2 biggest mistakes chocolate companies make on Twitter

 It's 7 am again, and this is the time of the day when I check the latest news on the Chocolate Industry. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you know that I post between 7:30am and 11am, and again from 5pm to 6:30pm (Eastern time) . If you follow me on Twitter, you can be sure you will find my posts between 1pm and 3pm. The rest of the time is an exciting wait for your reactions, feedback, responses and opinions. I just love to hear what you think of all that is happening in the Chocolate World!However, it is also the time for my daily frustration with chocolate businesses. As I already mentioned in my previous article on Social Media Content Strategy for Chocolate Stores, I see a lot of small companies making an inappropriate use of their accounts. There is nothing to feel bad about: it is just a matter of realizing how much Social Media can drive sales nowadays and do something about it. And please, rejoice yourself: even well established and internationally recognized chocolate brands are making all sorts of mistakes, especially on Twitter. This particular social media platform has an incredible power, since your audience is potentially the entire online globe! If used in the right way, Twitter can revitalize any stagnant business and build a huge array of loyal customers.Therefore, for all the chocolate brands that drive me crazy every day on Twitter (because I would like them to thrive on Social Media instead), here are the solutions to avoid the 2 biggest mistakes they can make on Twitter: 1) Don't favorite, RETWEET! Since my goal is to help artisan chocolate businesses, I like to post on Twitter a positive comment on a chocolate product I have liked, and mention the company as well to let them know I appreciated their hard work. Sometimes I also accompany these posts with a pic where the product is the protagonist. Therefore, I am serving that company FREE ADVERTISING on a golden plate. Not only that, but since the comment comes from a customer and not from the company itself, it is even more genuine, reliable and trustworthy to the eyes of potential customers.So, what would your main goal be if you invested in advertising or if you were lucky enough to have free advertising at your disposal? You would want as many people as possible to see that advertising, right? Now, this is usually what small and medium chocolate companies do instead: they favorite. When you favorite a tweet, that tweet goes into your Favorite page that nobody on Twitter is interested in. Meaning that you let that great free advertising go unnoticed, in a place that no potential customer is ever going to check. It's like your company received a great review and you kept it for yourself.You don't realize that you are burning the biggest purpose of being on Twitter in the first place: people mentioning your brand, writing something good about it and you retweeting what they wrote, to let everybody else know how great your company is because customers are so satisfied that they take the burden to write about you. Your followers will then see a genuine positive review about your company and they will want to stick with you even more, and perhaps share it with their friends.Next time somebody mentions your name and you don't want to miss a great opportunity, do your business a favor: RETWEET!2) Check your account EVERY DAYIf I posted on my website once every four months, what would you think? If I responded to your comments after two months, what would you think? The answer is the same: "Sharon doesn't care about her own website. She doesn't take it seriously, so why does she even have one?". The same thing I am wondering about every time I check the Twitter account of some chocolate stores and the last post is from April 2013, or even from four months ago, or even from two weeks ago. If you decide to have a Twitter account for your business, you have to take it seriously. It is so discouraging to find out that your favorite company actually has a Twitter account, but it doesn't use it. As a potential customer, I would think that the people working for that company are not up to date, they are lazy, they don't care about connecting with me and they don't have a clue on how to use Twitter, therefore they just stay silent. If what you are looking for is to let your potential customers down, you got a great strategy right there.If instead you want to build trust in everyone who checks out your Twitter account and give the positive impression that your business is always there ready to interact with, you MUST check your account every day. Somebody positively mentioned your brand? You want to be there to thank them and RETWEET as soon as possible. Somebody negatively mentioned your brand? You want to be there to answer their worries and cast any doubt as soon as possible. Moreover, you MUST post at least once a day. There are so many things you can tweet about: your latest products, a seasonal discount or sale, pics of the behind the scenes of the production, quotes on chocolate, The Latest News on the chocolate industry, the current trends. Even if nobody retweets or favorites your posts, it doesn't matter. That is just for you not to let potential followers down when they visit your account.It can take you a maximum of 5 minutes to think about a tweet. I am sure you can make this effort to save your face on Twitter. To sum up, please try your best to avoid these 2 huge mistakes on Twitter that many chocolate brands are guilty of. I want to see your business thrive on Twitter, patiently but constantly acquiring your troops of followers ready to spread the word about your great chocolate, and finally driving sales thanks to the good use you are making of Social Media. How do YOU use Twitter for your chocolate business? Share it! I did NOT get paid and did NOT receive any kind of favor for writing this article. These are my honest opinions at your service.