It’s time to face an important fact – Twitter isn’t a fad. If grandmothers are tweeting about fist pumping and Ke$ha, it is official that the adoption laggards have been infected by Twitter.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

But, as more people embrace Twitter, more bad Twitter habits are forming. I know there are responsible Tweeters out there, but be cautious. Even the SEO aware Tweeters can fall into a Twitter #FAIL trap.

So, Tweeps, think before you Tweet and avoid the following 10 Twitter fails that lurk around every corner:

1. Auto Replying to EVERYTHING
   You may think that auto-replying to follows is a great marketing idea, but let me topple that house of cards right now – it isn’t. It is a spam tactic that annoys more than it enlightens, no matter how inspiring you think your company’s e-book about parliamentary procedure is.
2. Being Obscure About Yourself and Your Company
   Saying that you analyze analysis and engage in social media enhancements and optimizations that guide company values through various mediums… doesn’t mean anything. Be concise about what your company is. And, for the love of Twitter, make sense.
3. Inside Jokes or Obscure References
   If a tweet is going to make your frat house buddies from college high-five and crush beer cans on their heads, don’t Tweet it. It’s okay to have a personality and a sense of humor, but you should always provide value to 99.9% of your followers.
4. Mentioning a Great Resource… Without Linking to It
   Awesome! You’re fulfilling your Twitter dream and you’re talking about great resources your followers would love. The only catch is that you need to make sure you LINK to it. And if the link is broken, you’re just insulting the Twitter gods. Make sure to check every link that you post to ensure that it is working.
5. Not Branding Your Twitter
   Do your Twitter profile a favor and brand it. Make it different from all of the other profiles out there by putting your company’s logo (and some tasteful graphic designs) in the background. It will improve the theme of your profile and make YOU more memorable. Everyone is using the blue twitter background with the tree branch. It’s old news.
6. Posting 10+ Messages in a Row
   Twitter is a social networking tool. Part of being social is acting like a human being. So, don’t post more than 10 times in a row (or 5 if you can swing it). It’ll make your company (or yourself) look like a spam-tastic robot that doesn’t deserve any attention from followers.
7. Following More than 1,000 People in an Hour
   Deciding to follow someone on Twitter should be an informed decision – not something that is done en masse. That’s why following a small country’s population on Twitter overnight seems fake. Take your time and learn who you are following! You will be one of their Tweeps and will be receiving daily updates. So don’t follow @LovingTheRecession if you don’t mean it.
   7.5 Cleanse Your Twitter List
   On that note, you should also make sure to clean out the list of people you follow as often as you can. Sometimes the purges are necessary, even if they seem cruel. It might have sounded great to follow @DeepakChopra back when you thought you should be enlightened. But, apparently he does nothing but tweet 42 times a day instead of offering tidbits of wisdom. A clean list is a non-frustrating list.
8. Posting Too Many Tweets about Your Hangover and/or Cat
   Sometimes it’s funny to complain about how your Russian neighbor listens to some awful techno music at 3a. However, most of the time it’s just obnoxious and unnecessary. Keep the random, pointless tweets to a minimum.
9. Conducting Business Networking and Swearing at the Same Time
   Even if it’s not necessarily at your business connections, using inappropriate language will make your colleagues and connections not take you seriously. If you have to stop and think about whether or not it’s offensive – just don’t tweet it!
10. Over-Abbreviating
    Rule of thumb: If you type out 50 characters without a single vowel, something is wrong. Abbreviate when necessary, but know that the majority of the Internet is behind on 1337 speak. The fact that you probably don’t know what that means only proves the point.

So the moral of the story, Tweeps, is use common sense. Twitter is a public forum and whatever you put online will be taken seriously. Even if it’s less than 140 characters.

Earlier this month Giselle and I headed to New York City for the SMX East conference. We both learned a lot and met some great people in the industry. The sessions that I attended were informative and all of the speakers shared valuable knowledge.

One particular session that I want to discussed Google Instant and its impact on both SEO and users. The speakers at the session included Othar Hansson, Google Senior Staff Software Engineer, Ian Everdell, a usability consultant from Enquiro Search Solutions, and Eli Feldblum the CTO & co-founder at RankAbove.

According to Othar, the main focus of Instant is to make search faster than ever before. Here are some key facts that Othar presented:

• The average query in English takes 9 seconds to enter and 15 seconds to scan the SERP’s.
• Impression is counted when there is a 3 second pause on the SERP – impressions will increase, but clicks remain the same.
• The results shown are for the predicted query, not what you have typed.
• Instant is present in the US and 6 European countries, but will be global soon.
• Users are still searching for good content – that has not changed.

As a usability consultant, Ian Everdell from Enquiro was able to offer a unique perspective of Instant and how it affects users:

• Instant saves 2-5 seconds per search.
• Users are now looking further down the SERP’s than ever before.
• Majority of users surveyed think Instant is ‘ok’ ( > 25%).
• About 65% of users surveyed do not think that Instant changed how they search.
• 83% of users surveyed say the length of their queries has not changed.

Eli Fledblum from RankAbove offered a few interesting points:

• Instant’s predictions have pushed more results below the fold.
• Despite the change in location, results 5-10 have experienced the most growth.
• Video results are up 28% across the board (use rich media to attract users).
• It is important to investigate how your site traffic has changed, if at all.

Google Instant has been live for 45 days (as of 10/21/10) and those in the SEO industry are still unsure about how it will affect the way they work. I am glad that I was able to attend this session as each speaker brought up great points about Google Instant and SEO. Hopefully, those in the industry will feel better after reading what was said at SMX. I found it comforting to know that Instant is NOT the end of SEO!

I’ll admit it. I’m psyched about attending the Search Marketing Expo East conference next week! Sessions offered cover everything from up and coming search marketing techniques like mobile search to good ol’ search engine optimization.  My only regret is not having the ability to clone myself so that I can attend more than one session at a time. I had to go through the painstaking task of choosing only one session per time slot. It was brutal, but I managed to narrow down my schedule to some really cool sessions:

The Search Crossover: Local, Mobile, Social
As mobile and social converge, the search landscape is becoming even more localized. In fact, local search is proving to be the driving force behind consumers’ brand preferences and, ultimately, buying decisions.

In the past three weeks, I’ve had a handful of clients ask about mobile, local search, and social media.  Clearly, these are all emerging trends in the industry. I’m interested in gaining more insight on how social media, local search, and mobile search can be leveraged together.

SMX Boot Camp: Link Building Fundamentals
Ever since Google created PageRank, more than a decade ago, every good search marketer’s motto has been “I link, therefore I am.” In fact, links are cited as four of the top five factors in the SEOMoz 2009 Search Engine Ranking Factors survey.

Link building is like the ugly duckling – Nobody wants to look at it and take it seriously. But link building is important! Though it may seem like a no-brainer, it’s more complicated than many realize. This session will serve as a refresher and I hope to gain some valuable insight of what’s new in the world of link building.

SMX Boot Camp: Search Engine Friendly Web Design
“I’m not designing my site for search engines” is a common designer objection to SEO suggestions. But when search engines collectively have more users than either Internet Explorer or Firefox, how can you afford to ignore how they interact with your site?

Our industry is constantly changing. It’s imperative that we keep educated about designing and developing search engine friendly websites. I expect to bring back valuable information to share with our entire team. Although I suspect we’re already doing the things we should be doing, I wouldn’t be surprised if I learn some new techniques we haven’t adopted yet.

And last, but not least…

Actionable Metrics and Diagnostics
We have hundreds of data points to track how the search engines and visitors are accessing our sites, but what’s really actionable and what’s not worth spending time on?

The most rewarding part of my job is knowing that something we’ve done actually made an impact. Analytics is the only way we know how effective we are in what we do. I love analytics!

All in all, I’ll be a very busy strategist at this conference. From rubbing elbows with search engine big wigs to spying on the competition, it’s all very exciting and I’m looking forward to it! Watch for my tweets from the show @gisellebardwell.