Apr 08 2013

Advertising On Twitter Do’s And Don’ts

Twitter continues to grow on a daily basis. With over 140 million active users, there is no doubt why it reigns as one of the most active social networks. Features have now been added to help businesses to promote their products and services on Twitter.

Brand pages was launched in December 2011 for business of all sizes, followed by Promoted Tweets and Promoted accounts in March 2012. The greatest advantage of using Twitter is that business are able to reach their target audiences faster in a more convenient way than other social networks.

Though Twitter looks simple to use, it is easy for one to get overwhelmed and make mistakes that can cause serious damage to your brand. So here are some Twitter Do’s and Don’ts for Businesses.

Do’s

  • Respond to Direct Messages and Mentions. It helps your audience know that you are real, interactive and accessible.
  • Offer mixed content with video links, web links and images. This will keep your audience engaged.
  • Create a balance between advertisements and promotion with conversations and useful information.
  • Keep your followers interested by Retweeting information that they may find useful or entertaining.
  • Keep your Twitter account interactive. A strictly promotional account management style can cause your followers to lose interest.
  • Strategically engage followers who are in your target audience.
  • Always provide feedback and redirect follower for further customer service.
  • Monitor your followers’ activity and send you promotional tweets at the right time of day when they are most active.
  • Connect with other businesses and organizations using Twitter.
  • Follow real people that will benefit the most from your brand.
  • Reflect your personality into your tweets with the use of slang and add a bit of humor.
  • Try to talk to everyone and not just the big names.

Don’ts

  • Don’t let your Twitter feed get clustered by following everyone who follows. You will have to be selective.
  • Don’t ignore or avoid negative tweets. Respond to them in a professional manner.       If you don’t want to discuss the issue on a public foru, offer to deal with the issue through email or a phone call
  • Don’t SPAM your followers by sending automated direct messages to them.
  • Don’t use too many hash tags. This can confuse and overwhelm your followers.
  • Don’t let your account become solely an advertising account. You need to interact with your followers.
  • Don’t tweet links only. You can lose followers and possibly not gain any new ones.
  • Don’t respond to questions with a link. It will make your followers feel detached and unimportant
  • Don’t just broadcast by relying on scheduled tweets. You have to stay engaged with your followers.
  • Don’t abandon your Twitter account. Your followers want to know that their favorite brand is active and engaged.
  • Don’t go overboard with self promotion. Social networking is not all about you. Acknowledge other people’s achievements with links and retweets.
  • Don’t become too corporate and boring.

Tatenda is a online copywriter and social media manager at the Cape Town based social media marketing agency, Karma Digital Media.

One Response to “Advertising On Twitter Do’s And Don’ts”

  1. Y8 2 Player Basketball says:
    April 22, 2013 at 12:08 pm

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