“An applicant for a Social Media Management role with Less than 1,000 Twitter followers is suspect”– Olivier Blanchard.

Even though I was not looking for a job in Social Media, the quote shown above from the respected brand strategist and consultant made me uncomfortable. With less than two hundred followers at that time, my credibility on Twitter seemed “suspect.” Now that I have crossed the milestone of a thousand followers, I realize that there are at least six Twitter mistakes that I made, which you can avoid.  

Here they are.

Following celebrities is a waste of time

Almost every new user on Twitter makes this mistake.

It usually has to do with the fact that Twitter suggests people for you to follow based on your areas of interest. Celebrities seldom engage with you or follow you. When you start out, you are better off picking a few people who you know to be active on Twitter. You can find out who among your friends are on Twitter by checking out their LinkedIn profiles. You can request for the archive of your connections through the Settings & Privacy tab available under the “Me” dropdown on your nome page.

My first few followers were colleagues and relatives whom I shamelessly approached with requests to follow me.

The absence of links can negatively impact engagement

Unless you are into tweeting inspirational quotes, you should consider attaching links with your tweets.

You may do fine without links if you can engage with a community of Twitter users by piggybacking on a popular hashtag that is trending. It is harder to do that when you have only a few followers and little credibility on Twitter. An interesting link combined with the appropriate hashtag may pique peoples’ curiosity encouraging them to click and read your tweeted link.

Targeted Tweets can limit exposure

If you want your tweets to remain private, you should use the Direct Message (DM) option.

If you start a tweet with @someone, that tweet will only be visible to that particular individual, and followers who are common to both accounts. Avoid this limitation by starting a tweet with a period (.) preceding the user’s Twitter handle. Alternatively, you can “mention” the person’s Twitter handle somewhere within the tweet, as opposed to the beginning. It ensures that others in your timeline can also see the tweet and respond to it if they find it interesting.

The retweet (RT) function within Twitter has limitations

RTs are a rare commodity on Twitter – unless you are Barak Obama or Ellen Degeneres.

Most Twitter users appreciate the retweets that they get by responding with a “thank you” or by “favouriting” your tweet. The trouble is that Twitter limits what can be done to retweets from within the Twitter platform. To “reply” or “favourite” a particular RT, the user has to go to the timeline of the person who retweeted, look up the tweet, and respond to it. That is a lot of work! To avoid this, simply copy and paste the message as a new tweet, add “RT” to the beginning and send it out to the intended person. Alternatively, you can use a Social Media management tool like Hootsuite to achieve the same result.

Text-only tweets get less attention 

The positive impact of images on Twitter and social media, in general, is tangible.

A tweet becomes much more interesting and engaging when combined with a relevant image. Adding an image is as straightforward as attaching a file from your PC or your smart mobile device. Videos on YouTube and Vine can also be easily tweeted out to show up within your tweets. Uploading videos from your PC may require you to first upload to YouTube or use external applications like Twitvid/Telly. You may want to start with images and see how you fare. Twitter cards are an effective way of communicating your messages using graphics. Here is a comprehensive post on the various types of Twitter cards.

Long gaps between tweets will project inconsistency 

Personally, I am always supportive of new users on Twitter. One thing that does prevent me from following someone is the fact that they do not Tweet. If their last tweet were a year ago, I would avoid following them. The only exceptions are my initial followers without whom I would not have had the motivation to stay active on Twitter. If you are unsure of where to find stuff that you can tweet about, check this SlideShare titled 25 content sources for social media posts.

Note: I am no longer active on Twitter

Are there others that you think should be included in this list?