Jacob Morgan on Social Media, Technology, Marketing, and Life - Latest Comments in Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

jacobmorgan — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:53:14 -0000

hi christine,

i agree with you, i still stick to the original way of searching. thanks for reading and commenting, glad you found it interesting.

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

Christine Perkett — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:19:49 -0000

It sounds great...at first. But key words don't = value. Too many people use the right words in their profile and all the wrong ones in their Twitter updates. I still prefer to search and research on other apps like Twellow, where you can search by keyword but analyze the user's stream before following.

Interesting post though, thanks!

Christine Perkett
@missusP and @PerkettPR
www.perkettprsuasion.com
Dheck out our PR Stimulus Package - experts say don't cut marketing in a down economy!

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

ericpratum — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:09:44 -0000

True. I use tweetbeep on things like my name, URL, etc so that I get email alerts when people are talking about things likely relevant to me. I find it, like Google Alerts, to be very, very useful. Plus, like you said, it's then up to me if I want to follow those people or not.

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

jacobmorgan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:37:58 -0000

interesting, i didn't know that. at least that will help with some of the abuse. i think it could be a great tool to monitor conversations but i dont know if i like the auto follow idea. i mean why not create something like google alerts where you can find out when people mention a keyword without you auto following them?

ive heard of socialtoo as well, they do some interesting things, but im not using them...yet

thanks for the comment!

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

jacobmorgan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:33:12 -0000

ya i agree, especially when the auto follow looks at the words that people tweet that may or may not be random. i mean the other day i sent a link out to an article which talked about how a committed suicide live on streaming t.v. now if someone used suicide as a keyword they would end up auto following me, yet i usually don't tweet such things.

i see a lot of potential for abuse with this tool.

thanks for the comment!

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

jacobmorgan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:30:23 -0000

oh absolutely. twitter is going to have to figure out a way to prevent abuse otherwise it's just going to kill the platform.

thanks for reading and commenting

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

ericpratum — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:37:23 -0000

I've been told that Twollow has a limit for the number of people it can auto-follow for you per day. The way I see it, this is a great tool (like Tweetbeep) for companies looking to do a bit of customer service and user engagement on Twitter. For most twitterers, I think it will just be used as a way to increase potential followers without having to do much work.

I got an email this morning about another twitter tool Socialtoo.com. It does a few things other Twitter tools don't. Still don't know though if it's for me, but others will likely find it very interesting.

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

DrewGneiser — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:33:32 -0000

I guess I like the idea better of RSS Feeding relevant terms to you, reading the Tweets and then deciding to follow them or not. Auto-follows just don't make a lot of sense to me when Twitter should be about the social interaction and the connection you are trying to make to those people. I prefer an introduction, or at least starting at a place where I make a conscience effort to follow someone for a reason. When I have a new person follow me, I am curious 1.) how they found me and 2.) why they chose to follow me. I will read their profile and if I find something interesting, contact them, but if I cannot see an immediate reason they followed me, I feel like it is kind of up to them to let me know why.

This tool could work, but only if you would truly reach out to the person you auto-followed. Since it looks like it doesn't keep track of new followers, it would be pretty tough to make proper use of this tool.

Re: Twollow: Automatically Follow People on Twitter Based on Keywords

Ben Nesvig — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:16:43 -0000

This is going to be abused by companies. Guaranteed.