Rebecca Holloway
Senior Social Media Strategist
Rebecca is an award winning Senior Social Media Strategist who specialises in paid social media campaigns.
5 things you should NEVER do when running a Twitter account
Running a Twitter account takes time and patience. You’ve got to be in it for the long haul and you’ve got to be ready to react at any moment.
To keep your Twitter account running smoothly, make sure you never find yourself taking part in any of these activities!
Here’s five things you SHOULDN’T do when running a Twitter account:
1. Boring content
This should go without saying, but it can be easy to get stuck in a loop. When posting content to your Twitter account, make sure there’s variety in your posts. If you’re posting industry news, make sure you don’t just tweet a link to the article. Instead, give your opinion, ask your audience a question, intertwine tweets that are sharing news with your thoughts on what’s happening within the industry. Offer your expertise! Make sure your feed is engaging or your audience are going to hit that unfollow button.
2. Don’t automate your account!
It’s VERY obvious when you’re automating your account. Everyone will be able to tell. It just makes you look amateur and you will lose respect from Twitter’s power users in a flash. The giveaways are automated messages from services like Crowdfire saying “I’m growing my following! I got 23 followers today!”, or those auto DMs you receive after following.
BONUS TIP: Follow someone and immediately get an automated DM from the user saying thank you? Unfollow them. Their account is automated and you could be getting much better, more valuable content elsewhere.
3. Don’t spam
Okay, so just because you’ve got interesting content doesn’t mean you should spam everyone of your followers with tweets every second of the day. Make sure your tweets have a purpose. If you’ve got good, useful content, don’t feel the need to post them all within the space of an hour. Always check that your tweets have a purpose and are providing value to your audience.
4. Don’t go in without a plan
When you’re running a Twitter account, make sure you always have a strategy in place. Come up with a plan for your account so you’re not just stumbling around in the dark tweeting here there and everywhere with no goals in place. Decide how many times you’re going to be tweeting each day, what times are best, and what content you’re going to be sharing. Remember, your content should be interesting to your audience, it should make them want to engage with you, and it should have purpose. Keep track of your strategy so you can monitor what’s working and when it’s time to mix things up. Experiment and see what gets you the best results. Keep making tweaks and your account will get better.
5. No bots allowed!
There are lots of services out there which promise you plenty of new followers at the click of a finger. Nope, don’t do it. This is another way of automating your account and should be avoided at all costs. If you use a bot to get you followers, you’re just going to appear spammy and not trustworthy, but you’re also going to get a bunch of followers who aren’t interested in your product. It’s worthwhile building up an organic audience because then they’re going to be interested, they’re going to be real people (most of the time) and you’re going to be in with a much better chance of getting a response from them when you try to engage with your audience.
Follow these tips and you’re well on your way to having a Twitter account you’re going to get value out of.
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