Social media is about being social, not about spamming your friends and followers. This is something that a lot of people just don’t seem to get. If you follow the rules of etiquette when using social networking sites, you might just find that you’ll actually have far better results than you would by being a spammer.
I want you to think about this … if you were to go to a mixer at your local Chamber of Commerce, would you wear a big sign around your neck that promotes your website? Of course not and you shouldn’t do it on Twitter or Facebook.
Don’t use automated direct messages to promote your website. First and foremost, they are against the Twitter Terms of Service and have been known to cause a high ratio of un-follows.
Don’t start sending direct messages to your followers unless you really know them. If you want to thank them for following you then send it in an @tweet. If also helps to make it personal so you don’t look like a twitter bot. Say something like Hey @MissKelliXXX thanks for following me, really appreciate it. Now to the next guy say something like Thanks for following me @FameRegistry. Love your site. Now you are engaging your followers in a conversation and that is what social networking is about.
By using social networking sites int he way they are supposed to, you actually might generate interest from people – real people. They click your name and you know what they see? A link to your website and chances are because they are interested in you, they will click your link to your site.
The other side of that coin is, you could spam your new followers, annoy them and eventually they just stop following you or even worse, enough of them report you for spam tweets and then you lose your account.
Did you know there are groups of people dedicated to nothing but enforcing anti-spam rules on social networking sites? They are internet vigilantes and they are quite dedicated when it comes to going after people they deem a twitter account nothing more than spam.
So here are some basic “guidelines” to follow … you should have a 1:10 ratio of tweets. This means that you should have a minimum of 10 real tweets (text with no links at of all of kind) for every 1 tweet that includes a link.
So if you want to tweet out a promo to your website once a day, that means you’ll need to tweet about 10 other things first. It doesn’t really matter what those things are, as long as they are engaging to your users and don’t include links to anything else.
So what are some things you can tweet?
- Tweet hello or good night.
- Reply to other people’s tweets. If they ask questions, try and answer them. If they say good morning, say good morning back.
- Tweet a thank you to someone or something. ie: I so love @Pepsi. Nothing wakes me up in the morning more than an ice cold @Pepsi.
- Ask for help or advice about something. ie: The new iphone.
- Tweet happy birthday messages to your favorite porn stars or celebs.
- Tweet tips about something you are knowledgeable in. Just remember to talk like a human – make sure your tweets don’t make you sound like an auto-tweeting bot.
- Ask questions that require an answer more than a yes or a no.
- Conduct a poll. Ie: Do you like blondes, brunettes or red heads?
- Tell a funny or interesting story. It make take you a few tweets but that’s okay to do sometimes.
- Did you eat something great? Tweet out the recipe.
- Tweet interesting facts.
- Compliment someone’s profile or avatar for a person who follows you.
Just remember that you have two main goals … #1 Is to tweet text without any links. You want to save your links to tweet about your website. #2 Your goal is to be engaging. The more interesting your tweets are the more people will comment or re-tweet them and that will help you even more.