In 2014, businesses are taking advantage of social media as outlets to distribute content; one of the most popular networks being Twitter. It’s free and easy to create a Twitter page, but there are certain behaviors that I’ve come across as obnoxious, annoying and even unacceptable. Here are those habits to avoid:

1. Do your best to not come off as aggressive. Asking every new follower if they have ever used your products is the same as selling them. While every social outlet should push you further down the sales funnel, social media is also a means of communications and fostering connections. If you feel so inclined to ask every new follower of their history with your products you should at least do so in a direct message where it seems less aggressive to the rest of the Twittersphere.

   There are ways of asking “lead-generating” questions without blatantly asking about your products. Follow a new followers stream and communicate with their tweets. Make a genuine connection that could turn into a lead. Don’t scare them off by asking them point blank in your first interaction if they use your company.

2. Automated tweets/direct messages are the equivalent of flash websites in 2014. Not only are they generic and cheesy, they go against the grain of “social” media. No one wants to talk/engage with someone who is a part-time robot. Sure, you got them to follow you, but you’re just another case of the “follow 4 follow.”

   No matter how big your account may get, human interaction is the backbone to any social platform. Stop cutting corners, favorite a few tweets, share a few words here and there. By adding genuine, real time responses, you’re helping to humanize your brand. It’s important to personalize your tweets as best you can, give credit where credit is due and help build your reputation amongst your followers.

3. Twitter is as hectic as Black Friday shopping. If you’ve ever missed out on something you wanted, then you should have known to take it in stride. That being said, you’re going to miss out on opportunities on Twitter. Learn how to effectively time your tweets using different social media tools in order to optimize your presence. Stop tweeting every five minutes or risk being thrown into obscurity, a mistake many tweeters make.

At Ludlow, we use SocialBro, which contains an array of tools for business Twitter accounts. It provides reports on the best time to tweet, audience insights, benchmarking, interactions and competitor analyses. In addition, we manage different Twitter accounts with TweetDeck, which provides a great interface for customized timelines based on parameters the user chooses.

Remember that no one wants to deal with aggressive outbound techniques that we try to escape in our everyday lives. You can get your message across to your audience more effectively if you add value to the conversation. Poor automation of your tweets and messages can adversely affect your effectiveness. Taking the time to respond assures your audience the authenticity of the humanity of your brand. Lastly, take into account the frequency of your tweets. Twitter feeds can easily become congested from one annoying person, and you don’t want that person to be you, do you?