UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging

Chapter 37. Your Transparency on Twitter

AUTO-TWEETING OR ABSENT tweeting is the ability to send tweets out without your having to do it manually. There are a variety of web sites and services that allow you to ghost tweet. People who argue in favor of these say that it allows them to keep a presence in the social media area even though they might be too busy, sleeping, or even while on stage speaking. When I polled a bunch of my followers about their thoughts of people using automated tweets, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Twitter is unique. People feel that when they see a tweet from your account that you are actually the person writing it at that time. Not to mention that if you use a tweet system that is sent out when you're not there, what you're saying to your followers is that you're only on there to talk and not listen.

An example of this was when I saw a well-known speaker who I knew was on a cruise for a week with no Internet access tweeting out a pitch for his upcoming workshop. People saw the tweet and replied and asked him specific questions about the workshop because they were interested in potentially attending. And nothing. No reply from him until five days later when he returned from the cruise. When people asked why it took him so long to reply he said, "Sorry, I was on a cruise for a week without access," which then led to the logical follow-up question: If you had no access, how did you tweet about your workshop in the first place? You see what can ...