Tweeting Later – Watch Your Motive
I just listened to a podcast that was all great except for a bit about using TweetLater.com. It was stated that you should/could use a tweet delaying tool like TweetLater.com to make it seem that you’re online tweeting, without actually having to. This supposedly will help with your reputation.
Quote from the podcast that I find to be old-school marketing trickery
“So that it kind of appears like you’re always on Twitter and always involved in your niche which is what makes a market leader. It’s somebody who’s always got the news. Somebody who always has something to say.”
I completely disagree with this motive.
You should NEVER use any tool to game your followers.
I’m not saying that a tool like TweetLater should never be used. Just watch out for WHY you are using it.
Keep it real.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Thank you. There’s definitely a fit for this type of utility, it’s just what the podcaster was specifically saying is wrong. Your question inspires another post on this. We’re actually looking into part of this question (although, I doubt we’ll ever really have a complete answer).
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Wow. Good points. However, I would never try to appear that I’m tweeting live when I’ve preplanned a tweet. I myself preplan very few tweets but do encourage others to for two reasons. First, if you’re time-constrained, preplanning half your tweets and real-time tweeting the rest can make sense. Second, and it’s a real problem for me, if you tweet at an off peak time (say 4 am in my case) or if you tweet at a super-busy time, your tweet may get lost in the ebb and flow later. Pre-plan your tweet for a time that you know your audience will be online. Which begs the question, when is that time? :o) Thanks as always for making us think and engage. Great blog post!