When entering a new market or trying out a new strategy, you are bound to make mistakes. Hopefully they are not terribly costly and are fairly easy to recover from. The good news is if you follow the guidance of the best practices, you are less likely to make critical errors.

The simplest way to avoid making costly mistakes is to observe what other successful users are doing. This holds true for Twitter just like every other form of marketing. If you take the time to watch and learn how successful businesses are using Twitter to their advantage, you will be more likely to see successful results.

Some Twitter No-no’s

Here’s what you don’t want to do:

Not Engage

It’s up to you to start the conversation if you wish to build a following on twitter. It’s important to interact with your followers, as well as the people you have chosen to follow. Re-tweet others, reply or contribute to their tweets, ask questions or initiate a discussion that is relevant to your field of expertise.

The same philosophy holds true for your brand exposure. While it’s not good practice to use Twitter for one-way information dissemination or obvious sales and marketing, it’s important to get your brand message out to other Twitter users.

Share interesting, useful or fun information, facts or anecdotes to start a twitter discussion about your brand. In a worst-case scenario, you have succeeded in getting your brand mentioned on Twitter and in a best-case scenario your brand interest in your tweets may be spread virally throughout the social media plane.

Too Much Tweeting

Perhaps one of the easiest mistakes to avoid, and possibly the most costly, is posting batches of tweets at one time, and then tweeting nothing at other times. This is damaging for two reasons.

Firstly, it is likely to turn away many of your followers. Many will stop following you, and many others, while still following you, will ignore your future tweets. Secondly, it does not allow you to reach entire groups of Twitter users who are in different time zones or who tend to use Twitter at different times of day than when you’re posting your tweets.

Overusing Hash Tags

Don’t use too many hash tags at once. While you may be trying to label your tweets so they are more easily found by users search, it causes your message often times to get lost among hash tags. It may also appear to your followers that you are trying too hard or going for a hard sell.

The same is true for the links that you use in your posted tweets. Don’t crowd out your message by using too many hash tags and links. For example, if you’re in the fulfillment business, simply using the #fulfillment hashtag may be enough.

If you manage not to run afoul of Twitter best practices, you will find that Twitter is an effective Internet marketing tool. It’s very easy to avoid costly mistakes if you simply duplicate what other successful brands are doing. Engage your customers, be interesting, have fun … and you will see results.

Now that you’re well-versed in Twitter and how to use it for your business, whether you’re in fulfillment or fashion, you’d probably like to learn more about Facebook. Guest post written by James.