The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly with Twitter

While social networking through Twitter is something we should all do, it’s not something everyone does correctly. It’s true, there is no right or wrong way to networking online, but there are ways you do more damage than good.

First and foremost, you need to remember that you’re out there to have fun. If you’re always serious and you only post serious things, people may not want to follow you. It’s ok to reply to your followers and comment or add your two cents worth about something funny.

The same goes for the other direction as well. You don’t want to always be funny and never post anything serious. You need a happy medium or you won’t get anything out of it. Plain and boring is not good.

Something else to consider is the outside services you use that automatically post to Twitter. There are programs like Social Oomph and Hootsuite that allow you to schedule posts for future times. While these are great, it’s not a good idea to only use those.

The main reason for this is because people know what you’re doing. The bottom part of your post contains your screen name, the date and time of your post, and how you made the post. If you look there and you see the web or TweetDeck, you know it’s a current post that they made right then and there. If you see the letters API this means it was scheduled.

Going along these same lines would be the programs like Share This and Tweetmeme. Those are visible on websites and blogs and will be posted to your Twitter account. While this is a great way to post something you found that might be interesting to your followers, it’s not good when that’s all you every post.

People love it when others Retweet what they post. It helps their message go farther and to others that aren’t following them. This is a great way to grow your follower list and you can increase your business as well.

The down side of retweeting comes when you don’t post your own content. Your followers want to learn about you and see what type of person you are, but they won’t see this if you don’t post anything yourself. It’s nice to help others, but you need to help yourself at the same time.

One last thing is marketing yourself too much. There is such a thing as too much advertising when it comes to social networking. When that’s what every single post is about, people will unfollow you before too long. You need to remember the purpose behind social networking.

Social networking is about others, not you. You’re there to help them grow and be successful. When this is accomplished, they’ll do the same thing for you. You need to be sure you let them know the referrals came from you so they can return the favor.

You need to remember that Twitter is all about everyone. Ask questions, respond to other posts, have a little fun, and every once in a while throw in an ad for yourself. Don’t try too hard to make it work. Enjoy yourself and have fun. That’s what it’s all about.