On Twitter, you have only a matter of seconds to impress a potential follower. But are you unintentionally deterring users from following you? The good news is that many Twitter mistakes can be avoided if you understand how the average Twitter user views your tweets and your page.
1. Your avatar is an egg. Nothing says “I never update my Twitter account” quite like the infamous fuchsia-colored egg profile picture, and it's one of the worst ways to get prospective followers interested. You only have a few things on your page that may catch someone's attention, and the avatar is most likely the first thing any potential follower will see. The default egg shows absolutely no personality behind your account.
A picture of a celebrity or someone else that isn’t you is also a no-no. Twitter users are looking for original opinions and conversations, not someone else’s. So the best Twitter avatar is a real picture of yourself, preferably a head and shoulders shot. You can also get more creative with your header photo in the background — something that means a lot to you and reveals the uniqueness of your personality.
2. You're on #TeamFollowBack. Begging people to follow you and promising to follow everyone in return is not going to attract quality followers. No one wants to follow someone who's craving attention through massive follower lists. Twitter’s purpose isn’t about thoughtlessly, impulsively following random users, but about the unique content of each Twitter account generating interesting and personalized content. If you’re making promises to follow everyone who follows you, your Twitter stream becomes a big pot of information that you don’t necessarily care for, which cheapens the point of why you're on Twitter to begin with.
3. Your follower/following ratio is disproportionate. Following slightly more people than those who are following you is understandable and expected, but accounts tend to look suspicious when they're following 3,000 and only have 80 followers in return. If the numbers are that disproportionate, the whole account will look like spam. Remember, less is more.
4. You tweet too much. Accounts with a relentless stream of tweets end up just irritating those following them. No one wants their entire feed covered by one person’s posts and this usually indicates that the tweets aren’t all that interesting or unique to begin with. Here's something to consider: If you joined Twitter when it launched in mid-2006 and tweeted three times a day, every day since then, you would have around 8,000 tweets total. If your account shows more than 8,000 tweets and you didn’t even sign up until 2010, you're probably a tweeting addict. People will pause before following you.
5. Robots are managing your account. Scheduling tweets in advance or signing up for services to tweet for you isn't necessarily a bad thing. But if your content is being automatically generated so often that it become careless, outdated, or impersonal, your followers will start catching on. Don't be surprised when they start dropping like flies. Twitter users expect original content from an actual human being, in your own language and style, that they can relate or reply to. Let's be honest: no one really wants “top stories” delivered by an automatic server. They can get their news elsewhere.
Think before you tweet, make your words meaningful, and eliminate any red flags that may prevent Twitter users from hitting that “follow” button. Check out Mashable's full list for more ways on how to increase your follower count.