As more and more people, brands, sports teams & leagues hop aboard the Twitter train I continue to see the same mistakes being made.

5. The Not Reply – @TwitterHandle will be making an BIG announcement!

This became an issue when Twitter changed the manner by which we see people’s replies (or @) on Twitter.  Now you only see a reply if you follow both Twitter accounts.

Therefore the tweet below from @GoldCoastFC would have been only seen by followers of @GoldCoastFC AND @KarmichaelHunt. Understandable there may be a big overlap between the two but why take the chance?  Adding “Welcome” at the start of the tweet would have ensured ALL @GoldCoastFC followers would have seen the tweet.  It should be noted further tweets and RTs did mention @KarmichaelHunt so GCFC fans definitely knew about it.

4. Twooshes or long tweets

Call me old-fashioned but I like the “old” RT method, that’s right something from 12 months ago is now old!  The “old” (or “Edit then Retweet” in TweetDeck) method allows you to add your comments before the RT.

If all your tweets are twooshes or too close to 140 characters you maybe losing RTs from people who want to pass it on with their short comment attached.  Keep it short and allow people to ADD to the conversation like below.

Sports Geek Tip: Check out TweetStats.com to see how many twooshes you have. (I’ve had 175, as sometimes the opposite is true and you don’t want that comment )

3. Lck vwls 4 140 chrs

If you can’t fit it into 140 characters without using vowels or butchering the English language then it shouldn’t be a Tweet!  Write a blog post!

Twitter teaches you to be direct & succinct, it can be said in 140 characters if you just think a little.

Don’t even get me started about TwitLonger.com, laziness!

2. Auto Direct Messages

Unfortunately, this seems to be a staple of internet marketers but more and more I am seeing others be sucked into using the Auto DM.

Firstly, it is completely impersonal and secondly it’s rude when they don’t follow back and you can’t reply!  I know a LOT of people who immediately unfollow any account that sends an Auto DM.  You’ve been warned!

Sports Geek Tip: By the way if you want to stop most of them you can follow these instructions to opt out  from SocialOomph who send most of them!

1. Broadcasting not conversing

This is the main issue with most brands, leagues or teams on Twitter is the lack of conversation.  They promote the “Join the Conversation” tag line of Twitter but do not LIVE it.

You do need a strategy in place to understand why you are on Twitter and how you want to interact with fans but you should be polite to reply to simple customer service questions.

Look at the simple chart the US Airforce uses to manage blog comments which could easily adapted to Twitter replies. (hat tip to @georgiawatson)

Sports Geek Tip: Don’t have a strategy in place? You should start with a Sports Geek Workshop.

What Twitter mistakes have you learned from?

Good work by Cam Schwab (@camschwab) of the Melbourne Demons starting “Whiteboard Wednesday” discussing strategy behind running a sports franchise.

I’m sure Demon fans are stoked to get this level of access to their club’s CEO.

It’s a great use of YouTube as a video sharing platform I’ll look forward to more Whiteboard Wednesdays.

If you’re looking for the book mentioned in first video then look no further, Management Secrets of the New England Patriots Volume 2

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