It takes a little time and effort to build your Twitter community. If you have been working at it and are frustrated with your progress, maybe there is something that you should change. Here are six suggestions for potential red flags others see in your account.
- Before You Start: You have a business Twitter account.
- Learning Level: 3 | Building Skills
- Article Last Updated: Thursday, April 4, 2013
Increase Your Twitter Appeal
If you are frustrated with the amount of time you have invested in your slow-growing Twitter community, maybe you are not sending out the message you mean to send out. Here are some reasons why people may decide not to follow you.
1. No Avatar (Or A Bad Avatar)
If you are still using the default Twitter avatar and you have been on Twitter more than 24 hours, you need to fix this!
If you are a solopreneur or run a very small business, consider using your face as your avatar. People respond to faces, and it makes your business more personal.
Make sure that your logo is the appropriate size and shape for your Twitter avatar. Most logos are rectangular, and Twitter wants a square avatar. Either adjust your logo to make it square, or pull out one element of your logo to use for your avatar.
2. Incomplete Profile
Give people the information they need to become a customer of your business. Use every component of your profile. Write a complete bio. Provide a link to a website where they can learn more about your business. People will connect with you faster if you tell them who you are.
3. Goofy Numbers
The pattern of your follower and following numbers tell people some interesting things about your Twitter use. Make sure you know what your numbers communicate to others.
- If you have a large number of updates (over 1,000) and you follow a lot more people than follow you, you look like a spammer.
- If you have a lot of followers (more than 100) and you have zero updates, you look like a spammer.
Of course, as you start building your community, you will follow more people than you have following you. That’s normal. But the numbers should balance out over a few weeks.
4. Broadcast vs. Reply Ratio
Do you just send out tweets, or are you engaging in conversations with your community? You should expect to have 25% replies (or more) in your archive to show you are talking in your community. Replies to known celebrity accounts don’t count.
Some businesses engage their community more than 25%. New business Twitter accounts typically don’t engage as much as businesses with more established communities.
5. Intolerant Viewpoints
Do you get angry and rant in your tweets? Do you talk about religion or politics or other polarizing topics frequently? Your business Twitter account should engage your community around topics related to your business, so unless your business involves your church or is involved directly with politics, you might consider limiting your comments about these topics. Or get a personal Twitter account where you talk about this non-business topics.
If people sense that you are more likely to argue than discuss, or that you are not tolerant of divergent viewpoints, your tweets may be shutting you off from business.
6. 24 Hour Sales Machine
Do all of your tweets promote your business products and services? This is one of the biggest reality checks on social media. You can’t just show up and talk about yourself. If you are used to doing that through your emails and websites and blog posts, you will have a rough time getting real traction on any social media.
It’s okay to mention your business. But you should also promote the good work of others and be generous in pointing out resources to your community that do not benefit you.
Your turn: What do you look for when you evaluate someone new on Twitter? What raises red flags for you? Share your opinions in the comments.
Related Articles:
- Grow Your Twitter Community
- Ebook: Twitter For Beginners
- 9 Ways To Engage Your Twitter Community
- Finding Existing Customers on Twitter
- Write A Great Twitter Bio
- Setting Twitter Goals
Article categories: Articles • Community Management • Level 3 • Twitter
Article tags: @Replies • Community • Community Management • Conversation • Follower • Following • Listening • Spam • Twitter • Twitter Profile
Charlene Kingston is the small business person behind the Social Media DIY Workshop.
7 Responses to “6 Reasons Why Potential Customers Won’t Follow You on Twitter”
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I'm Charlene Kingston.
I teach small business people how to build a thriving online business presence.
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It’s actually nice to read a “real” instructional article on the use of social media. You speak the truth, social media is no different than communications in real life. It is not a blog or newsletter but is instead meant to be interactive. Just like in real life if all you do is talk about yourself nobody will have any interest in the end.
.-= Kendra´s last blog ..An Alternative Approach To Buying Green =-.
Thanks, Kendra. I’m trying to take the mystery out of social media, to let small business people see that they really can do this themselves. Your comment helps to make that point. I do appreciate it!
Charlene, what is your take on the recent rumor/news that Google may begin indexing Twitter posts? That could have some substantial impact if it eventually played into the search engine results.
Although I didn’t mention the point you made about getting a personal twitter account earlier one of the biggest turnoffs I’ve seen when following the little twitter links across the bottom of a business site is someone making a political or personal comment. That’s just about a guaranteed mechanism from getting rid of 50% of your potential customers as that many will automatically be pre-programmed against you.
.-= Kendra´s last blog ..Getting Lost With Ceramics =-.
Hello again, Kendra!
First, that isn’t a rumor about Google. Not only Google but the Library of Congress is going to keep the entire Twitter history. Everything everyone has tweeted so far is now part of recorded history. I have a couple of thoughts on this, but I’ll save them for an upcoming blog post, fair enough?
The whole freedom of speech issue is a tough one. I understand completely your comment about business owners making political or religious or other polarizing sorts of comments can drive away business. I know people who have stopped using businesses, not because the business held a different position, but because the business talked about their position endlessly. I also know business owners who feel that you have to take them as they are, that they have a right to express their opinion, and they get mad when you point out that customers and potential customers vote on their opinions with their feet and dollars.
As much as I would like for this to be the kind of world where different viewpoints are embraced and encouraged, in truth, divergent viewpoints are often barely tolerated and sometimes shunned. Hmmm, this might make an excellent blog post as well.
Good point about the 24 hour sales machine. I think you have to look at what you are posting and think about what you would want to see as the reader reading the post. People ignore enough spam in their inbox, they don’t need it on Twitter
Chris
This will probably get a link back someday, good list and WORD to #6. The ‘all me all the time’ channel is what I like to call ‘you’re doing it wrong.’ I have long lists of Twitter rules, pretty much agreeing with all of this. On the numbers, I miss the old Mr. Tweet service that let you look at those ratios; it was helpful to have a snapshot of the stats, see how often some @replies, RTs or do they just broadcast. FWIW.
Davina K. Brewer recently posted “Blog, Interrupted.”
Thanks, Davina. I’ve lost a few Twitter tool friends over the years, too. I never tried Mr. Tweet.