of links moving me to their blog or Facebook. If I wanted to get info from their blog or Facebook I’d follow their blog or Facebook.

3) Don’t tweet so much – I can’t stand logging into my Twitter account and having my timeline bombarded with 10 of the last 15 tweets from the same person. I understand that most Twitter users are following over 100 people, but I’m only following 15 and when you post 10 tweets in and hour, that’s basically all I see.

4) Tweet once in awhile – The opposite of what I just posted. I hate it when I follow someone who seems like they’re tweeting useful tweets and then all of the sudden it just stops. In the last week alone I’ve gone to follow certain people and then I realize they haven’t posted a tweet since 2010.

5) Don’t get too personal – I understand that many people create Twitter accounts for themselves and not businesses, but even then I don’t really need to know about your personal life. It’s great that you went out and drank 15 tequila shots on Saturday night, but that’s not something you should be tweeting to a mass audience. Especially if you run your own business.

So what annoys you on Twitter? Fill in a comment below and let me know!