How Not to Market on Twitter

August 12, 2010 by Douglas Idugboe

There's no denying that Twitter is the most powerful yet free modern-age marketing tool. Unfortunate as it is, many online marketers tend to overdo things and cross their limits when the marketing medium itself is free. However, on Twitter, such mistakes are bound to backfire big time and can cause serious damage to your business' reputation.

It is strictly advisable to know "how you should market" on Twitter. Equally important but an often overlooked aspect of Twitter marketing is "how not to market". I've always believed that marketing is both an art as well as a science – you need to be creative as well as logical to launch a successful marketing campaign and Twitter is no exception to that rule.

So, how not to market on Twitter? As a start, follow these simple yet effective guidelines.

Avoid blatant sales pitches

Marketing professionals have a habit of getting down to business as soon as they meet a client. While the approach works wonderfully well in person, it is a perfect recipe for disaster on Twitter. Blatant sales pitches are bound to get you lots of criticism and not many followers. In fact, they are liable to encourage your current followers to unfollow you.

The best way to market on Twitter is using an informational tone. Don't be aggressive – it doesn't work.

Tweet in right proportions

As simple as it may seem, tweeting for businesses is a tricky business. You tweet too little – your followers lose interest in your products, you tweet too much – your followers think you are spamming them. Therefore, it is absolutely critical that you monitor the quantity as well as quality of your tweets.

Don't criticize competitors

I've never been a proponent of negative marketing tactics. Be it Twitter or conventional marketing, I strongly believe that a business is better off showcasing its strengths rather than exploiting its competitor's weaknesses. While I've come across several businesses which poke fun and ridicule competitors through their tweets, I consider it 'Below the belt' marketing and strongly unethical.

Don't over rely on RSS Feeds

As much as I admire RSS, I find it discomforting that many businesses rely entirely on their RSS feeds for tweets. It's not a good practice to just tweet out of an RSS feed. Your followers expect originality of some sort.

Don't over do the re-tweets

While retweeting is a healthy practice, overdoing it isn't useful. In fact, it's far from useful and is liable to label you as a "tweet forwarder". Retweets are a form of viral communication and it's best advisable to use them within reasonable limits. Further, if you constantly retweet messages from one particular user, there's a good chance that your followers might unfollow you and directly follow that user.

Avoid Monologue

Twitter is all about establishing dialogs and interaction. Monologues are not as effective as meaningful dialogs in Tweeterverse so make it a point to interacting more often with your customers. Listen to what customers have to say and act on it.

If you've any guidelines or suggestions on what marketing tactics should be strictly avoided on Twitter, please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.

http://smedio.com/2010/08/12/how-not-to-market-on-twitter