01 Sep 2011

1. Using Too Many Hashtags

Hashtags are great. They open up your tweets to a much wider audience than just your followers and allow people to gain a summary of the purpose of your tweet in just one word. However if you use too many in one tweet it not only looks messy it can make it unreadable! This will deter your followers – try and keep it to 2 hashtags per tweet.

2. Automated Follow Messages

It’s definitely a worthwhile (and in many cases a necessary) exercise to engage with each account that follows you – it shows you are on Twitter to communicate and enter into the spirit of social media. However If you automatically send a ‘Hey! Thanks for following!’ Direct Message you are doing the exact opposite. Automation is frowned upon in online community circles as it goes against the very ethos of being social – definitely avoid.

3. Overusing Capital Letters

You only have 140 characters but that is still space to be coherent and literate. At all costs you should be looking to avoid being perceived as an advertiser on Twitter and by relying on the Caps Lock for emphasis will fail you. Type how you would speak – you would not shout every other word so do not type like you would – people want to be able to read and understand what you have posted, not feel like they are being forced into clicking a link or making a purchase.