Twitter is not a one size fits all world. Your business’s Twitter strategy needs to be individually designed for your business, product and audience. That being said, there are best practices you should take into account when taking a look at your Twitter strategy.
Here are some indicators that you might be on the wrong track. 
1. Sending a tweet out involves more than one person. Your tweets are not press releases. They do not need to be read and revised by three people before being sent out. In fact, you’ll find most good tweets would be spoiled if they were edited in such a way. Twitter is about being authentic. Choose the person who tweets for your company carefully as they are portraying your message to the world. Then let them do their thing and don’t edit or oversee them to death (did I mention you should choose them carefully?).
2. You only talk about yourself. If every tweet reads like a self-congratulatory pat on the back, you have a problem. That problem is the yawns coming from everyone but your mom. Write as if your audience doesn’t already love you and could unfollow you at any moment.
3. You don’t do that @mention stuff. If people are actually talking to you on Twitter, congratulations you actually have an engaged audience. Now, don’t ignore them. Reply to them. Be nice.
4. Your tweets are often off-topic. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always room for personality in a company account (remember that authenticity thing?). However, if suddenly your Klout report shows your topics of influence are baseball and your company has nothing to do with sports, you’ve lost your focus. As I’ve mentioned you shouldn’t just be talking about your company, but sticking to related topics and industries is going to build you an audience who actually cares about your product.
5. You’re obsessed with your follower count. Follower count is not a good indicator of influence. We promise. Now, please set your goals and strategies around metrics that actually mean something.
6. You tweet less than 5 times a week. There’s no need to go Twitter crazy, but you need to be consistent to build a following. In my experience tweeting 2-5 times a day is where the sweet spot tends to be for companies, but your results may vary.
7. You don’t know how your twitter account actually helps your business. When you first start out, experimenting with Twitter is okay (and even good). You may not immediately know what will be the most rewarding part for your business, but you will need to figure it out.
8. “Wait, you mean the twitter account shouldn’t just be connected to our press release feed?” There are exceptions of course, but generally accounts that are solely connected to feeds don’t do as well. People don’t interact with accounts that are clearly automated (for obvious reasons) so you can never truly build an engaged audience.
9. Twitter is something run only by an ever-changing intern. I love interns. Ours are super smart and we get them involved in lots of different areas of the business, including Twitter. However, there should be someone involved in your Twitter strategy who see a longer-term vision than a summer internship.
10. You don’t have a twitter strategy. If you’ve gotten this far, I’m going to hope that’s not true.
What other indicators are there that a business isn’t on the right track with it’s Twitter account? Feel free to share examples of accounts you particularly like or think could improve.
