Social Media Strategies Archives

5 Tips for Brands on Instagram

November 7, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Brands on Instagram are still relatively young, but there is still a lot marketers can learn from their successes and failures.

Instagram is about to roll out their sponsored ad feature, and based on the comments from Instagram users, it would also appear as though the world is about to end. Like every social network that burst onto the scene, Instagram needs to find a way to make money, and by charging brands on Instagram a fee for posting their images on users’ accounts, they might have found it. But if your company has a presence on Instagram, what can you do to ensure that your audience will stick around?

Below are five things you can learn from other brands on Instagram and apply to your strategy in order to get the most out of the network.

Quality is Better than Quantity

Have you ever scrolled through your Instagram feed and noticed a half dozen posts from the same user, all in a row, all with a message to follow someone, or double tap an image, or some other pseudo-promotional content? No one likes it, and it is a very easy way to lose followers that actually check Instagram regularly.

One of the things that attracts people to the app is the ability to make the ordinary look extraordinary. Focus on sharing something that people will love and it will go a lot further than sharing a lot of forgettable posts.

Have a Strategy

Like any other one of your social networks, Instagram is going to need a content strategy if you want it to work for you. ‘Getting started’ with Instagram means doing just that.

The same way you created a content strategy and schedule for your other channels, do so for Instagram. It will make the management of your account much easier and you will be able to find success much quicker.

Create a Brand for Your Brand

What content are you sharing that people are most responsive to? At t2, we have branded ourselves with dogs. What symbolizes your brand? Figure that out and share content that is immediately recognizable as your own. You want people to know that the image is coming from your account, and not have to look up at the user to see who posted it.

Set Goals

What are you trying to achieve with Instagram? Again, this is not a tip unique to the network; this is something that should be practiced on every one of your social channels. That said, it still needs to be done. Otherwise, who is to say that your work on Instagram is doing you any good. Work towards a goal and determine how you plan to measure the steps you are taking to achieve it.

Soft Sell

This is the most important tip of all. As noted above, reaction from users to the sponsored ads has been very negative. While some people don’t seem to mind it, those that do, mind it a lot.

Remember, Instagram is an app. You should be sharing images that increase brand awareness. This is not the place to solely promote your product or service. Familiarize people with your brand so that you remain top of mind. Then, when the time comes, you can leverage this brand awareness and drive sales from the network. Patience is a virtue – especially on Instagram.

How have you found success on Instagram? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

3 Departments to Involve in Your Social Business

November 6, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Has your social business involved every department it can?

We all know that the marketing department is going to be among the first to adopt new media when it comes to social business, but what other departments can contribute to it? These three departments are generally forgotten when it comes to social business, and it is easy to understand why: a lot of people don’t know how they can be social!

Customer Service

Now, this is a little paradoxical. Yes, your customer service department is inherently a ‘social’ department per se. After all, it spends the day dealing with people. But when becoming a social business, your customer service department is going to become much more public then ever before. And that’s a good thing.

Social Care – or, customer service on social channels – is increasing in popularity and becoming a favorite among consumers. When evolving into a social business, you are certainly going to want to get your customer service team on the front lines. Just be sure you have a strategy in place for every possible scenario! Now, with social in the mix, your customer service team is a pseudo PR department. They are a direct reflection of how your company treats clients, so make sure they are doing it right.

Tech/Support

Has there ever been a department more suited for conversing on the web? Your tech and support teams need to be able to show that they can help with anything at any time. They are like an extension of your customer service team. In fact, they are your customer service team.

Think about it. When you call a customer service line, they are generally going to connect you with the department most able to assist you with your problem. By making these departments as easily accessible as your customer service team, you can help cut out the middle man and save time on all fronts. Let people deal with matters in the most efficient way possible, and your business will be functioning at optimal capacity.

Sales

If your sales team is not already on social, get them on there! You never know where you might find a new client, but you can rest assured that wherever you might find that client, there is a pretty good chance you will find them on social channels, too.

Your sales team should be listening to the conversation around your industry and involving themselves in the conversation when and where it is appropriate. Take a look at this blog post about cell phone carriers to see some great examples of Dos and Don’ts when it comes to social selling.

What other departments do you think would benefit from a presence on social media when you become a social business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

4 Important Facebook Targeting Options

November 5, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Have you put together an ad campaign using the Facebook targeting options?

Have you ever tried to promote your content to a broader audience by developing a Facebook ad campaign? Boosting a post is one thing, but if you know how to properly use the Facebook advertising platform, you can reach very targeted audiences and get a specific message across to groups you know will want to hear them.

Below are four Facebook targeting options that are going to be very important when it comes to putting together a successful ad campaign.

Location, Age and Gender

These are the most obvious targeting options. We all know that we have the ability to target by location, age and gender, but we often forget that when it comes to advertising, the more specific we are, the greater the likelihood that our campaign will find success.

With Facebook, you have the ability to target not only countries, but states/provinces, cities and, if you are running a campaign in the United States, by zip code. Why is this beneficial? Well, if you are a local business, this gives you the opportunity to target only those people who are potential customers based on location. It also means that if you are running a campaign in the United Kingdom, for example, you could filter out any users outside of the UK and prevent your ad (and your dollars) from going to users that cannot benefit from the offering.

As for age and gender, figure out exactly who is going to be most responsive to this campaign. Maybe you don’t know – that’s not a problem. Use these targeting options to test different markets. Maybe you create one version of your ad targeted towards males in the United States between the ages of 25 and 39, and another version targeted towards females in Canada over the age of 45. (On a side note, that’s one versatile product!) You might be surprised by what you find.

Precise Interests

Now we’re getting into the real value that exists with Facebook targeting options. One of the great features that a lot of marketers tend to overlook is the ability to target audiences by interest. For those familiar with AdWords, this is something that Google determines based on search history and other criteria, but on Facebook, this is determined by a user’s expressed interests. They are telling you what they like!

You are going to want to include as many Precise Interests or pages (yes, company or brand pages) as you can – just make sure they relate to your ad and landing page (whether it is your Timeline or a page off of Facebook). Just begin typing and you will see a drop down menu of interest options along with the number of people that have listed this item as one of their interests.

Broad Categories

Interests are great for getting right down to what a person might like, but perhaps you will find that you want to target people with a number of diverse interests and one commonality. This is where Broad Categories comes in handy.

Here, you are able to target users based on broader criteria. One of the best characteristics to consider targeting is precise mobile devices. Over 70% of Facebook users access the platform via their smartphone. Don’t miss out on a chance to target those users with your campaign.

Choose Your Users

Maybe you are running a campaign that is targeted specifically to people that are already your fans; this could be something along the lines of a loyalty program. Maybe you are only looking to target users that have not yet liked your company, and are offering something to new fans. In any case, you are going to want to specify whether you want your ad to target users that are already fans, or potential fans.

If you have not already done so, then definitely take a look at the Facebook targeting options for ads. You might be surprised at how much more effective it can make your campaign.

Have you found any surprises with your ads? Tell us what they were in the comments below or on Twitter!

How to Determine KPIs on Social Media

November 1, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Understanding your brand’s KPIs on social media is going to be crucial to measuring the success of your program.

ROI remains one of the key concerns for marketers and executives alike when it comes to social media marketing. While there exist a number of ways to measure your returns on social campaigns, few marketers know where to look in order to find them. The first place to start is by establishing your KPIs on social media – they are going to be invaluable down the road.

Think about it: how can you know if you are successful, if you do not know what your measurement for success is going to be? For those that do not know what KPI stands for, these are Key Performance Indicators, and they vary from brand to brand.

There are a few steps you are going to need to take in order to determine your KPIs for social media. Below is the set of steps to follow in order to figure out what, exactly, you plan on using as a criteria for success with social media efforts.

Establish Your Goals

Before you can determine how you want to measure your returns, you need to know what you want to accomplish. As it states above, KPIs are going to vary from business to business. Of course there will be some that are fairly general, and observed by almost everyone. But to know what you want to be measuring, you need to know what is going to contribute to achieving your goals.

There are a few goals your brand might have. Maybe you want to increase brand awareness, or drive direct sales. Maybe it is something in between those two. Whatever it is, you need to start by establishing your short and long term goals.

Understand Insights

When it comes to social media, insights are going to come in all shapes and sizes. They can also be assisted by tools and technologies. When looking at KPIs, you are going to need to sift through quite a bit of data. Conventionally, the top-down approach to measuring KPIs started with your goals and simply looked at the processes that led to results as the KPIs. This is not the case with social (well, not entirely the case). While you are going to be looking at processes as KPIs, you are also going to be looking at a number of other resources. Enter insights.

Know where your insights exist both on and off social networks. Look at your activity on Facebook Insights, and compliment that with data collected in Google Analytics. Knowing where all of your data is being collected (and yes, all of your data is being collected) is going to be extremely useful when determining your KPIs and where you can find them.

Simplicity is Not a Bad Thing

Sometimes, the simplest answer is going to be the best. Measuring your return on investment does not have to be some convoluted set of equations that generate a mysterious, variable-filled result. You can look at some of your more simple KPIs and find a whole lot of value.

Something as simple of your number of interactions – a hard, straightforward number – can be an extremely valuable KPI and you shouldn’t go out of your way to complicate things.

Some Helpful Starting Points

When it comes to KPIs on social media, there are going to be some standard ones. No matter what you are trying to achieve, you will ultimately want to keep at least a few of these in mind.

Cost-per-lead/conversion: You have to spend money to make money and social media is no different. Pay attention to how much you are investing in every one of your conversions in order to ensure that you are profitable.
Engagement: Look at how often your fans are interacting with your brand in order to see if your content strategy is successful. If you are talking to no one, how can you expect to drive any business from social media?
Referral traffic: This relates closely to your engagement KPI. How often is your content leading to users visiting your website? What types of content are leading to users visiting your website, or finding landing pages?
Network growth: It might seem trivial, but a lot of people tend to overlook the value of a large network. Whether that is an email database, a group of Twitter followers, or followers on your company’s LinkedIn page, a growing network can have a lot of value if leveraged correctly.

What KPIs are you using to track your work on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Intelligence Says To Invest in a Social Advertising Campaign

October 30, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is not free; if you want to succeed, you need to be prepared to invest in a social advertising campaign.

Have you made the mistake of thinking that social media is ‘free’? You’re not alone. Plenty of people – marketers and businesspeople alike – have made the dangerous mistake of assuming that because you can create an account or page on a social network for free – from a financial investment perspective – that succeeding with the platform is going to be free as well. If you want to find success with social media, you need to be prepared to invest in a social advertising campaign.

Recently, Adobe released their Q3 Social Intelligence Report. In it, they outlined a lot of very interesting details. For example, people are beginning to engage more. Although brands only increased their post number by 9% year-over-year, engagement has jumped up 115% in the same time period.

Though despite all of these interesting stats, there was one point that stood out above the rest: paid social is on the rise. There were a few ways in which the report made this clear.

We have found ourselves at a wonderful point in time (as marketers and advertisers) where the world’s largest network is trying to justify it’s price tag. So, economically speaking, how do you increase demand? Why, you decrease price, of course!

A few of the key findings below show why now is the time to invest in a social advertising campaign and reap major benefits.

CPC and CTRs

The cost-per-click (CPC) for ads on Facebook has gone down considerably in the last year – down by 40%, to be exact. Meanwhile, click-through rates on Facebook ads (CTR) have gone up by a whopping 275%! By creating an optimized ad and sharing to the right people in the right places, you could reap some major benefits from the advertising platform.

CPM and ROI

The cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for Facebook ads has increased. And understandably so – there are over a million sets of a thousand users you can reach out to. That said, targeting capabilities have become increasingly specific in the last year and as a result, measured return on investment (ROI) has seen a jump of 58% in the last year. So, while it might be more expensive to reach large numbers of people, if you pick your audience properly, you can see significant returns.

Click Volume and Impressions Growth

Great news advertisers! As ads become more prevalent on the network, so do impressions (naturally) and clicks (interesting!). That’s right, people are clicking on sponsored ads as they become more frequent. So you might hear people say they don’t want to see any advertising on their favorite social network, but if it is done correctly, you can expect that they will not only accept it, but click on it.

Now is the time to capitalize on the returns that can be generated from Facebook’s huge network of users. Your brand should not let this opportunity fall by the wayside. You can and should strongly consider investing in a social advertising campaign today. Find out how t2 can help here.

There are a lot more great facts and figures that marketers might find interesting in this study. Which one do you think is most important or interesting? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

6 Best Practices for LinkedIn Company Pages

October 29, 2013/by Corey Padveen

There are certain best practices for LinkedIn Company Pages that brands need to adhere to in order to generate engagement and business.

LinkedIn is a fantastic resource wherein professionals can showcase their expertise and highlight their strengths. For businesses, Company Pages provide a hub where brands can outline services, engage with prospects and ultimately, drive brand awareness and sales. In order to do that, however, there are certain best practices for LinkedIn that these brands needs to follow.

The six simple best practices detailed below should help brands harness the benefits that LinkedIn has to offer.

Fill Out Every Section

Your page consists of a services section, where you can highlight the services your brand offers and share pictures that make your page more aesthetically pleasing and more dynamic. Do not leave anything out. Your page is there to showcase your brand and all that you offer. Let potential clients know what you can do!

Be Relevant

Keep in mind that unlike Facebook or Google+, LinkedIn is all about business. Your LinkedIn Company Page is not a place to share the same type of content you would share to your Facebook page. Sure, there will be some overlap, but you only want to be sharing content that your audience will find relevant. Remember, they followed your brand because they like the professional content that you share.

Separate Content Schedule

You might find that sharing 20 updates to Twitter per day works for your brand, and a half a dozen Facebook updates generates quite a bit of engagement. LinkedIn is going to be a rather different story. People following your brand on LinkedIn are not going to appreciate being bombarded with content throughout the day. A less frequent content schedule is going to be adequate on LinkedIn.

Engage with Your Audience

Monitor your page’s activity to see what type of content is generating clicks, shares and comments and engage with your audience. LinkedIn recently made it possible to post content and comments as a page. Take advantage of this feature and make your brand’s presence known. Just because LinkedIn is all about business, does not mean it is any less social!

Create Market-Specific Pages

LinkedIn allows users to create landing pages on their Company Page for specific market segments. Say, for example, that you offer certain services to the retail industry and another set of services for the manufacturing industry. When users from these two industries visit your LinkedIn Company Page, they can land on pages that have been designed specifically for their industry. Not only does this provide them with the best user experience, but it also helps reflect your brand’s diversity and attention to customer needs.

Pay Attention to Your Analytics

On your Company Page, you have the ability to monitor all of the analytics on your posts. See what has generated clicks and comments, and what was ignored by your audience. Modify your content strategy as you would on any other network in order to ensure that you are only sharing content that your audience finds most valuable.

These six best practices for LinkedIn Company Pages should help you increase the activity and business you see on LinkedIn.

How else are you optimizing your LinkedIn strategy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

6 Great Blog Content Sources

October 24, 2013/by Corey Padveen

These 6 blog content sources are great when you’re looking for fresh, new content.

If you have a blog, then you have, at some point or another, wondered where the inspiration for your next great article was going to come from. You’re not alone. Bloggers are always looking for great, new blog content sources. These six great resources should help you find the inspiration you need next time you hit a wall when deciding what you should write about.

Mashable

With everything from mainstream news stories to viral campaigns, Mashable has a ton of great content that can lead to inspiration for a new article. Every section on Mashable’s seemingly endless website has the potential to provide you with the content you need to get started on that next blog post.

Alltop

Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop is an aggregator of the best kind. The site brings together all of the top stories (hence, Alltop) from around the web to provide people with all the information they need and want to know in one location. For bloggers, the site is a great resource to find trending topics that people want to read about.

Scoop.It

This content curation tool is perfect for finding interesting articles and information. By following a targeted group of users, you can be sure to find plenty of great content filling your stream on a regular basis. Again, all it takes is time before you see the title or read the article that leads to you writing your next great article.

Quora

Quora is not only a great place to tout your expertise by answering questions related to your field, but it is also a source for inspiration. Look through the questions being asked in your industry and determine what people are talking about. This could give you a great idea for a post that answers the most popular questions, and could help drive traffic.

Your Social Feeds

Do not underestimate the value of your social feeds. If you take a few minutes to watch shared content fill your news feed on Facebook, your Twitter feed, or any other one of your social networks, you will see a great deal of content that might prove to be a source for your next article. Sure, social media is about being social with friends, but it is also about sharing what interests you. Pay attention to what your friends and followers find interesting, and you just might get a great idea for a blog.

Social Bookmarking Sites

Sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and Delicious are fantastic resources for great content (and for passing the time, too). Anything in the world wide web that someone finds interesting can easily be bookmarked and found by others. Sift through the content on these social bookmarking sites and it will not be long before you find that piece of content you can use for your next article.

What others ways are using finding content for your blog? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Ways to Use Facebook Graph Search

October 23, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Do you know about some of the interesting ways to use Facebook Graph Search?

The Facebook Graph Search feature was rolled out a little while ago, but has not had quite the impact Facebook was hoping for. The social search tool geared towards providing people with personalized search results and competing with search giants is very impressive, but seldom used. It is a shame, because there are some great ways to use Facebook Graph Search.

While there are a number of features to the tool, we decided to pick five interesting ways to use Facebook Graph Search and highlight how they can be leveraged by individuals and/or marketers.

Search by Keyword, Interest and More

This is nothing new when it comes to search. You can use Facebook Graph Search to look for keywords and find results like Interests, Pages, Communities and more. The difference, however, comes with the personalization based on your profile.

Facebook Graph Search is designed to provide users with the most relevant searches based on their personalities (or, at least, the personalities that have been created in their profile). This is an obvious feature, and nothing out of the ordinary. The helpful aspects come when users start to drill a little deeper.

Filter by Location

Sure, when I do a Google search, it is going to give me the best results based on the location I have set in my Google+ profile. But with Facebook Graph Search, you can specifically indicate where you want your results to target and these results will, once again, be filtered according to your Facebook personality.

Personalize Searches

So, while your results in Graph Search are already personalized for your profile, you can narrow them down even further. Let’s say you look up ‘Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles’ and you generate a list of results. You can then use the filter on the right-hand side to further narrow those results by anything from the type of results to whether or not you, a friend or a group of your friends has ever checked in there.

Multi-Filtered Search

You want to find as specific a result as possible? Then Graph Search has you covered. When you use Facebook Graph Search, you can be as specific as you like and expect the results to be there. 91% of people trust the recommendations of their friends. That said, sometimes it is easier to search for something online than to text or call that friend. Luckily, Facebook Graph Search is designed to work as a pseudo-referral network.

What does that mean? Well, for example, you can search, ‘Mexican Restaurants in Los Angeles, California my friends like’ and find a list of results. The idea behind this feature was to add value to the ‘Like’ a company received. It also discourages black hat techniques, where brands buy meaningless likes. Now, when someone likes your company, you stand a better chance of being found on Facebook.

Search Through History

Now your brand’s presence and activity is more important than ever. Go to Facebook and type ‘Photos of [YOUR BRAND]’ and see what pops up. Your content library is now directly searchable. You can also add those filters we talked about. Go ahead, try ‘Photos of [YOUR BRAND] [FROM/TAKEN IN/BEFORE/WITH/BY] [MONTH, YEAR/YEAR/LOCATION]’ and see the results. People can search for a whole lot with Graph Search, and that includes your activity, and their activity with your brand.

For brands, an active presence and a complete profile are now more crucial than ever on Facebook. Think of it like you would SEO. Without your page titles, meta descriptions, alt tags and other SEO must-haves, what would be the point? Would it even make a difference? The same is now true for Facebook. Graph Search is designed to increase the value of Facebook for consumers and brands. To take advantage of this value, you need to optimize your Facebook page the same way you would a website.

These are not the only features that exist with Facebook Graph Search. Users can do a lot more and the feature keeps evolving. While it has yet to make the impact Facebook was hoping for, it is still an impressive feature and one we can expect to see and hear a lot more of.

What is your favorite feature of Facebook Graph Search? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

What’s the Difference Between Paid, Owned and Earned Media?

October 22, 2013/by Corey Padveen

We often hear about paid, owned and earned media, but what is the difference between media types and which one is best, if any?

There is a lot of discussion around paid, owned and earned media, but not everyone knows or understands the difference between media types or which one generates the greatest degree of Social Equity for a brand. While every brand will find that one of these media types may be better than others for achieving certain goals, there are qualities to earned media that far outweigh those to paid and owned.

Paid Media

Wherever you are investing resources in order to have your brand featured – from a multimillion dollar Super Bowl ad to a five dollar ad campaigns on Facebook – you are using paid media.

There are a few great things about paid media. For one, the results are very easily measurable. In order for media companies to charge brands for advertising space, they must provide them with clear metrics of performance and reach. While the response depends on your content, you know how broad of an audience you can reach. Second, the results are more or less immediate.

When you are trying to break into a noisy market, waiting for organic traffic to build can take some time. When you pay to place your ad in front of hundreds, thousands or even millions of potential clients, you can rest assured that your presence in a market will be felt much faster than if you wait for that presence to be felt organically.

While paid media was once the end all be all of marketing and advertising, the social evolution of markets has led to a few issues resulting from the use of paid media. For one, it is not entirely credible. When people see a brand paying for ad space, they tend to ignore it compared to, say, a recommendation. Paid media has also become a very loud marketplace, and with that comes increased expense to make an impact.

Owned Media

Do you have a corporate website? Are you publishing content on a blog or branded social channels? These are forms of owned media. Your brand holds all the cards.

Your owned media are not only going to be a source for sharing original, branded content, but these media will be hubs in which your leads and customers will congregate. Owned media are great spaces in which you can engage your audience and, ultimately, work to generate new clients. These are also cost-efficient, since all expenses are under your control. There are a few downsides, however, to owned media.

As I mentioned above, it is going to be a lot harder and take quite a bit longer for your audience to find you when they you are looking to generate organic traffic. There is also the same issue as with paid media in that people tend not to trust the word of a company over a friend, relative, or former customer. And that brings us to earned media.

Earned Media

Considering the increasingly social nature of the web, earned media is going to be the most fruitful for a brand. Forrester Research defines earned media very simply: “When customers become the brand.” Customer loyalty is going to be your greatest source of growth. If you are able to create brand advocates that speak on behalf of your brand, you will see your business increase dramatically.

Today, 91% of people trust the recommendations of their friends and family. This is earned media. Independent blog articles that talk about your brand positively are going to hold much more weight for prospective buyers than a piece of paid advertising that you are using to generate business.

Of course, there are some risks associated with earned media. You do not have any control over the content, and it may not be entirely accurate. There can also be negative earned media, which is never good. (Although this does give your brand an opportunity to showcase how much you care.) And while it might be hard to measure the exact returns earned media provides, you can rest assured that they are there in some way or another.

Now that you understand the difference between media types, is there one you think is most valuable? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

8 Annoying Things Brands Do on Twitter

October 21, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter is a great platform for communicating with your audience, but try to avoid these annoying things brands do on Twitter!

Twitter is a pseudo-broadcast medium – that means that on Twitter, more so than most networks, we can drive traffic to landing pages and soft sell our product. That said, there are still a few annoying things brands do on Twitter, and you should avoid them at all costs.

Stagnant Automation

A lot of individuals and brands automate the messages they send out from their Twitter accounts – it’s not a secret, and if it is done properly, it is not a bad strategy. That said, if you are simply pumping out links and calls-to-action, and nothing of substance, you are going to lose the attention of your followers (and your followers themselves).

Ignore Replies

It is a lot of fun to see that someone has sent you a message. Imagine how great it would feel to have an ongoing conversation! A lot of brands make the mistake of ignoring their followers when a reply is sent. Engage!

Endless Links

Again, Twitter is a pseudo-broadcast medium. That does not mean that you should be sharing nothing but links to your followers. They want something with substance. Show your followers why they should keep following you with great content.

Mystery

What’s worse than always including a link with your posts? Posting nothing but links! For those that do not understand how Twitter works, let’s all get on the same page: nothing says spam like a link with no other content. Tell people what they are clicking through to!

ALL CAPS

Even the heading above is annoying. Seeing a tweet pop up written in all caps might do the job of grabbing my attention, but for all the wrong reasons. Grab attention with brief, enticing messages, not loud, annoying caps.

Retweets Only

There are a lot of people out there who share great content on an ongoing basis, and it might seem like a good idea to retweet that content to show people what you find interesting. But this strategy should be included with your original content. Let the world know what you think. Then throw some great retweets in there as well.

Rapid Fire

Have you ever found yourself sitting on Twitter, watching the tweets go by when all of a sudden your stream is flooded by a dozen tweets from the same account? Few things irk people more than this ‘rapid fire’ style of tweeting. Not only does it annoy your followers, it also hurts your brand. A tweet does not have a very long shelf life. If you expect your content to get any exposure, sending it all out at once is not going to be your best bet.

Spellign Erorrs

If there is one thing that hurts your image, it is spelling and grammar errors in your tweets. Proofread your content. It is only 140 characters. There is really no justifiable excuse as to why your tweets have these errors in them. It simply looks lazy.

Can you think of any other annoying things brands do on Twitter? Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!