60 Things a Brand Should Not Do on Twitter!

Twitter is all about the good, the bad and the ugly. Every brand tweeting away on twitter should follow proper twitter etiquette. Twitter etiquette is important to impress your present and potential customers. Here are 60 rules of the road for brands to abide with while tweeting about their glorious brand:

1. Do not just keep broadcasting your tweets. Remember you are not a news channel!
2. Retweet of a retweet of a retweet! Trust me, this will just confuse your fans.
3. Do not keep tweeting continuously. Give a proper time space between your tweets. Have it scheduled.
4. Do not talk only about your brand – 24/7. Share knowledge, acknowledge others and add value to the ecosystem.
5. Do not tweet a link alone. Give a description alongside to make it credible enough to click.
6. Do not protect your tweets. If you really wanted to protect yourself, you should have not joined twitter itself. Or have a personal diary.
7. Do not make a spelling mistake! Check your tweet twice before posting.
8. Do not post facts without giving credits to the sources or add a source link to make it look more credible.
9. Have a profile picture of your CEO or logo of the brand and avoid using cartoon, landscapes, flowers etc. People love to know who they are talking to.
10. Do not use an animated picture as your profile picture. Using an animated profile picture speaks volumes about your brand! Unless your brand wants to depict a particular kind of image.
11. Tweets in CAPITAL LETTERS! Avoid them. They are very uncomfortable to read and might come off as rude.
12. Though Twitter shortens the link automatically, it is suggested to not to just copy paste the link as such. Instead shorten it using link shortener like bitly and then post it. It will make your tweet look neat.
13. Do not use aggressive or foul language. Be polite and subtle. Remember, when people are complaining, they are not complaining about you. They have an issue with your product and they just want you to get it sorted.
14. If you are handling your company’s twitter account, avoid taking tweets personally – This is a root cause of various nuisances that can impact a brand adversely.
15. Do not use unrelated hashtags. Oh yes! I have seen brands doing it. Use a hashtag that is only relevant to your tweet/brand.
16. Don’t send an automated tweet that announces how many new followers, mentions and retweets you’ve gained in the past week. Nobody cares, really.
17. Do not follow people at a stretch. Maintain your following to followers ratio. You might land up in trouble and your account would be blocked for no reasons.
18. Do not have an incomplete or a misleading profile. Keep it complete, simple and straight. It just takes a minute to write one. That just simply means have your bio, location and website link in place.
19. Twitter is all about sharing, people share their personal experiences and many uses twitter as a chat medium. As a brand do not get into personal talks until and unless they are not talking about you.
20. Do not tweet in your native language. Tweet in the native language of your audience.
21. Do not use twitter validation service like TrueTwit to verify that your followers are real. It might confuse people and trust me people don’t have time to validate their credibility and to prove you they are genuine.
22. Don’t have an inactive twitter account. You rather not have a twitter account at all.
23. Do not have a ‘follow us on twitter icon’ integrated to your website or any other branding if you are not active on twitter.
24. Don’t expect people to follow you, but make sure to follow people and build relationships on a regular basis. If not, you might come off as an arrogant brand just looking for a massive follower count.
25. Do not keep your twitter account secret. Add it on to your website, email signatures, LinkedIn profile, business cards and newsletters. Only then people would know of your availability on Twitter.
26. Do not copy paste a tweet without giving credits to the original source.
27. Do not just expect others to retweet your tweets. You need to retweet theirs too. But make sure the tweet you are retweeting is relevant to your industry/product.
28. Do not tweet once in a month and disappear. Twitter presence is a must!
29. Do not hesitate to apologize when you find people complaining about your products/services on twitter. It is suggested, apologize to them politely and deal with the issue offline. Remember, by apologizing, you are actually being considerate.
30. Do not buy followers. They will be of no use to you. Twitter is all about quality and not quantity. Many might disagree on this. But I believe in it. Build your audience slowly with your quality of work.
31. Brands sending #FF (#FridayFollow) looks really weird. Do not do that. You can recommend your employees, analysts and bloggers in your industry vertical. Avoid giving it to your customers – you will look desperate.
32. As a brand, do not split your tweets into two unless and until it is really necessary. Try keeping it short and simple.
33. Do not mention your competitors. You are not here to wage a war! Keep your tweets healthy.
34. Do not allow Klout to broadcast your score. It really doesn’t matter to people.
35. Do not take ages to respond. Keep monitoring your twitter account and respond to people asap.
36. Do not link your Facebook to twitter. Messages on both the platforms need to be customized according to the tool.
37. As a brand do not use words like “LOL”, “ROFL”, “ha ha ha”. Keep your language dignified enough and sound professional.
38. Do not tweet things that has nothing to do with your brand.
39. Do not use a lot of hashtags in a single tweet. It might seem messy and unnecessary. Use only three hashtags at the most.
40. Do not ask people to DM you without you following them. Remember that people can’t DM you until and unless you don’t follow them. So follow them first and then ask them to DM.
41. Do not change your username often. You are a brand and you need to stick on to one name for people to recognize you.
42. If you are a product industry and you are into listening tweets of people and engaging them on twitter, do not offer your products at the first go. Take up a casual conversation like “can we help you out”, “We do have a solution for you” and then talk about your product.
43. Do not forget to reply followers who have mentioned you. A Simple “Thanks for the mention” message will also do.
44. Do not automate your tweets. Give a human touch to them. This will fetch you a better response from your fans.
45. Publishing all the tweets at one go is a strong no! Don’t ever do that. It is the most annoying thing a brand can ever do.
46. Do not stick on to the same type of content. Tweet creative content which will entertain the audience out there.
47. Do not follow everyone who follows you. It is not compulsory. There are many fake profiles/spammers running around.
48. Do not ignore the negative responses. Reply to them in a kind and professional manner.
49. Don’t ignore your DMs. Allot time to check your DMs everyday and respond to the same.
50. Do not hesitate to RT something that you think your followers might feel interesting or helpful.
51. Do not share your twitter password with any outsider. Let it be within you or any of your team members who handles your brand.
52. Do not hesitate to ask advice! Twitter is a great place to crowd source.
53. Do not use one long hash tag to describe your entire tweet. Eg: #readourcasestudyhere . DON’T. It is annoying and also many a times read differently.
54. Avoid using jargon unless your target audience expects to read jargon from you.
55. Do not add people to your list if the list does not have a complete description. People will be left clueless as why have you added them to that particular list.
56. Do not hesitate to thank people who have shared your media coverage. They might be your well wishers. Follow them up and greet a small thank you message. (Use listening tool to track who have talked about your media coverage)
57. Avoid anything that you want to keep it confidential or that may upset or offend others. Do not forget that social media is a public media.
58. Don’t just use words, post tweets that contain photographs, videos and links to interesting information as Twitter embeds them on the timeline.
59. If you are using third party tools for twitter analytics or scheduling tweets or for managing twitter ensure that you don’t allow third party tools to see your password, access your DMs and tweet on your behalf (unless really needed)
60. Do not forget any of the points mentioned above.

After all it’s just Twitter, it’s always fun and you’ll do great!