By Aimee Woodall
The other day, a friend relayed a rather hilarious anecdote about a Twitter account they’d recently unfollowed. “Every tweet,” she laughed, “was punctuated with seven to ten exclamation marks – Every single tweet!!!!!!!!!!”
While we chuckled about why anyone would want to waste 10 of their allotted 140 characters, I began to think — what makes someone tick? What makes someone click the “Unfollow” button on a person’s profile? What are the underlying reasons behind a decision that is usually made instantaneously?
If you’ve ever wondered something along those lines, you’re in luck. Without further adieu, here are the seven ways you can lose a Twitter follower — and what you can do to prevent it.
- Your Twitter feed is a repost after repost after repost.
Whether you’ve set up your Twitter account to automatically tweet your Facebook posts, or you share every single one of your Instagram photos to your Twitter feed — DON’T DO IT. It’s lazy and sloppy — and chances are your message is getting truncated (or worse, lost) beyond the point of recognition or clarity.
You have 140 characters to work your magic, so do so.
- CAPS LOCK IS YOUR BEST FRIEND.
NO, WAIT; IT’S YOUR ONLY FRIEND. I’m a big fan of the occasional word or turn of phrase in all caps. But an entire tweet? …140 characters of nonstop screaming? I don’t think so.
Carefully consider what you’d like to emphasize, capitalize it accordingly, and BOOM!
- You have the word “followback” in your Twitter bio.
I can’t help it — the word elicits a visceral reaction and sends shivers down my spine. “Followback,” and its evil twin, “#TeamFollowback,” have no place on Twitter — a platform meant for fostering meaningful relationships of substance. Just because someone follows you, it doesn’t mean you have to follow them back. You should connect with accounts that can help you grow and learn — not because you to see your follower numbers grow. Connect with the right accounts and they will grow.
- Shortened URLs? What’s that?
Goo.gl and bit.ly and ow.ly were created for a reason. Use them to shorten unsightly, ridiculously long URL addresses. Your followers will thank you.
- You only tweet about yourself…to yourself.
If, after scrolling through your feed, I see ZERO interaction, I slowly but surely begin to wonder if you are a human being. All those tweets and not one directed at another Twitter user? What are you even doing on Twitter?
People don’t want to just read your tweets. They want to interact with you. Engagement is everything.
- #Every #thing #is #a #hashtag.
Life isn’t an endless series of hashtags. Your Twitter feed shouldn’t be either. Hashtag keywords strategically and conscientiously. “#a” should never be a thing. EVER!
- You’re a fan of subtweeting.
If you’re not familiar with subtweeting, it’s indirectly tweeting about someone without mentioning their name. Petty stuff, if you ask me and it truly has no place on the World Wide Web — or your Twitter feed.
Now go ahead, clean up your act, and keep those Twitter followers you’ve worked so hard to amass.
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Aimee Woodall is the owner of the Black Sheep Agency, a Houston-based creative agency specializing in non-traditional public relations, social media, and experiential marketing. Contact Amy by phone at 832-971-7725, by email at aimee@theblacksheepagency.com, or visit the website at www.theblacksheepagency.com
