As previously discussed, Twitter is a fantastic way to get some free targeted traffic to your websites, but manually sending tweets on a regular basis is a time consuming and boring task!

All new tweets have an average lifespan of 10 minutes – that means your well thought out tweet will only be visible in other user’s timelines for a very short space of time.

After that, they get lost in the Twhite noise of Twitter!

It is therefore important to tweet regularly.

Also, if you tweet nothing but links to your websites, squeeze pages, products and affiliate campaigns you’re quickly going to get a reputation as a spammer which will result in you losing followers and almost definitely get your account suspended by Twitter.

So is there a way to automate some of your tweets and provide good content to keep your followers interested, all without getting Twitter slapped?!

There certainly is!

I’ve been looking into various ways to automate my Tweets and I think I’ve found a corker!

Now before we start, I would strongly advise that you don’t use this method alone…

Your followers need to know you are a real person and not a robot, so make sure you use Twitter as the social tool it was intended for… in other words, still use it to personally interact with your followers or they’ll soon lose interest in you.

Ok, here we go…

A great way to feed your twitter accounts with a constant stream of valuable, free content, is to use an automation service such as Twitterfeed.

Twitterfeed is a FREE automation tool that allows you to send your favourite RSS feeds directly to your Twitter account so that your tweets are regularly renewed without you having to manually type them out.

You don’t even have to load them into a tweet scheduler like Social Oomph…

Just choose some RSS feeds that you think will interest your followers, set them in Twitterfeed and forget!

Here’s a summary of how I use this method :-

1. Find an RSS feed for articles relating to my niche. ie Internet Marketing.
2. Load it into Twitterfeed and add my url shortener details. (bit.ly)
3. Let it go to work tweeting interesting, article titles with shortended links to the full articles.
4. Occasionally intersperse my automated tweets with more personal ones, retweets replies etc.

Believe me, this really works and I can see from my bit.ly account that my tweets are getting a lot of clicks.

Some pros and cons…

Pros -

1. You have a constant stream of tweets which include keywords your potential followers are looking for, so you’ll grow your following organically. (So no need to mass follow hundreds of people in the hope they’ll follow you back.)
2. You are providing good, niche content to your followers, thereby keeping them interested in your tweets and clicking on your links. (Ready for when you do want to send them to your squeeze page or blog.)
3. You can spend much less time trawling the net for quotes, news stories and articles to interest your followers. (And spend more time doing the things that actually make you money online.)
4. If you choose RSS feeds that are relevant to your niche and that benefit your followers in some way, you’ll be loved for it. (They’ll be more likely to trust you, be more willing to do business with you and buy from you in future)

Cons -

1. Although the content will be interesting to your followers, the links within your tweets are directing your traffic to websites other than yours so your RSS Tweets won’t directly send traffic your way. (However, having tested this method for a few weeks, I find it does keep my followers responsive to clicking on my links)
2. Some followers may find your Twitterfeed tweets impersonal and some may even consider them spam. (You can’t please everyone on twitter. Everyone has their own opinions on how you should use it and what is considered spam – in my opinion, relevant, free content is NOT spam!)

In summary, I think this is a great method for keeping your followers interested in you and it means you don’t have to spend hours finding useful content.

Most people will understand the reasons behind using automation tools and will accept it, however they still want to know there is a person behind the tweets – talk about what you’re doing and engage discussion with people – Remember… this is Social Media, so be sociable!

Give it a try and let me know how you get on by leaving a comment below.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been testing various methods to grow my Twitter following and I’ve found a load of cool tools that allow me to automate various tasks and make life easier.

At the start of August 09 I had only 45 followers and the time of writing this post, I have 3766…  That’s a lot of potential new leads, traffic and customers – all from only a few minutes work a day!

With a little effort and the use of the following tools, you can explode your followers and start using Twitter to drive traffic to your websites.

Best of all, most of these tools are free – there is only 1 service that I paid for, but I know you can get similar results with the free alternative – it will just take a bit longer.

Ok, here they are in no particular order:-

1. Social Oomph (used to be called Tweetlater)

Open a free account that allows you to schedule tweets, send automated Direct Messages (DMs), save tweet drafts for later use and more.  There is a paid version that will make it even easier to automate your twitter account, but I only use the free version and it meets all my needs.

(See also No. 9. Twaitter, which has similar features but an interface some may prefer and at the time of writing has a lot of free features that Social Oomph charges for)

2. Twitterfeed

Feed your blog RSS feed or any relevant RSS feed to your twitter account.  This is a great way to automatically tweet relevant content to your followers right through the day and night and it is also a great way to pick up new followers who search for specific key words.  (I’m going to do a more in depth post on this subject soon, so watch this space!)

3. Twitter Karma

Find out who you follow who doesn’t follow you back. (Twitter Snobs)  You can then choose to unfollow some or all to free up space for you to follow others.

(http://friendorfollow.com/ does essentially the same thing with a different interface -  users with large numbers of follows/followers might find it a little easier to use)

4. Hummingbird

This is the software I paid for and I think it’s well worth it as it saves a lot of time.  The best part is the follow/unfollow feature which allows you to just click a button once and follow/unfollow hundreds of people on autopilot – better still, it allows you to whitelist people who you know don’t follow you back, but who you still want to follow because they have interesting tweets.

For example, you might want to follow your favourite celebrity’s tweets, even though they are never likely to follow you back! Simply add them to your VIP list in hummingbird, and it will never unfollow them.

It also has some other great features to make life easier for you, such as, Manage Multiple Accounts, Keyword Targeting, Detailed / Easy to Read Reports, 3rd Party Plugins and more.  I can’t really do it justice in a short blog post, so check out the website for a full list of benefits:-

Hummingbird

5. Twollow

Automatically follow people based on keywords.  This is another paid service, however they’ll give you a free 7 day trial which is well worth taking up.  If you’re new to twitter, it’ll set you well on your way to your first couple of hundred followers and all you have to do is type in a few key words!  This was the first automation tool I used and if memory serves, it tripled my following during that 7 day free trial, then I just closed my account.

6. Mr Tweet

Looks through your relationships and tweets to:
1) Show the influencers and followers you should follow
2) Suggest you to enthusiastic users relevant to you

7. Twit This

If you’ve ever read something online that you wanted to share quickly and easily then you’ll love this one.  It’s a great way to keep people engaged.  Just click the TwitThis Button, customize the message you want to tweet and hey presto, Your Link is Tweeted!

Your followers instantly see your link! It’s that simple.

8. Tweetdeck

A great looking, very groovy piece of software that lets you sort your friends into groups so their tweets don’t get lost in the twitter noise.  Add numerous groups to filter tweets from close friends, collegues, favourite celebs etc

9. Twaitter

Similar to Social Oomph but at the time of writing it is in Beta testing, so is completely free to use to use tools that Social Oomph is charging for.  Here’s what they say about their product:-

• Ever had an idea for a tweet, but wanted to send it later or at a specific time?
• Want to setup your #FollowFriday posts throughout the week so you dont forget to share great tweeple with your followers?
• Have a fellow Twitterer whose birthday is coming up in a few days, but you’re afraid you might forget to send a “Happy Birthday” tweet when the day arrives?
• Spend more time on Twitter than your work calendar? Ever want to send yourself a reminder or remind friends or followers of something?
• Want to participate in a scheduled Twitter conversation even when you are too busy to attend?
• Want to have links in your blog RSS feed automatically sent to Twitter?
• Want to schedule a tweet to go out at 8:14AM (and not 8AM sharp)?

…You can do it all with twaitter.

10. Twitter Packs

A useful directory of twitter users sorted into specific catergories so that you can find people who are interested in the same things as you.  You can also add yourself to the directory so that people can find and follow you.

Well, that’s a about it from me, but in the spirit of always over delivering here at Steve-Wakefield towers, here are some other great tools –

• If you have an apple iPhone, (you flash git!) you might want to check out the Tweetie app.  Haven’t used it myself, but have heard nothing but great things about it – here’s the link – Tweetie

• A great way to pack more content into your Tweets without going over the 140 characters allowed limit is to use a URL shortener.  There are plenty of options out there, but I think the best one to use is bit.ly as it allows you to track all clicks on your links to see what works best for you.

• Almost forgot this one and it’s a gem! -  Huitter – You can use it to unfollow people who don’t follow you back (similar to twitterkarma and friendorfollow) however it also features a cool clean up tool to delete your Direct Messages (DMs) Inbox, en masse.  It will only delete 50 messages at a time, but that’s much better than deleting 1 at a time in Twitte

I hope you’ve found this useful – if so please leave a comment below…  If not, I also value your input – let me know what you think either way!

If you know of any other great Twitter tools feel free to share them.

Happy Tweeting

I’ve spent most of today learning about Twitter from my mentor, Alex Jeffreys who created a free video series on the subject

http://www.tweetingwithyou.com/

I’ve got to say… I’m absolutely blown away by what Alex has been teaching me and more importantly, I’m having fun putting his techniques into practice!

If you are looking for a way to drive free, targeted traffic, to any of your websites, then you MUST get to grips with Twitter, right away…

I’m only sorry I’ve put it off for so long, but not any more.

From what I’ve learnt so far and heard from my other marketers and fellow coaching students, it’s fast becoming most people’s number one source of traffic.

Over the next few days, I’m going to dedicate a large proportion of my time to Twitter so see what effect it has on my blog traffic, so watch this space for updates on my progress.

At the time of writing, I have 53 people following me on twitter, so check out my twitter page to watch it grow -

http://twitter.com/Steve_Wakefield

If you want to check out Alex’s free video series, all you need to do is enter your Twitter username and password to get full access, so if you haven’t already signed up, do it now!

Step 1 – Sign Up to Twitter.

http://twitter.com/

Step 2 – Enter your Twitter username and password at the following site to get instant access and you’ll soon be on your way to masses of free traffic!

http://www.tweetingwithyou.com/

Good luck,

Steve

P.S. Don’t forget to follow me and I’ll do the same for you!

http://twitter.com/Steve_Wakefield

P.P.S. Download Your FREE TWITTER TEMPLATES here to personalise your Twitter page.  Have fun!