Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Tweeting

Tweeting seems rather straightforward, and it is! As a business, though, you’re not simply tweeting for the sake of tweeting.

You want to get the best response and the best results out of your Twitter strategy, so there are certainly some rookie mistakes you want to avoid. Here are five of the most common ones.

Not Tweeting Enough

The life span of a tweet averages at about 18 minutes. This isn’t very long at all, so if your followers are going to see it timing is everything. However, no matter when you tweet, a single tweet will still not reach that many people. If you have the time, schedule four to five tweets each day. If you open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you could focus on this concept. Though, try not to do the same thing every day. A social media calendar will help you create posts at the best times on the best topics. Simply take some time out to put a content calendar together for Twitter.

Hashtagging Everything

Hashtags serve a purpose; to connect people talking about the same thing. They are ideal for restaurants because who doesn’t love to talk about food? There are so many popular food-related hashtags, it’s just a case of taking your pick.

Hashtags only become a problem when they’re overused and they add no real value to each tweet. The character limit applied to each tweet means you need a good balance, as opposed to Instagram where it’s far more acceptable to add multiple hashtags to each update.

A good example of a hashtags being used:

 

Slightly too many hashtags in this example:

Don’t Neglect Your Grammar

The 140 character limit on tweets can often be restricting. It really is a challenge to fit everything in if you have a big announcement or a new special offer to shout about.

Prior to September 2016 this was even more true, when the attachment of photos and videos would also count towards this limit. Although now you have a little more leeway, it can be tempting to sacrifice your grammar to fit in more words. Whilst it’s perfectly okay to jump on the lingo trends, you don’t want to devalue your restaurant’s brand by cutting corners and abbreviating everything.

Don’t Just Broadcast

The success of Twitter lies in real conversation, and conversation is not one a one-way street. If you start to use Twitter as a broadcasting platform only, engagement will eventually flop.

Constant self-promotion is another big no-no. Your tweets need variety so mix in some promotions, share images of your wonderful dishes and staff. Just don’t forget to chat with other people, reply to customers and share content around your wider industry. For example, a burger restaurant could tweet about the first ever burger, or the world record for most burgers ever eaten.

This restaurant from Norwich keeps their tweets interesting and varied:

Don’t Tweet for the Sake of Tweeting

It’s better not to be on Twitter at all, than to be on there aimlessly tweeting content because you think you should be. If you’re really struggling to come up with creative and entertaining tweets, you might want to consider outsourcing the job to a social media marketer. If you haven’t got the budget for this, start utilising your staff by holding a brainstorming session to gather ideas. Look at other successful accounts on Twitter and take inspiration from them.

A final tip would be to make use of Twitter’s own scheduling tool, tweetdeck. It’s free to use and it’s simple to understand. This tool enables you to plan your tweets in advance, scheduling them at the best and most relevant times for maximum exposure.