We’ve had a competitor recommend using a script to build a Twitter network to a new business prospect this morning. A quick Google search shows that there is a lot of it about.
Clients like large guaranteed numbers and for an agency a Twitter bot is an easy and low cost sell. I’ll leave it to the noisy reaction from my Twitter network (built organically over the last two years) to tell you why its a dubious tactic.
I suspect that Twitter accounts that use scripts form their own little community off to the side of the main trunk of Twitter — where all their followers are also scriptbots.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by speedcomms: The case against automated Twitter networking (according to my network) http://goo.gl/fb/WlkG (@wadds) #pr…
[...] 13 Jan via speedcommunications.com [...]
Everyone always wants something for nothing, which is the reason by con tricks like this work with many clients. Spam is spam is spam.
Missed the Twitter chat, but it’s bang on relevant to the one I had yesterday about the folly of followers:
stuartbruce: Top 100 political blogging tweeters in the UK, I’m at 17 http://bit.ly/6DDvJ3 1 @campbellclaret 2 @JohnPrescott 3 @iaindale 4 @tom_watson
markpack: @stuartbruce Isn’t problem using “followers” is it discourages people from being good neighbours on Twitter + reporting spam followers?
stuartbruce: @markpack Agreed, I’ve blogged previously about the folly of lists and ranks, 10 followers can be better than 10,000 if the right 10
markpack:@stuartbruce You are of course worth at least 10,000 US social media gurus
It’s a shocking, shocking approach. The agency that advices bot-based audience building wants shooting.
My only fear would be that the agency that thinks this is an acceptable approach has been talking utter crap and that they would in fact be totally misleading the client in a way that would continue to give those agencies trying to carry out best-practice activity, a bad name.
Have you considered showing this post the the client Wadds?! If they are going to be tricked, why not show what other people with knowledge in this area have to say about their antics?!
I have a script that helps you find followers based on their keyword interests. (free) That’s more targeted than just building random quantity. But a business profile without lots of followers is as profitable as a newspaper with 100 subscribers.
Profiles with 100 followers may be fine for some purists but reality is, popularity and large qualified followings is where it is.
I completely agree with Paul: “It’s a shocking, shocking approach. The agency that advices bot-based audience building wants shooting.”
No client I know would consider this ok. And the agencies spambotting should be exposed for what they are. Managing a company’s reputation, this is not.
I know a competitor agency that does this for their own twitter feed. I’ve seen it in action. Nasty stuff and not open, honest, transparent, etc.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Drew B, Drew B, geetarchurchy, Stuart Bruce, Stephen Waddington and others. Stephen Waddington said: @behindthespin But what if people have figured out how to abuse the rule of the network: http://bit.ly/8Fbdxu [...]
[...] motivation was simple. Two weeks ago I was pissed off when I learnt from a prospect that a rival agency had touted mechanical networking as a means [...]