As part 2 of the Blogs on National Work Life Week I’m going to take a look at those 5 Quick Wins On Twitter To Avoid

More and more often on twitter I’m seeing blatant attempts from businesses trying to game the system or taking the perceived easy win

Remember the old adage that “If It Sounds Too Good To Be True, it probably is” and this is why we’ve chose to look at them as part of National Work Life Week – these time saving ideas will only mean harder work in the longer term and that’s why it’s best to look at our previous blog – Time Management Tips For Social Media – in order to grow your following authentically

1. Buying Followers
If you’re new to twitter you’re probably thinking – “what you can buy twitter followers?, surely that’s a great way to gain some new twitter followers”

The reality is various websites such as Fiver.com will offer “fake followers” which might boost the public perception of how popular your business, but aren’t actually real twitter accounts ran by real people who are likely to visit your business

I actually saw a local restaurant do this recently and despite having a menu that I liked the look of, photos that appealed and looked tasty – but in the back of my head the nagging thought was despite all the positives – if they are prepared to buy followers on twitter, what else are they cutting corners on?

You only get 1 chance to make a positive impression and if that 1st impression is one of cutting corners then it will take a long time to win over lost customers

2. Mass Following

I work in marketing, but come on’ – even I like to believe in the romanticism that you’re truly interested in what I’m tweeting

I like to think that when you’ve joined twitter you’ve looked at what people have been tweeting and followed accordingly – rather than me just being 1 of the 1000 you have followed en masse on day one without a care for the individual

Part of the real success of twitter is developing those 121 relationships and conversations with followers, which you can do by gradually building a staggered targeted following

By following so fast and without reason (apart from maybe vague location based segmentation) you don’t get to enjoy the journey, but also spent a lot of extra time playing catch up and trying to cut through the noise

Slowly and steady wins the race

3. Twitter Hours
My big bugbear of twitter and the reason that between 8-9pm every evening you find that twitter is self publicising hell

I’ve spoken in a number of previous blogs about my dislike of twitter hours – but why oh why would you aim to be the online equivalent of the irritating person at a networking event who thrusts their cards at you, does the sales pitch and runs on to the next sales pitch

Twitter hours bring out the worst aspects of people’s personalities by focusing on the sale rather then the person

And guess what – it takes the time to clear and out and declutter your twitter account when you realise you followed back for a follow on every twitter hour with the mentality of a 16yr old One Direction fan

4. Unrelated Competitions
I am seeing these a lot less lately, but they still come up from time to time

Remember the days when every week you used to see every company run a competition on Twitter or Facebook to Win an Ipad in return for a follow or a like

But that said – competitions when done well and with a prize that is related to the business can really work. We’ve been working with a client recently on a competition and increased their Facebook likes by 45% in a matter of weeks and increased the post reach of facebook posts by nearly 400% via increased engagement

The key is in the prize targeting

5. Spamming People For Retweets
If you haven’t watched our “How To Get More Retweets On Twitter” video you should watch that right now

But joining twitter and posting 50 messages in succession asking different tweeters to retweet you without so much as a simple hello or basic level of human etiquette is what many small businesses do as their opening line.

Similarly well established businesses tag in a number of tweeters in much the same way

If you work on structuring an interesting message local people will retweet anyway and you don’t need to be the constant spammer to get your message across

GIVE US SOME FEEDBACK
Let us know below if you have tried any of the above or seen local businesses who do the same

IMPROVE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITY

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Call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Altrincham Hq

“With over 12 years experience of Social Media and 17 years experience of online marketing in other companies, clients come to myself when they want a veteran rather than a rookie” Alex McCann