Say social media marketing and you have to sayTwitter in the next breath. Today, if your business is serious about growing, reaching a huge market and keeping current and prospective customers engaged, it needs to have a presence on Twitter.
In this post, we cover 10 things your business shouldn’t be doing if it wants to reap all the touted benefits of Twitter marketing:
Not having a twitter account: Don’t have a Twitter account yet? People are talking about your business on Twitter and if you aren’t there to hear them, rest assured there are others. Lots of people are taking their complaints to social media, to an audience that will listen and form their opinions about your brand. You don’t want that. Create your Twitter account asap – today’s as good a day as any.
Ignoring fans: Do you take your followers, fans and their thank you tweets for granted? Don’t. They are complimenting you on a public platform and a gracious brand will be remembered forever.
Ignoring complaints: Do you take the ostrich approach when someone complains about your services on Twitter? Sticking your head in the sand won’t make their tweet go away, it will only portray your business in a very bad light. Reply to them, try to solve their issue – if you can’t, put them in touch with someone who can.
Not following back: Is your business account on Twitter not following anyone back? Following too few accounts on Twitter is considered snobbish. The Googles and Facebooks of this world can get away with it, the rest of us can’t. Be nice, follow back your followers.
Not Tweeting: If you don’t tweet, why did you create a Twitter account in the first place? Your followers are following you because they want to hear what you have to say, so say something – be not afraid.
Cross Posting: Twitter and Facebook are two different social networks and what works on one will not work on the other. As far as possible, avoid cross posting from Facebook to Twitter and vice versa.
Only Promotional Tweets: “Buy our wonderful product, it is amazing, fantabulous, gobbledygook” – the easiest way to get unfollowed by all your followers. Keep promotional tweets about your product to a minimum.
Auto DMs For No Reason: Most people consider Auto DMs spam. Best if you don’t send them. However, if you should, try to think of creative reasons why. Are you running a campaign where you give your new followers something in return for their follow – a 25% discount coupon maybe?
Retweeting compliments: Are all your tweets retweets of compliments your users give you on Twitter? You may want to seriously rethink your Twitter marketing strategy. 
Managing to get hacked: Forgetting to take simple precautions (setting a strong password, not sharing it unnecessarily, not clicking on spam links etc.) can cost you dearly. Getting your account hacked will not only ruin the account itself, it will also ruin your reputation. How many users will trust you to keep their data safe after such an incident?
Is your business already committing these mistakes on Twitter? Avoid regret, correct them now. Do you know of any Twitter marketing mistake businesses commonly make? Share them in the comments below.
This post by JustUnfollow first appeared on Social Media Today.
We’ve created a slideshare that explains each of these regrettable actions backed by user tweets. Have a peek:
10 Most Common Business Mistakes On Twitter from JustUnfollow.com