It’s Not “Bad”

Twitter as a tool is finally starting to come into it’s own.  People access Twitter for many reasons, whether it be for news, for gossip, sharing useful tips, or sharing what they have for breakfast.  The truth is that Twitter is used for countless reasons, and in countless ways.  It’s hard to find two users that use Twitter in the exact same way.

I believe that Twitter is close to it’s peak in popularity.  I don’t think that it’s going to get much more popular than it is right now.  Maybe I’m looking at the glass as half empty, but come on, there’s over 75 million users!  It’s super duper popular right now, and a side effect of this peak of popularity is that people are starting to get overly comfortable using it.  And when comfort starts to settle in, people begin to look for drama.  Thus the result is that I’ve been seeing more and more people preaching about what the “proper” ways are to use Twitter.

One thing that I’ve seen a LOT of lately is people have been attacking the practice of Twitter Automation.  In case you aren’t aware, I use Twitter automation on my Twitter feed.  I use a service called Twuffer, which gives me very few issues.  The service allows me to schedule as many tweets as I want in the future, as many as once an hour… which is perfectly fine for my needs.  Obviously, I don’t use it to network with other people.   Interacting with people can still very easily be accomplished, even if you are automating the rest of your tweets.

The Way I Use Twitter

And the way that I use Twitter works perfectly fine for automation.  I use Twitter in much the same way as I use this blog, but on a much smaller and more frequently updated scale.  I use my Twitter feed to entertain people with jokes, motivate them with quotes, and to inform them with various articles that I find interesting.  I don’t consider this to be a one-sided platform, and I try to always respond to messages I get on Twitter.  However, due to the fact that most lot of my material is generic links and information that I link my followers will enjoy, and not random asinine tidbits about what I had for lunch, or commenting on what’s on television… I think that a little bit of automation works well for what I’m doing.

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All of the things that I automate work better with automation, because it allows me to sit down and plan the day before (or several days before) what I’m going to promote the next day, and when.  And when I look at the bigger picture, I have readers all over the world, in different time zones.  By having one Twitter update an hour, it allows me to reach people at all hours of the day, instead of having a big cluster of updates during the time that I happen to be awake and on the computer.  (By the way, do you realize how many people get unfollowed because they can’t learn to spread out their messages?  Quite a bit!)

Some Call Them “Twitter Nazis”

The people who preach about how Twitter automation is “bad” are simply closed minded about how Twitter should be used.  They see Twitter as little more than a glorified chatroom, and that any tweet older than a few minutes is automatically obsolete.  They have a very firm mental image of how Twitter users should interact with each other, and consider the issue of Twitter Automation to be lazy.

They claim that automated tweets are “bad”, that they are “one sided” and that you can’t engage people if you’re “not there”.  I disagree.  Under this same line of thinking, email is “bad” and “one-sided”.  If the other person isn’t sitting at their computer, lying in wait for your email reply, then does that mean that they aren’t deserving to be “engaged”?

And besides, it’s not like it’s difficult to keep up with your corrospondence.  With programs such as TweetDeck, you can keep tabs on all people who direct message you and reply to you on Twitter.  TweetDeck even has a feature that allows you to search through old Tweets for particular things.  This allows you to “engage” other people at whatever pace is needed.

And to be honest with you, I would advocate that a laid back, slow approach to “engaging” Twitter users is a better approach than an approach where you constantly “ping pong” tweets back and forth… ESPECIALLY if you are “engaging” each other publicly and not through direct messaging.  I mean, for God’s sake… if your conversation is THAT time sensitive, then take it to a chat room, an instant messager or a conference call.  Twitter obviously wasn’t designed to be the preferred method of conversing with people who demand instant gratification, so why do some people insist on making it that way?

And like I said before, use Twitter however you like.  That’s the beauty of the program… it’s so flexible and can be used for almost any reason.  Is it really necessary for people to go around and claim that “such and such” method of using Twitter is “good” and other methods are “bad”.  I don’t think so!  And if you feel the same way about me, that the Twitter Automation bashing is getting out of hand, then speak up.  We don’t need to let these people turn Twitter into something that’s completely negative and personal like that.

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Do you agree? Disagree? Would you like to take your day to day frustrations out on a total stranger who writes on a blog? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes” then by all means, leave a reply!

Also, read up on my other blogging articles, such as “Treat Your Blog Like A Living Thing“, or “A Better Approach To Leaving Comments!

And remember to check out the buzz regarding the new Instrumental Album, “Anti-Social” coming out 3/20/10!

And don’t forget to check out Swollen Thumb Entertainment on Twitter and MySpace!.

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