Ok, some people know what they are doing when it comes to Twitter while many others are still in the dark.  Is it a web 2.0 vehicle designed to promote and market my products/business services or is it merely intended for staying in touch with people?   The funny thing about Twitter is that one could easily assume that there is not much to it: a 140 character limit, link sharing, and ridiculous real-time activity updates like, “I’m washing my face with a new loofah sponge”.  On the surface they are right and that is the beauty of it.  The fact of the matter is that it can be used for any and all of the tasks mentioned above and a whole lot more.  Here is where Yahoo! Pipes and Twitterfeed come in.

I wanted to share this video with you because utilizing Yahoo! Pipes and Twitterfeed have been enormously helpful personally in building my presence and brand identity on Twitter.  This is one of the best step-by-step techniques to auto generate retweets from Twitter search queries that are relevant to organic keyword searches one would ultimately use to find you or your business on the web.  If you’re finding it difficult to follow (I know, the information moves by fast) I would suggest pausing it during each step.

There is a disclaimer: your followers don’t want to be inundated with thousands of tweets per day (also known as Twamming) so when you create a Twitter bot you want to use this technique with some discretion.  Fortunately, Twitterfeed allows you to monitor how many tweets you send per hour per feed.

Easy right?  Ryan Price also outlines a very detailed plan for utilizing Yahoo! Pipes to aggregate RSS feeds and setup automatic re-tweets. I actually use a combination of both techniques while sprinkling in RSS feeds from some of my favorite marketing, SEO, Organic Link Building, Social Media, and Web Design for Wordpress sites.

I have learned three valuable lessons about Twitter followers and what is important to them.  All Twitter followers appreciate and expect:

1. Reliable and useful information – links to tutorials and breaking news that are accurate and helpful.

2. Personal Recognition – acknowledgement as an actual person, not a machine, and being re-tweeted.

3. A Casual Conversation – keeping in touch regularly on many levels: professional services, personal insight, and miscellaneous ”stuff”.

Using a Twitter bot to auto generate retweets is Whitehat Social Media by my standards as long as it is done in consideration of the followers recieiving the tweets.  The key is to tweet frequently without over-saturating, and this is a matter of common sense.  If you see your followers are dropping off, tweak the frequency of auto tweets to either ramp up or tone down the number of tweets being sent.  Also, regularly change the keywords used in auto re-tweeting.  Above all else, just like blogging, create a brand and stand by it.

Team up all of these steps with the Five Twitter Tools You Have To Have In Your Social Media Tool Belt article we posted earlier this month and you will be well on your way to building and marketing a brand while spreading your sphere of influence on Twitter.  This is not an entirely new idea, but one that is constantly evolving so stay tuned.

Some other important Twitter tools to start using right now to get yourself out there and shamelessly self-promote your profile with are:

Twitter Grader

Tweet Spinner

WeFollow

If you found this useful please let us know or if there are tools or trick you would like us to add by all means clue us in.