There, I said it and I don’t really care if you disagree. While I appreciate those who are not in favor of getting those automatic “Direct Messages” where they provide a link to a product. I see nothing wrong with using a short none “click my junk” message.
I also see no reason not to use the tools available to send this Blog’s RSS feed to twitter when I post a new post. However, I would agree you should more than just send your RSS feed to twitter. You need to participate in the conversations and give more to twitter then you ever expect to receive in return. What you will find though is you receive way more then you give anyway.
Twitter equals Interacting and Learning
Quite frankly, you can still do that and automate some of your twitter activity. As I have said many times and even in a post I did recently for TwiTip there are a number of tools you can use to enhance your twitter experience. The one tool I use to automate the message I send to new followers is a good one.
I use TweetLater to send out that little message every time someone follows me. Why, because when you consider the number of new followers I get daily, I don’t have the time to send a personal tweet to each one. And I would love to be able to.
My short message is something along these lines. “Thanks for the follow and welcome to my twitter stream.” I try to change it from time to time. But that is it. Nothing earth shattering there.
Sending that short message is a way to let the new follower know I do appreciate the follow and that I know they followed me. While I don’t use the “auto-follow” feature, I do go visit each new followers twitter profile to know whether I want to follow back or not. I like to know a little about them before I follow back. If they don’t have a link, I usually don’t follow them either.
What I don’t do is send out any links in my automated message to new followers. I would agree, this is just not proper twittering. I don’t want to “click on your junk.” And if I did, and I do sometimes, I will click on your link in your twitter profile. If all you have for a link is a squeeze page, I am not going to follow you back anyway.
Since I don’t want to have links pushed at me in an automated message, I am not going to do the same to those who follow me.
Using twitter like FeedBurner
Yes, I send my blog’s RSS feed to my twitter stream. And why not? One of the ways I like to use twitter is to provide information to those who follow me. I do way more then just feed my RSS. I have yet to find it unacceptable for someone to send their RSS to twitter. In fact, twitter has become one of my top RSS feeders.
What I do find unacceptable is when that is all someone does. Do more than feed your RSS. You should participate in the conversations going on there. It is amazing what I have been able to learn from those I follow on twitter. I have even developed some real relationships there too.
I use one of the best twitter tools to come along since sliced bread and that is EasyTweets. I have it set to feed my new blog post to twitter immediately after I post them. But it does way more then that.
During a normal day, I may read 10 to 15 blog post or news items. Sometimes more. And I usually read most of them in blocks of time. What I don’t want to do is bury my followers with a butt load of, “I am reading this…” type of tweets. To keep from doing that, I use another feature built into EasyTweets. And that is the ability to set the time for when my tweets might be posted. I usually set items I have read or am reading to post every 30 minutes or so. That way it looks like I am not sending them all at once. KInd of the same way you don’t post all of your new post all at once. I don’t want all of my microblogging post to go out at once either.
I also might retweet my own tweet about a new blog post two or three times during the day as I know some of my followers are not on twitter 24/7. And I don’t want to miss the opportunity to tell them about a new blog post.
Final Thoughts
What made me decide to do this post was a recent post called “Why I Automated: A Twitter Confession Part 1″ and Part 2. And if you don’t read Online Visibility and PR, shame on you. You can follow @NancyMarmolejo too.
If you do it right and if you use the two tools I mention above, no one will even know you are doing those things automatically without much effort on your part. But remember the “golden rule” of twitter. Give way more then you ever expect to receive in return.
Please leave your comments with any of your own tools or suggestions you have on how you automate your twitter experience. Oh, and I am fast approaching 2000 followers. Quite frankly, I never thought that many people would find what I have to say that interesting. Thanks to all of you who follow me on twitter and especially for all of your tweets. As I said, I learn new things on twitter daily. It is a wonderful tool.
