Twitter marketing is different from most other forms of marketing, as there are many unwritten rules that Twitter users expect businesses to follow. Businesses that don’t take the time to learn how Twitter works often find that their marketing attempts fail to produce the results they want. Here are five rookie mistakes that ruin your Twitter marketing.

Automatic Direct Messages

Automatic direct messages, often known as auto DMs, are private messages sent automatically to new followers, usually to promote a business, sell services or ask the recipient to click on a link. Auto DMs often serve only to irritate the recipient, which can lead new followers to block or mute your messages. If you want to connect with your new followers through auto DMs, try sending a welcome message introducing yourself and inviting them to respond. Never use the first message to try to sell products.

One-Way Conversations

One-way conversations can be private (DMs) or public (mentions), but most users are easily annoyed by businesses that send messages with the sole intention of promoting their company. Promotional and marketing messages should always be directed to the wider Twitter community, rather than specific individuals or groups of people. If you want to build relationships with potential customers, it’s important to engage in two-way conversations and create a dialogue with other Twitter users.

Continuous Stream of Messages

Posting a constant stream of messages will almost certainly lead to many of your followers blocking or muting your tweets, and possibly unfollowing your account. Nobody wants to see the same business clogging up their timeline with marketing messages for hours at a time, so it’s important to pace the release of your tweets, particularly when they include promotional content. Ideally, you should aim to post no more than ten tweets per hour.

Failing to Reciprocate

Reciprocation is the key to building goodwill and useful relationships on Twitter. New followers expect businesses to follow back and respond to mentions or direct messages. In addition, it’s good practice to retweet a few interesting messages posted by your followers every day, as this may lead to reciprocation and can help to build long-term relationships that can be useful in the future.

Hijacking Hashtags

Hashtags help users to organise information and can be extremely useful for marketing purposes. However, many businesses use trending or popular hashtags to try to reach a wider audience, even when their messages are unrelated to the topic of the hashtag. Hijacking popular hashtags in this way can lead to a backlash from Twitter users. Use hashtags sparingly and make sure that each hashtag is appropriate for the content of your message.

Twitter marketing can take time and patience to master, as there are many unwritten rules that businesses need to follow. Sending auto DMs to new followers, having one-way conversations, sending a constant stream of marketing messages, failing to reciprocate and hijacking hashtags can all have a negative impact on your Twitter marketing. Taking the time to learn how Twitter works and what users expect of businesses is the best way to avoid problems in the future.