Deranged Penguin

These are in rank order of egregiousness.

1. Automating anything.

Yes, I know that your auto-DM gets clicks. I know that you see nothing wrong with pitching right out of the gate. I know that you are just sending a friendly “thanks for following!” message with no link whatsoever. They’re all annoying. You are not doing yourself any sort of service by utilizing this technique. Whatever conversion rate you are receiving as a result of the auto-DM, I bet you’re losing an audience that would, eventually, have purchased something you recommended if you had given them a chance to get to know you.

Also, although I am a huge fan of Tweetspinner (referral link, free accounts available and useful), you will notice that I’m not a big advocate of the “spinning your tweets” part of the equation. This is because the use of “human-looking” twitter bots still does not pass muster. I’ve yet to see a series of automated tweets that didn’t look fake. (Note that scheduling tweets that you write yourself is not only okay but somewhat essential if you’re going to employ a niche marketing strategy on Twitter).

2. Calling yourself a guru.

This is pure horseshit and will not be tolerated. The age of snake oil is far from over, but being an “expert,” “guru,” “thought leader” or any other trumped up title certainly is. There’s been a lot of chatter about social proof in Internet marketing circles lately, but for the most part people still have the wrong end of the stick. Personal branding does not involve titles or badly scanned checks or pictures of you with your BMW. It involves indicia of helpfulness and a service mentality.

Tiger Woods doesn’t talk about how great he is. He usually talks about where he could have done better. Even when reporters throw softball “how great are you” questions at him, he finds ways to make them into “how I can improve next time” questions. Your narrative should do the same – be a lifetime learner, not a coach, teacher, or mastermind.

3. Giving away control of your account at any level.

If you have an absurdly inflated follower count for someone who does nothing but repeat the same affiliate link, you are a doofus. Be the Smith Barney of Twitter: earn your followers. (See below.)

Note that most of the services that will maximize your follower count retain authorization to tweet stuff “on your behalf.” Not okay. You are the sole messenger.

4. Neglecting the 80/20 rule.

People hate being sold and love being served. Make sure that your content/commercial ratio is 80/20. This is where tweet scheduling comes in handy – you can “preload” a day’s tweets the night before, fold in an appropriate and context-sensitive number of #ad tweets with your affiliate links, and rest assured that you’re monetizing your tweetstream even as you go about your day. If you’re using a service like Magpie to handle your commercial tweets, you can set the ratio appropriately to ensure that you’re not over-saturating your tweetstream with advertising. I’d say 30:1 tweets/ads is about right, because that leaves you room to also discuss your own programs, products, or whatever.

5. Failing to wordsmith

I pay almost no attention to people who treat twitter like any other ad space. Twitter is unique, and your audience is unique. Take the time to identify a need and then offer a service that fills that need. We’re not all the best writers in the world but I know you can do better. Tweets are little fortune cookie missives to the larger world. How can you make that play to your advantage? What’s the hook that no one else is using because they’re not smart enough? Focus on that.