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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I’ll admit that I’m one of those folks who hates most Twitter automation. The only thing I have automated is having my blog posts show up whenever they go live, mainly because I tend to write most of my blog posts ahead of time. And if people see it, they know it’s a blog post because it comes with its own mini-preamble.
The thing is that if there’s no preamble then sometimes I will respond to a person’s post, thinking they’re live because I happen to be live, and if I don’t get a response I get irked. Every once in awhile I check someone’s profile, and if I see they haven’t been what I consider “social”, as in haven’t responded to anyone in their last 20 posts or so, I delete them. Now, maybe you intersperse your hourly posts with comments back to people, but if you haven’t done so within 20 posts, and it happens to be one of those times when I’m checking, I would probably delete you and move on, especially if I don’t know you that well already.
So, that’s one of those risks of automation if you ask me.
.-= Mitch´s last blog ..When Opera Isn’t Opera =-.
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with twitter automation. There are always going to be situations where you don’t have access to a computer, are out with friends, busy with work or other things, etc… the list goes on and on. Just because someone doesn’t live on their twitter account or forgets to check it, doesn’t mean they should be looked down upon.
I think those people that write things such as the “proper way to use twitter” really need to loosen up haha. Life’s too short, there’s no proper way to do anything lol just live.
.-= O2O – Ordinary to Outstanding´s last blog ..Monthly Project Update #3 =-.
Trey, have you heard from Don lately? I havent heard from him in months, anyway to get ahold of him? His old Myspace account is inactive. Thanks
Trey, I really like your new site design, the white background really pops out the rest.
Been too long since I was here, please forgive me. You know how life can be. But it’s good to be here in Trey Land once more.
Those who judge how you use Twitter tell me they are going through life struggles they are not fully addressing. How are you hurting them with how YOU use Twitter?
Keepping doing what works for what you love to do.
I suppose at some point I will link my Twitter to my blog and FB, to announce new blog posts automatically. I feel no remorse at the prospect of that.
And there you have it, as you say 6 billion peeps, 6 billion ways. Or are we 7 billion now?
xo
Again, with real URL feeling!
.-= Jannie Funster´s last blog ..Funstering Friends- 2 =-.
I love the video! That is exactly why I have been so slow to embrace twitter at all. I simply do not spend my entire day sitting in front of a computer screen, and when I am, I’m WORKING. The last thing I need is to be constantly distracted by having to watch tweets roll down the screen to see if it’s anything that is of a concern to me. TweetDeck would probably make this more useful. I check my e-mail periodically through the day, I could check tweets too. But if folks are expecting an immediate response I’ll still be “irking” people, as Mitch put it.
All of the Twitter originated materials I’ve seen to date indicate to me that Twitter was intended to be used in exactly that way; by addicted tweet-heads who connect with a circle of other tweet-heads to tell one another about their every move and notion.
But of course, the marketing guru’s have come on the scene and found a way to make it into a piece of the marketing machine. From what I read, it works too!
Until someone invents a hover-cam that follows its owner around, shooting pictures every 37 seconds and posting them to Twitter (PLEASE turn it off when you go in the bathroom!), I find no great fault with automating Twitter posts. Like anything, if taken to an extreme it will be counter productive because it will annoy people enough that they will unfollow you or find a way to block spam-tweets. Where we draw the line on what we deem to be acceptable use of automation will vary from person to person and what they are trying to accomplish.
.-= Allan Douglas´s last blog ..Opinions Are Like Bellybuttons =-.