During a time of ever changing technology, one must stay in front of the pack. Twitter is growing at an unprecedented rate. It is by far the most global of the social media networking sites. With millions of users logging in daily and the fact that 60% of these users are from outside the United States makes Twitter an indispensable social media marketing site. We will be examining in detail 2 of these powerful Twitter automation websites each week.

As more Twitter automation sites arrive daily, it is important to know which ones are priceless and which ones are really not necessary. 

Let’s also discuss the idea of Twitter automation Vs. Twitter spamming, why one is critical and the other will get you banned.

The main difference between Twitter Automation and Twitter spamming has to do with saving some time doing what you were already doing and simply harassing people with nonstop marketing tweets they don’t want. The distinction lies in using a service or product that simply helps us augment what we were already doing. A few examples would be:

• Follow new friends
• Post Tweets
• Automatically Follow those who follow you
• Automatically send new followers a direct message
• Search Twitter for key words in Bio, Location, Tweets and more
• Send out RT or retweets
• Set up a calendar of times to post tweets
• The use of URL shorteners to track clicks and other data
• Have posted Tweets go directly to other sites
• Automatically unfollow the people who do not follow you back after a certain period of time

These are some of the best features available for Twitter automation. There a number of sites that do some of these and none that do them all. Some of them are free and other charge around $40 a month for the more valuable Twitter automation services.

Unfortunately, there are other sites and more specifically programs that allow or even encourage spamming. The difference is simple, “do onto other as you would have done onto you.” So if you want people to follow you and send a constant barrage of marketing tweets every ten seconds until you get sick of them and unfollow them then go for it. All we can say is that what goes around comes around and people will eventually find out who you are! The majority of this stuff is done by people who really don’t care about anybody and they put a bad name on automation.

The first 2 Twitter automation sites to be discussed are Ping.fm and Hootsuite.com:

Ping.fm is an excellent resource for saving time. Ping.fm is easy to follow and easy to set up. Simply go through the set up process and one can connect all of one’s social media networking sites together and with a click of a button send out a status update or tweet to all of them simultaneously.

Essentially, that allows social networks and social media marketers to save some time by automating the distribution of these status updates. Many feel Ping.fm users should create more Twitter automation tools given their skill and some dislike their use of their private URL shortener. They are many other URL shorteners on the market. The most popular of these being bit.ly, which are very beneficial for two main reasons;

The first is that they can take a long blog link and compress into a much smaller link which can fit on a Tweet. The second is that it has some advanced tracking capabilities which allow internet marketers to see how many clicks it gets, when and where they came from. The only real criticism from our point of view to Ping.fm is that this info which they get should be shared to the people who use it and need it the most.

Our rating for Ping.fm is 3.5 stars.

Hootsuite.com is one of the premier Twitter Automation websites available. If you a social networker, Twitter enthusiast or an avid social media marketer then this website is a must. Many people are surprised that this website is free given the amount of material it allows its user to do. I personally would be willing to pay a site to provide for me all the data it does at the click of the mouse. That being said, please don’t charge us Hootsuite we like our free sites.

Hootsuite is designed for Twitter enthusiasts to follow their Twitter accounts in real time. The system is easy to use and easy to set up. Once your account info is in there one can see current tweets, any mention of one’s Twitter name and current direct messages. It does this for every twitter account one has. It also has two other great functions, the first being able to easily tweet, reply or retweet anyone else’s tweet very easily. This tweet or retweet can be sent be one account or all if the user wishes and the ability to stay in real time while conversing on Twitter is pretty amazing. The last thing that really stands out for social media marketers is the ability to set up accounts for keywords. These accounts track any mention of a user, area or keyword so one can track that keyword location or market. It is set up to easy follow people with similar interests or retweets like minded info easily.

There are a few more bells and whistles on the site so do yourself a favor and get an account and see for yourself. The only possible criticism could be the fact that Twitter in their user agreement say they can terminate your account for sending the same tweet of multiple accounts and Hootsuite allows user to easily do this. The funny thing is that everyone does it so for Twitter to actually start disabling their user accounts for something that minor it would really be a shame. Either way be careful with that and we are in no way endorsing that.

The grade for Hootsuite is 5 stars.

Next week we will be discussing Tweetmeme and SocialOomph!