Using Twitter for Your Business? Be very careful you don’t get suspended

Our New Zealand sister site BusinessBlogs.co.nz got into a spot of trouble with Twitter about 7 days ago.

It seems that Twitter found offense that the ratio of posts containing links was far too high for one of our business profiles and promptly suspended the profile.

The Twitter profile in question is was used to broadcast new posts from one of our major forums so our Twitter community could be alerted to new content.

What we find funny (sad?) is that was the suspended Twitter profile was working exactly like Reuters profile. Of course we are not a billion dollar company but a small business trying to use Twitter to help spread the word.

What we have concluded from this experience is the following:

Customer Service is Overworked

Their customer support took 5 days to respond to our initial request for more information on why we were suspended (yep no warning was given) so do not expect any quick recovery of your suspended profile even if they stuffed up.

Social Media is NOT FREE!!

Do not invest time and resources building up a business focused profile unless you have a backup plan in place. For example sending your fans back to an asset you own such as a blog and get as many of them into your email marketing database as you can so if you are suspended at least you can email them.

Spread the Love

Don’t just focus on one social network – establish a presence in all of the major ones – Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Search is NOT DEAD – far from it

Don’t forget search. We have found that people who find us by search will have a higher conversation rate than any visitor from social networks. The answer is simple. When people search they are looking for something in particular. When people click on a link in a social network most of the time they are bored at work and seeking entertainment or distraction. Therefore to convert visitors from social networks into warm prospects requires a different strategy.