If your job description includes marketing strategy, marketing tactics or marketing communications, then you’re probably interested in new marketing tools and techniques that will help you grow your business.

One of those tools is going to be Twitter, which burst upon the scene a little over a year ago. (Side Note: For a great article on how to use Twitter, check out The 8 Most Important Things to Know About Using Twitter on the 60 Second Marketer website.)

All that said, our estimate is that about half of the people who use Twitter are using it incorrectly. Twitter, when used properly, is an information station — said differently, it’s is a content sharing tool that can help you build relationships, build trust and, hopefully, build a client/customer base.

Unfortunately, there are a large number of people who don’t use Twitter properly. Are you one of those people? If you’ve made one of these 10 mistakes on Twitter, then you may fall into that category.

The 10 Worst Mistakes on Twitter:

1. Using Twitter to SPAM people: We’re not exactly sure why anyone would use Twitter as a SPAM tool, since that technique is extremely short-sighted. Still, some people do it. You know the type — they’re following 2,367 people and have one person following them back. Don’t be that person.
2. Blocking your updates: WTF? You sign up for Twitter and follow people only to put a roadblock up if they want to follow you back? That simply doesn’t make sense. Don’t be that person either.
3. Overly-promotional Tweets: If every Tweet (or every other Tweet) is designed to drive people back to your site, you’re guilty of being overly-promotional. At the 60 Second Marketer, we (quite unsuccessfully) try to incorporate the Chris Brogan rule of 15 sharing Tweets for every 1 promotional Tweet. (We’re not at the 15:1 ratio yet, but we’re trying.)
4. Not using your Twitter home page properly: The Twitter home page is a blank canvas that you can use to position yourself in the marketplace and promote your company or your website. Use it that way. Otherwise, you shouldn’t be on Twitter in the first place.
5. Believing it’s about the quantity of followers, not the quality: The little-known truth about Twitter is that it’s not about the quantity of people following you, it’s about the quality of people following you. Don’t be swept up by all this talk about “I have 5,000 people following me on Twitter.” In this day and age, with automated follow systems in place, the quantity is less relevant. It’s about the quality of your followers — that is, the engagement and trust your followers have with you.
6. Irrelevant Tweets: A sure-fire way to tell if someone is a newbie to Twitter is when they Tweet about the weather, their mood or what they had for dinner last night. Don’t do this. Nobody is interested in those topics. (Except for you, of course.)
7. Simply ReTweeting (RT-ing) everything: Again, this is a sure-fire way to tell that someone is new to Twitter. RTs are important and can build credibility and trust with your followers, but you should try to take a nugget of information from the article or post and add it to your RT. (e.g. 37% of all widgets are sold to people with blue hair. For the entire post, click here: tinyurl.com/notreal43)
8. Not Tweeting: Interestingly enough, some reports indicate that Twitter has about a 60% churn rate after the first month. That means that only 40% of the people who sign up for Twitter use it after the first month. If you’re not going to dive in with both feet, consider spending your time on other pursuits.
9. Not adding value: This is related to the RT issue. Don’t just ReTweet everything, add some value, some perspective, some insight. That’s the best way to keep people interested in following you.
10. Wasting time: Let’s admit it, Twitter is a huge time sucker. It’s very, very easy to get sucked into articles that you’re only vaguely interested in reading. It’s up to you to put up boundaries. I use the “off the grid” approach. That is, I tell myself I’m “off the grid” when I need to take a break from social media. After all, if you don’t put up some boundaries, you’ll disappear into the Twitter Tornado and never be found again.

Those are our Top 10 Worst Mistakes on Twitter. What mistakes have we missed? What items would you add to the list? Let us know and we’ll add to them.

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