twitter spam | DT Business Strategies

Twitter remains a mystery to a lot of business owners unfortunately. It’s a pithy and convenient communication tool, and it’s a great way to get traffic to your site as well. But a lot of people have reported that they do not get the results they want, so I wanted to take a stab at offering you some potential solutions.

Clearly without looking at your specific feed and attempts to get results from Twitter, I need to generalize a bit, but there are two most common mistakes I see out there in my own feed, so I will address those two.

If you have any specific questions, I recommend you comment the post or fire me an email with a specific question, and I’ll be happy to address in a future post.

Two Biggest Mistakes Using Twitter

Failure to Stand Out
Blatant Promotion Over Communication

Let me cover each in a bit of detail:

Failure to Stand Out

Bottom line, if you don’t stand out, your results in business (on Twitter and elsewhere also) will be zilch. Look at your own twitter feed…all the tweets coming in from the people you follow. Which ones stand out to you? Which are you compelled to click on? What traits do these tweets share? Use this information.

Fact is, there is ALWAYS a reason you’re not getting the results you want from any particular technique, and there is ALWAYS a way to fix it. It might require that you do something different. As a matter of fact, it most likely WILL require to change what you’re doing.

It’s not just a matter of getting more followers. If you’re not getting the results you want with 500 followers, you’re not going to get much better results with 5,000 followers or 50,000 followers. As always, it’s about quality, not quantity, especially if you’re operating in a niche market.

So after you’ve analyzed your own feed for a minute…what makes YOU want to click through on a tweet? It probably covers a topic that personally interests you, and it probably has done something to stand out. Put simply, you need to model this. Firstly, are you covering content that specifically interests your followers? Hint: if they’re not clicking through…maybe they’re not interested 😉 Secondly, are you using verbiage that commands attention? Hint: if you’re not getting traffic from Twitter…the cause for this is likely in here somewhere.

This may sound simplistic, but Twitter is a very simple tool.

There are certain words like “free” or “make money” that many people are just gonna gloss over. But still, the words you use matter. Pay attention to your verbiage. Certain words are going to stand out and perform better in tweets. Copywriters know this, and if you want to get better results and more traffic to your site using Twitter you need to pay attention to this also. Which tweet would you be more likely to follow?

Get 10,000 followers on Twitter in 30 Days! Check it doode!

-or-

2 Beautiful Things You Should Be Doing on Twitter That You’re Probably NOT…are you doing this?

The first uses overused, spammy language. The second offers a personal challenge to the reader on a targeted topic that is important to them, and it specifically asks for a response. Remember what I’ve said about asking for what you want? If your follower cares to respond, they pretty much have to click the link. Right?

How do your tweets measure up to this? Comment, and let me know what you think!

Blatant Promotion Over Communication

Amped up blog titles will get you a little distance. Titles like “746,000 Ways to Make Huge Money Starting NOW!!!”…they’re going to garner some attention from people in a general sense. However interruption marketing like this, while it has it’s place, will only get you so far.

Especially if a title like this is not backed up by considerable amount of substance, it will go nowhere. It’s also something to keep in mind that the more ridiculous your titles get, the more impossible it is to live up to expectations.

It’s important to understand that when you’re looking to get results from other people, it’s best to engage them, not yell at them.

A title like the example earlier is the web’s equivalent to yelling at someone. Yeah, it’ll get attention, but people are also experts at glossing over and ignoring anything vying for their attention. So being attention-getting is only one element. Don’t just get their attention, engage them.

A Lesson in Direct Sales

Coming from a sales background, I can tell you one fundamental way of engaging a buyer…ask questions. Personally engaging and thoughtful, earnest questions. Almost any question will do…people want to speak their mind and to interact with someone who understands them, especially on topics that are important to them.

More on the value of questions and how specifically to execute the use of questions in your tweets, blog posts and sales copy is the topic of another post…for today just keep in mind that engaging people and asking them to respond is key. Asking a genuine question is always more engaging than making a statement, no matter how kick ass the statement is or how much CAPS LOCK you implement.

Are you getting the results you want from Twitter? Do you have other or better ideas on how to get more traffic using Twitter?

I get a lot of spam on Twitter. Maybe you do too? Ha. If I get one more “ray of sunshine” or “high five” from you guys, I’m gonna puke, alright?

If you spend any time on Twitter you know what I’m talking about. Not sure what the actual appeal is here or why ANYONE thinks I’m actually going to click on their link “How to Get 10,000 Followers on Twitter in 5 Days”, but nonetheless, spam is here to stay 🙂

That said, deciding how to deal with Twitter spam is a concern I wanted to put to rest for a bit. So I did something crazy…I asked all my friends on Twitter what they do, and I got some great feedback!

Since a lot of us use Twitter daily, I thought it would be worthwhile to share the results of my little quiz with you and let you in on how I plan to handle the spam I get on Twitter.

Options of How to Deal With Twitter Spam

There are really only a few options, and I was surprised to hear that many people don’t seem to realize how they work, so I wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page. Here are your options:

Report the spam to @spam. This is highly recommended, and I was surprised that not one single person mentioned this. Are you aware of this option? I thought it was common knowledge 🙂 It takes just a second, and if you use Tweetdeck, it takes just two clicks.
Unfollow them. If you’re following the person, it’s simple to just quietly unfollow them. This doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility of receiving spam from the offender again, but it decreases the chances of it. If you’re not following them, at least they cannot send you a direct message. They can still send you replies though.
Block them. This actually may not accomplish what you think it will. I think blocking is not presented clearly on Twitter, because when you block someone, all that really happens is that they can no longer follow you. But of course, if someone wants to see your tweets, all they have to do is go to your profile, so blocking doesn’t really do much other than put a tally on the offenders profile. I don’t know what the parameter is, but word on the street is…if a spammer gets enough blocks, their account gets deleted. That’s how you sometimes end up seeing that cool page with an owl on it that says “nothing to see here…”.
Verbally assault them. Try to scare the crap out of them, so they’ll learn the error of their ways and never spam again. This is actually a great idea, and it usually works *sarcasm*. Some choose to engage in this pointless fun though. Hey, if it lets you blow off some steam… 😉

When Friends Spam You

There were mentions of a distinction when an actual friend (or just about anyone you talk with who you feel really ought to know better) sends you something that is technically spam. Like being a little tactless or overzealous about promoting their new landing page or MLM opportunity, etc. Most people including myself, tend to shrug this off. Between friends, what’s a little spam, right? Just as long as it doesn’t get too crazy. Even friends deserve a smack down from time to time though…am I right, or am I right?

How I’ve Chosen to Deal With Twitter Spam

When it comes in, and I don’t know the person…and it’s clearly spam. I report it to @spam…every time. This clears it from my timeline and gives Twitter a heads up.
Many of the stupid DM’s I get from friends I just ignore and laugh them off. Being light hearted as often as possible in life pays big dividends. It’s like when a coworker forwards me some stupid cat picture. Am I going to report them to their ISP? Probably not. As long as it doesn’t happen too often 😉
I’ve only ever blocked one person, and it was a situation where this user was actually being persistently obnoxious and almost scary. Screw that noise. If someone is actually making you physically uncomfortable…that’s block-worthy.

A Final Word

Don’t let spam get you down. It’s a minor inconvenience in my opinion when placed up against the huge advantages of using Twitter as a communication tool. If you have any questions about Twitter, place em in the comments. I’ll help however I can!