Can An Automated Twitter Account Do More Harm Than Good? (Part 1)

Accounts that automate Twitter are usually a bad plan, if overdone any way. Those who are legitimately only hanging out and socializing with their good friends will not likely run into this problem, but if we are trying to apply Twitter for a marketing system it could possibly only bring failure if you over do it. Automation may work with other aspects of internet marketing such as, article submission or social bookmarking. Social marketing is just that - sociable, though bookmarking is more like just letting people know that you are available ready to hook up.

Like I said, a certain amount of Twitter automation is usually okay and sometimes essential so long as it is not over done. As an example, the whole concept of marketing and advertising with Twitter is to get a significant follower base - but what benefit would it be to build a huge number of followers if they're college students and single parents when you're promoting relationship guidance? 500 targeted followers is far better the 50,000 untargeted followers. For this reason, bulk following or blasting software will be a bad approach. Sure they might add thousands to your account, but half of them are usually not interested in you and the other half have sense disappeared and not been on Twitter in many months or years. There are lots of paid services that will let you enter key phrases and then they'll go get targeted followers for you and add them. On that note, twollo (dot) com will let you add 2 keywords for free. More then 2, you pay.

The manual alternative for the paid websites are sites like 'whoshouldifollow' 'twellow' and 'justtweetit'. Manually plug in a search phrase and get lots of choices. Not automated, but some hard work could get you a substantial TARGETED follower base.

The second most tedious aspect of a Twitter account will be keeping track of the new followers, following back, sending welcome messages, finding the ones that un-follow and also maintaining a balance between followers and follow'ies. In short - account maintenance.

This is just one of those 'must have' automated Top twitter tools. One popular service is SocialOomph (dot) com. One time known as 'TweetLater' this website lets you auto follow and auto un-follow individuals. This alone ıs really a huge time saver. At the same time it will let you automatically send out a direct message to your new followers. This brings up another judgment question..

Just what exactly ought to be the very first tweet I send my new pals?

Consider this. In true life, do you walk up to a new potential customer and begin showing them all the neat stuff you want to sell? Yeh, you might, but most likely not still have a job as a salesperson very long. Direct Message social manners will go something like this:

• Never: 'Thanks for following me, now go have a look at my $hit @ . . . '

• Maybe: Offer a free gift by directing them to your squeeze page

• Better: Offer a free gift with no optin page - let the e-book direct them to you websites should they be curious.

• If all else fails: Don't send out a message at all! Like my mama used to say.. 'If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.'

Personally I'm in favor of the last two choices.




(Part two of this report is located on AUTOMATE TWITTER.)
There are many ways of automating your Twitter account, even more ways to waste your time with it as well. More advanced options and tips like TweetDeck, Twitterfeed, Ping.fm, Google Alerts and Reader can be found on my site: http://automatetwitter.com