Do you ever get the feeling that some of those tweets you follow might be, how shall we put it….canned? Chances are that quite a few of them are. We live in a busy society and anything that can make our lives a bit easier, quicker, or more manageable, and we’re all over it. There are a variety of software options to help us keep track of our social networks. The more popular ones allow you to schedule tweets or Facebook posts in advance. Some will even let you send the same tweet out over, and over, and over again, based on whatever schedule you desire.
Setting aside the software clients and browser extensions for a moment, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Triberr in this post. Triberr is built around retweeting, and if setup properly, can be automated as well. For those of you not familiar with the service, and others like it, here’s a typical list of what the average Triberr user does when they sign on.
1. Open web browser and sign in to Triberr.
2. View a list of new tweets by members of the Tribe you are in.
3. Click the Tweet button beside each of those tweets, thus retweeting them automagically.
4. Log out of Triberr.
Sounds simple, right? It is. I’m not bashing Triberr, so please don’t walk away thinking I am. In fact, I’m not bashing Hootsuite, TweetDeck, or any of the other applications that will let people schedule a tweet and walk away from their computer. I’m guilty of it myself, and it would be extremely hypocritical of me to judge anyone that finds these services useful. Think of Triberr as a compact little list of tweets that you are supposed to retweet. You can of course pick and choose which ones to retweet, or not pick any at all. Doing that goes against the spirit of the service however. The idea is that you retweet every post in your Tribe, and the people in your Tribe will do likewise for you. Most of these tweets are tied to an RSS feed from blogs. It’s very…automated.
As I said, I’m guilty of sending out auto-tweets. In my defense however, I was almost always in front of the computer or my phone when scheduled tweets went out. When someone responded to a tweet I did my best to get back to them within the hour. Some days were better than others, but overall I think my response time probably falls into the 95% area during that first hour.
Even so, I felt guilty enough about that other 5% that I eventually deleted my Triberr account, and stopped using automated tweets. My tweeting has been cut in half as a result of that. That’s both good and bad.
The bad part is that all the people I auto-retweeted (ART) from Triberr will no longer get the same kind of attention and coverage that my tweeting provided for them. However, I had to ask myself just how much attention my ART’s were generating in the first place.
The good part to tweeting half as much? It helps to clean up your twitter stream, focusing on the things you care about the most. You may think of this as being less social, but in the long run it’s the tweets you care about, the ones worth posting that make you more engaging.
I could, right now, easily pick out 50 people from my Twitter feed and see the following:
1. Every tweet for the past 24+ hours has been about the same thing (buy my book / read this review), or..
2. Every tweet for the past 24+ hours links to blog posts of friends, with some of their own mixed in.
I’m not kidding. At least 50 people, and not 1 of them will have any conversational, or social interaction tweets in their recent timeline. It’s like flipping through the television channels late and night and the only thing on are infomercials. They look interesting at first, but then you realize they’re just trying to sell you something. If not a product, then something, even if it’s just a desperate plea to visit their blog. Which, by the way, is often an infomercial in itself.
I feel like this post is being harsh, and I really don’t mean for it to be. Again, I’m not trying to judge. I just want to point out that social networks are about interactions, engagement of two or more minds to discuss things. It’s hard to discuss a topic with someone when you’re responding to their answering machine.
Thoughts?
Print
Email
I deleted triberr, too, as I just didn't really 'get' it. I never auto-tweet – possibly because I haven't figured out how. But I think I'll leave it that way. I don't like getting automated messages so I won't send any out..
For a marketing tool Triberr is great. As a social interaction tool, not so much. They do have their own forums that your tribe can converse in, but only on the most basic level.
I fondly refer to my inbox as spambox on Twitter. It's the worst possible way to get in touch with me, as I rarely check it on a regular basis. I try to keep it cleaned out, but some days that's a job in and of itself.
I really don't see the point of "automating" twitter, unless one sells cookies or is a hooker! I may be naive but I would have thought the whole point of twitter was interaction and communication, and responsiveness… But then twitter is for me a way to meet friends far away! And occasionally tell them about things they may be interested in (and vice-versa learn something from them). Old-fashioned?
Old fashioned? It would seem so if you go by some of the tweets that I see everyday. The same ones, day after day, after day. What happened to originality?
For me Twitter is much like walking down a crowded busy street, picking up bits of conversations from the people you pass, even if some of those people are just talking to themselves. Occasionally you sit down at a small outdoor cafe and have a chat with some folks. All the while, a few people walk by with bullhorns shouting about how much money you can save on your car insurance.
Your comment about the crowded busy street is apt, my friend. I actually block people who use ALL CAPITAL LETTERS WHEN THEY ARE TWEETING about their books et al because I not only don't want to follow them, but also I don't want them following me!
I tried Triberr once or twice but I don't want to tweet out SO or RT without reading them.
Another good post, my friend.
)
Thanks Jo. I understand that marketing is a part of the job. And for those folks that want to send out nothing but marketing tweets, more power to them. That's why I use those little gems called lists in Twitter. I can tune the majority of the spam out. I rarely see tweets from people that aren't on one of my lists.
Welcome to the post-Triberr recovery group! I don't know about you, but I found that divorcing Triberr was a very liberating experience, in part because it freed me from the weight of the perceived obligation to tweet links to posts I hadn't read or didn't want to share, and in part because I no longer felt like I was contributing to the plague of spam that is currently suffocating Twitter.
I get what you're saying about Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, both of which I have also used–usually to schedule a tweet late at night because I know I'm going to forget what I wanted to say by the time morning rolls around. There's nothing wrong with the tools, it's how we're using them. Hmmm. Actually, I think that's not quite true. There is a design flaw in Triberr, as there is in any tool that's specifically designed to automate a platform that's intended to be social.
I'm slowly, slowly culling the self-promoters and auto-obnoxibots from my Twitter stream, and I'm far more choosy about following back than I used to be. I've also stopped clicking on the links posted via Triberr, as I believe almost everyone has, including the people who are posting them. Really, if a person can't be bothered to read the blogs they're promoting, I don't see any reason I should follow their recommendations to do so.
Bah. Time to end the auto-occupation.
Loved the post, KD. .
Thanks Kern. I had a feeling that others felt the same way. Of course, there has to be an advocate or two out there. It would really be nice to hear from someone that believes in auto-tweets. I'm not sure if they could justify it as being a social interaction tool as opposed to a marketing solution though.
Sending out links… that's what I forgot to mention in this post! Thanks for reminding me. Yes, I have a problem with this as well. If I'm going to retweet something I want to have visited the place that I'm sending people to. This was also a deciding factor for deleting my Triberr account. The last time I logged in there were more than two dozen tweets to be retweeted, and I just didn't have time to visit every them all.
And you are correct. It is liberating not having to worry about what your tweeting, when it's being tweeted, or being absent when people respond. Those problems are gone now. Again, thanks for the comment Kern, much appreciated my friend.
I just wrote on this same topic, though not picking on Triberr. Automation in general makes social media impersonal, so to me one should limit just how much automation they use. I only use it to show on Twitter when a new blog posts goes live, since I have 5 blogs and I tend to write posts in advance. Otherwise, if you see something by me, you can bet I’m doing it live.
It’s the interaction that makes social media work. I hate leaving voice mail messages, and typically hang up if the person I’m calling doesn’t answer. Same principle. If I wanted to talk to a machine then I’d call the Movie Phone or (pick a customer support number at random).
I use the same automation on my blog Mitch. When a post goes live it auto-tweets for me. I also have Facebook setup to tweet the things I post there…same with YouTube, Keek and a few others. It makes life a little easier when you can make one post and have it sent through a variety of media.
The reason for that automation is simplicity, and to help generate more interaction. For example, when I post something on YouTube I will also post it on my blog. This is then sent to Twitter and Facebook automagically. I now have links to the YouTube post on three other outlets, and I respond to comments on all four.
I think there is a fine line between this type of automation and auto-bots that perform the same function 24×7 without human interaction.
Your end result is the same as mine. If you see a post from me show up on Twitter, Facebook, etc…then you know I’m around. Thanks for stopping by Mitch. Good to see you sir.