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At least once a day someone says to me “I don’t get Twitter” and I can see why.  It took me a long time to understand what Twitter is all about so here are a few pointers of  where people go wrong:

1. Creating an account and not using it – Twitter is littered with dead accounts. Usually what happens is a business creates an account, starts following people to get followers, then can’t keep up with a pace that is needed and they give up too soon. Often they expect overnight results, but that won’t happen. Don’t expect huge results and major ROI quickly. Twitter is a slow, organic growth platform in most cases.

2. Not engaging – Twitter is a conversation. If all you do is talk, but not talk to anyone, you’re boring. Reach out and start conversations with others. Don’t just stand up and shout out into the air.

3. Not replying to @mentions – It’s not just about engaging others actively, but also responding to others when they @mention you. If someone speaks to you, and you don’t respond, they will assume you aren’t there, don’t care, have automated your Twitter, or all of the above. When that happens, you can bet they won’t interested in what you have to say when you tweet.

4. Not building an audience – Your Twitter following doesn’t just grow. This isn’t an “if you build it they will come” proposition. You need to work to build your following, and that usually starts by you regularly, and strategically, following others and then engaging them.

5. Not tweeting enough – I’m going to step out on a limb and say there really is no such thing as tweeting too much. But not tweeting enough can be a real problem. Relationships are built on interaction. Rationing yourself to a certain number of tweets per day/week is a big mistake. Do you ration how often you interact with people in person?

6.Not following anyone – There is no rule that says you have to follow everyone who follows you, but you do need to consistently follow others. If you have a gazillion followers and don’t follow anyone back, that means all you care about is what you have to say, and don’t give a stuff about anyone else. Sorry, but it’s not all about you.

7. Not retweeting/sharing – Twitter works best when you tweet out a nice variety of content. That includes retweeting or sharing the content of others that you think your followers might be interested in. This is just one way of being a good citizen of the Twitter community. Plus, if you regularly share the work of others, they will be more likely to share or retweet your content.

8. Heavy handed sales – There is a place for some sales content on Twitter, but I see a lot of folks who do nothing but sell. It’s clear that they aren’t on Twitter for relationships. They don’t view you as a person; you are only a potential customer. The problem with that view is that if you don’t move from potential customer to real customer, they no longer have any interest in you. Mercenary relationships don’t work.

9. Not providing relevant content – We could debate about this for a long time as we all have different ideas about how to define “relevant” content. And the answer will be different for all of us, based on who we are, what we do, and our intended audience. But if all you do is link to non-compelling content, you’ll be ignored.

10. Retweeting retweets of themselves – These are  people who break their arms patting themselves on the back. I especially see this a lot within the marketing community. @MarketingGalA tweets that she won an award. @MarketingGuyB retweets  her and appends it with a congratulations. @MarketingGalA retweets  @MarketingGuyB’s retweet as if to say, “Hey, this guy congratulated me for winning an award, this makes me special!”. The real problem with this is that the people who are guilty of this seem to do it all the time. Get over yourself.

11. Incomplete profile – One of the first things you need to do before you really start using Twitter is to make sure you have a complete profile. This means having a proper image, as well as a nice description of who you are and what you do. This should also include your location. People like to have some sort of context and want to know who’s on the other side of your account.

12. Not publicising that you’re on Twitter – You can have the best Twitter profile and be great at engaging, but you need to find ways to let your customers know you are on Twitter. This includes online methods such as your email, website, and Facebook page. This also includes using various offline methods that inform your customers when they are actually in your business.

13. Not integrating – Twitter doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You might want to include a Twitter widget on your website, or make sure that your blog gets pushed out to your Twitter followers automatically. There are many different ways that you can integrate Twitter with your other online properties.

14. One dimensional presence – Don’t just tweet the same sorts of things. None of us is one dimensional. We have a wide variety of interests, as do our followers. Play into those. Some people do nothing but spit out inspirational quotes.  If that’s all you do, people will get bored quickly. Remember, Twitter is real life.  Act on Twitter the way you would in a face to face setting.

15. Only automating via Facebook or only scheduling – An easy way for businesses to manage a Social Media presence is for them to link their Facebook updates to Twitter.  I have no problem with this unless this is all you do. Remember, the name of the game is engagement. More often than not, businesses that do nothing but post the same content on both platforms, will end up only monitoring one of them, and that’s usually Facebook. If you aren’t monitoring Twitter, you can’t respond to people who might try to engage with you. Plus you won’t be engaging others proactively. If you do link Facebook and Twitter, make sure you are also spending time on Twitter alone, engaging, replying, and offering other content.

16. Having a protected account – This one makes no sense and drives me bonkers. I have no problem with individuals protecting their account, but if you are a business, your goal is to build up a nice following. By protecting your tweets you are adding an extra hurdle for people when they want to follow you. They have to request, and you have to approve. Quite frankly, when I see a business do this, I don’t even want to follow them.