A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about 10 Common Mistakes on Twitter. The list below includes 10 more mistakes I’ve noticed users making on Twitter. Now, you have no excuse of using Twitter the wrong way Enjoy!

1. Promoting yourself or your company

If you only created your Twitter account to say “I’m an English-Greek translator available/looking for assignments”, you won’t get any clients or followers that way, believe me. Potential clients might think that if you’re that desperate, you’re probably not that good a translator to start with. Promote your professionalism by tweeting interesting and useful stuff in order to get clients interested so they can click at your website or other professional webpage and learn all about the services you offer.

And for some translation agencies I’ve noticed on Twitter: You’re not going to find new clients on Twitter by posting “We offer trans services in 900 languages” multiple times or even once a day. Stop doing that. As with the translators’ accounts, put some time into finding interesting stuff to tweet about. Include updates about your company blog, news or anything else that your followers might find interesting. And if you want to advertise your services, make it subtle.

2. Blog promotion

Of course you’ll send an update when you publish a new post in your blog. And if you’re not doing that, start immediately. Unless you only write for yourself (why do you have a blog and not a journal then?). Don’t tweet about it 5 times in the same day though. 1-2 is enough, maybe once more the next day. People will get bored seeing the same thing over and over again.

If you’re wondering what I consider a nice way to let people know you just published a new post, here it is: First write something to let people know that you’re the author of the post (obviously you can’t add your own Twitter name in the tweet), e.g. My new blog post: Then, add the title, e.g. Translators & their pets. Finally, add the hashtags related to your post, in this case #xl8 #t9n and maybe #pets J

3. Quantity of tweets

Avoid tweeting too much (more than 12-15 tweets per day) or too little (once every week/month). People will either get bored of you ‘hijacking’ their timeline or forget about you respectively.

4. Frequency of tweets

If you want to send a specific number of tweets every day, don’t just send them all at once. Spread them out over the day. And if you don’t want to log in to Twitter every once in a while to send your next tweet, you can schedule your next tweets using a free service, e.g. Hootsuite or Socialoomph.

5. Pls. follow me

Never beg for followers, that’s tacky. Only your existing followers can see that anyway, what’s the point?

6. Hashtags

Don’t add a hashtag in every word in your tweets, only add hashtags to the words that are relevant to the tweets content. And please, stop adding irrelevant hashtags just for the sake of it. For example, if your tweet talks about Facebook, don’t add #xl8. Of course, if we’re talking about a link to a blog post where a translator is talking about the benefits of Facebook for his/her profession, then by all means do add #xl8. You get my point.

7. Conversations

Sure, you can have a conversation on Twitter, but the 140-character updates can be somewhat limited. So, if you have a lot of things to say, take it to the next level and send an email. And always be careful of what information you share publicly. Use messages (DMs) for sensitive information.

8. Replies

Always use the Reply button on the specific tweet you want to comment on. Otherwise, the recipient won’t know what you’re referring to.

When you press Reply on Twitter, all the names that appear in the tweet you want to reply to appear. If you want to reply to everybody then leave them as is and add your answer. If not, then it’s just spamming. For example, when you say thank you for an #ff, don’t include everybody in the original #ff list, just the person who mentioned you.

9. Attitude

You think you’re better than everybody else and Twitter is a great platform to talk about yourself and only that. Let me save you some time. Nobody is going to listen.

10. Venting

Sure you can send a few tweets about something that frustrated you. But there’s a limit. Be careful what and whom you talk about, don’t forget your tweets are visible to anyone on the Web.

What have I missed? Any other mistakes you’ve noticed people (or us for that matter) making on Twitter? Let us know in the Comments section below or drop us an email.

I love Twitter. I’ve said it before and I’ll probably keep saying it until I persuade everybody I know to start using it. If you haven’t tried it yet, you can read about its numerous advantages and see what you’ve been missing out on. It’s a great tool to meet new interesting people, build your online presence and grow your network. However, some people get it wrong and most of the times they fail to appreciate it and eventually stop using it or end up annoying their followers.

These are some of the common mistakes people make on Twitter.

1. Professional or personal use

If you want to talk about both aspects of your life, you should have two separate accounts. Your friends might not be interested in news about your industry, and your professional contacts are definitely not interested in the women you want to date, the food you just ate and how handsome your boyfriend is.

2. Personal tweets

Based on #1, avoid sharing too much personal information in your professional account. But, DO send a few tweets now and then that show you’re a human and not a robot. After all, this is the best way to engage with your followers (see #3).

3. No engagement

One of the best things on Twitter are the conversations with your peers. They can start with a question (or an answer to a question), a remark or opinion about something you read etc. I am guilty of that mistake (not taking part in conversations) in the past few months due to limited time, but I remember fondly the useful conversations I used to have with my Twitter friends.

4. Retweeting

Personally, I don’t use Twitter’s RT button. I prefer the old-fashioned way and taking the time to do it manually. What that means: My perfect way of retweeting is putting the original tweet/blog post title first, then the link, the author’s name and finally the person I retweeted it from (and then the related hashtag of course). That way everybody is recognized. Both the author and the original Twitterer can see your retweet in their Mentions and that gives you a bigger chance to engage with them.

5. Your username

Don’t make it hard for people to remember your username. Your Twitter handle is as important as your brand name, your blog name etc. It helps your engagement with other people.

6. Your bio

Sadly, that’s a mistake most people do. It’s just a few words. Why leave it blank? Add a few words about who you are, what you do, a link to your website etc. This is the first thing potential followers read. If it’s blank, what does that say about you?

7. Your avatar

Are you still using the impersonal default Twitter image? Add a nice professional or professional-looking photo (preferably), your company logo even an image that reflects your personality (don’t take it too far).

8. Following too many people all at once

Take your time to choose the people you want to follow. It’s not a numbers game. Following hundreds of people only because that raises your chances to get more follows back doesn’t sound like a very beneficial way of using Twitter, does it? What kind of image does that give to people who check out your profile to decide if you’re worth following or not?

9. Too much attention to numbers

Twitter is all about the content, the relationships formed. Don’t obsess over the number of people following you, the ones you follow and the tweets you’ve sent. Focus on sharing useful content and the numbers will raise naturally.

10. Automatic DMs

You press the Follow button and you immediately get a DM saying “Hi, how are you?” or “Visit my website to learn more about me” or “Download my very useful ebook”. That’s annoying, right? The first impression you get is that the person you just followed is a spammer, you don’t want other people thinking that about you. Only use DMs when you have something of essence to say.

I have done some of those mistakes in the past but as the time went by I tried to learn from them. Of course, there’s no specific recipe for successful Twitter use, you just experiment and find the right way that suits your specific needs and makes it more fun for you.

Are you guilty of any of those mistakes? Any annoying habits your Twitter friends have or that you consider wrong?

Stay tuned for the next part of this post 10 (More) Common Mistakes on Twitter in a few weeks and Happy Tweeting!