Tweeting #Fail

Twitter can be a minefield when knowing where to start or what to tweet about so I thought I would start a post with some of the mistakes that I have encountered (or done) to help you along. Please comment with any more you can think of or come across……….

• Too many characters for a RT – if you wanted to get RT’d keep your tweet to under 120 characters to allow others to comment if needs be.
• Grammar and spelling – we all do it, where possible use a spell check facility and if in doubt DON’T tweet it, especially if it’s from a company account. If you do make a spelling mistake, rectify it with the next tweet to show you are human! (I tend to indicate the former with an *). Grammar can be more difficult with only 140 characters, so a general rule of thumb is avoiding text speak where possible. It just looks scrappy.
• Swearing. You don’t know your audience that well. Expletives are not required and you want to be taken seriously…don’t you?
• Self-promoting tweeters – it’s that E word again. Engage people otherwise no-one will listen. Whether you’re pushing a product, service or giving updates about your life, make sure you give a little back; answer questions, retweet and comment on interesting content etc.
• Not crediting someone for their hard work. If you tweet a blog or article give the author or media source a mention. This means it shows up in their mentions to see who has read it and also gives your followers a chance to follow someone else!
• Tweeting EXACTLY the same content from all your twitter accounts. As mentioned in my previous blog “Not being followed, here are the common reasons why…” you will probably have different audiences with different interests, or a professional and personal account that may attract the same followers. They don’t need duplicate feeds and will soon unfollow one. It’s a bit lazy!

I am sure you can come up with more so go on share what #fails you have witnessed!