SEO / Web Marketing Articles: Twitter Automation
Twitter Automation is often seen as an evil. There are many positive ways in which Twitter Automation can be used.
1) Thank you direct message automation: Automation can be used as an auto-reply where new followers get a nice thank you message. Something like “Thanks for the following.” or “As a thank you for following me please download my eBook for free at…”. This 1st type of automation works very well and is positive.
2) Twitter Autofollow: This other form of automation happens when you auto follow people who follow you. I wrote an article that completely goes in depth on this at Twitter Autofollow. According to Twitter auto following is acceptable. The idea behind it is that if someone follows you, they must share a common interest; therefore, it makes sense for you to follow them back.
3) DM (direct message) automation: If you use an API called Caltweet, you can actually do DM automation and do so legitimately. Caltweet will send DMs to all of your followers (even ignores Twitters 200 max DM rule) to announce events. For example a friend of mine has a rock band. His Twitter account for the band (@thebandflatland) has a small but loyal following. With DM automation he can let them know about upcoming concerts.
4) Follow build automation: There are tools that allow you to find and follow people based on similar interests. The tools will follow people then unfollow if they don’t follow back within a certain time frame. The idea is that you can build a group of followers that share a common interest fast. This form of automation when done right is legitimate but often it is abused.
5) Content automation: Often people don’t know what to Tweet or don’t have time to write good articles on a particular subject. Using Google alerts and RSS feeds you can have the latest articles on that subject appearing as Tweets from you Twitter account. Another form of content automation is scheduling Tweets so you can Tweet reminders or in the case of one of my clients the ability to Tweet RSS feeds directly from their blog. This type of automation is nice because you can find the information your followers want and keep them happy.
I manage all of these types of automation for my clients and do so within Twitter’s guidelines and do so in a way that embraces the idea of social media.
I hope this makes things clearer and removes the negative stereotypes from the word automation.
Remember to check me out onTwitter @allanpollett if you follow me you will get to enjoy my automated DM thank you 
Any questions about Twitter marketing or Twitter automation, please feel free to contact me at 905-417-9470 or by email at allanp73@gmail.com
