When it comes to Twitter, we all make mistakes. There are few people out there that can truly say they Twitter-perfect all of the time and even the experts find themselves a bit red-faced on occasion. That said, there are some very common mistakes that people make all the time. Here are five that you are likely in danger of doing today:

Buying Twitter Followers

It is very tempting to buy Twitter followers to not look like a newbie, but this can hurt you in the long run. These followers will not interact with you, and sometimes Twitter even deletes them over time. And what is Twitter starts to charge to communicate with your followers, just like Facebook does? This means every time that you will do a sponsored tweet or post, you will have to pay more money to distribute this tweet to thousands of fake Twitter followers…

You might Post a Bad Photo for an Avatar

When you first sign up and get that marketing campaign going, that little avatar they request that you use on Twitter might not seem so important. Then suddenly you gather a few followers and start to get some traction. Do you still have that 1970-something picture that makes you look like a Sweathog on there? I would definitely fix that. Add your logo or a solid, professional head shot for the best results.

You might Tweet entire URLs

On the surface, this sounds like a minor thing. In the long run, it can cost you major traffic. When you shorten the URL, you give folks room to do cool things like retweet and spread the word. The search engines read the shortened version just fine and it actually will help you to grow your business.

You might Tweet yourself..and only yourself

Everyone that follows you will know all about you in due time. Force feeding your links only to an audience will do nothing but make you look arrogant and self centered. Not only that, the search engines will notice as well. You need to spread the love and get some serious networking going with your fellow businessmen. Find out who is doing what you do better and then follow them and learn. Better still, find those that are struggling and help them out with some advice or a Tweet. They will remember you and Tweet you back for sure. This is how you can get more followers.

You might Shortcut your Bio Information

When Twitter gives you that little area to talk about yourself, your brand and your business at large, don’t waste it! Take the time to write out something that will be engaging and informative and that will put you in the best light possible. Make sure you are honest about your product or service, but give them the reason that you are in business. A mission statement comes to mind as a good option.

You might be Hash-tagging yourself into Oblivion

When hash-tags became important on Twitter, people went absolutely nuts with it. The last thing that you want to do is load up every single Tweet with hashtags. Every single keyword is not necessary to get the word out. All you really need is to hash-tag the primary keywords and let the Google juice do the rest. Likewise, however, you don’t want to leave hashtags out entirely either. Two to three are plenty for most posts.

These are only five of the most common mistakes on Twitter, but I am sure someone could do a top-100. The key is to cover the basics well and this list will help you do just that. Be excellent about these basics and you will have a great following in no time flat.