The Biggest Mistakes People Make on Twitter

Mike Smith had a great post this week on The 10 Biggest Mistakes People Make on Twitter. As I read his post, it got me thinking about some of the mistakes I see people make on Twitter...and some of the mistakes I have made myself.

While I certainly agree with Mike's list. Here are a few thoughts of my own about Twitter mistakes:

• Forgetting that your are posting to a public forum. I have recently un-followed a few people who are really rude on Twitter. They purport to be business people using Twitter as a marketing tool, but they actually hurt their business reputation by making rude personal comments about others. Nobody likes that. Not in person and not online.
• Mixing business, personal, and political messages. Mixing business and personal is one of the things I really like about Twitter. I especially like learning more about the personal lives of some of the business and marketing gurus that I follow. I'm not talking about acquiring stalker level knowledge about their personal lives, but just enough to know they are human. However, in the months leading up to the recent election, some folks used Twitter as a forum to push their political views, which is fine, of course. But if you are developing a business relationship with people via Twitter, do you really think it's wise to post a bunch of obnoxious politically motivated tweets?
• Tweeting about your every move. Mike covered this in his post, but it is worth repeating here. The fastest way to get me to hit the un-follow button is to post 30 tweets throughout the day all about every move you make in your personal life. Going to the grocery store now. Picking up my son from school. Taking a shower. Watching Leno. Enough already. Getting to know business associates on a personal level is good, but there is a limit, ya know.
• Tweeting private messages to the public forum. This is a common error for newbies (and yes, I have made this error myself). If you want to send a private message, or respond privately, don't use the @+ command (as in @veronicarobbins) that's for calling attention to individual tweeters in the public forum). Use the d+ command (as in d veronicarobbins). That will send your message directly, and privately, to the intended recipient.

Twitter is great. I love it. Use it, but be courteous, ok?

By the way, feel free to follow me and check out some of the great folks I'm following, too.

Learn more about Using Twitter as a Marketing Tool.