Consumers expect brands to act differently than normal Twitter users

Businesses that are trying to reach out to a younger generation of consumers on social media networks to brand their products and services may not want to act too personal, experts say.

Consumers believe that businesses who are incorporating social media strategies into their branding efforts should not act like typical Twitter users, according to a recent report by Mashable.

The article says that consumers don't appreciate when companies abbreviate in their tweets, something that is very common to the average user of the network that has a 140-character message capacity.

Mashable also recommends that users avoid promoting articles written by the company CEO with a tweet link and linking to press releases that boast the company's achievements.

Writing for Mashable, Jolie O'Dell says that one of the most important pet peeves of Twitter followers is the use of automated accounts.

"Users can smell a bot from miles away, and the point of Twitter is to be personally engaging more than blatantly promotional," O'Dell says. "Also, this might go without saying for the tech-savvy marketers among us, but don't automatically direct message new followers - it's seen as spam."

Twitter recently launched another service to assist promotional campaigns. Promoted Tweets will allow users to buy ad space to accompany Twitter search results.