Have you ever wondered how the top Twitter users send you those automatic messages when you start to follow them and how they auto follow you? Are they up all night clicking follow and drafting messages back? No, they are using in many cased a free online service called TweetLater.
I have been testing this new application and consider it a must have for any Twitter “power user”. It is free to use, but you can upgrade to the Professional version and get more features, but the free version is certainly handy and does a few very cool things.
- Allows you to set up an auto responder sent automatically to anyone who follows you.
- Allows you to follow (or not) them automatically when they follow you.
- Allows you to unfollow them automatically when they unfollow you.
- Allows you to schedule tweets for future publishing.
- Allows you to enter tweets and will meter out their publishing automatically – like a drip campaign.
I have been using TweetLater mainly for the auto responder feature and find it a great tool for building and connecting with others. If you want to consider the Professional version, it will cost $29.97 a month. In the Professional version you will be able to:
- Manage multiple Twitter accounts.
- Allow account access to an assistant
- Schedule @ replies and direct messages to when the recipient is online.
- Schedule reoccurring tweets and supply alternative text for rotation.
- Choose to mute specific uses without unfollowing them.
- Use TweetCockpit as your Twitter power user interface.
For my personal needs the free version is a good fit. People who may be interested in the Professional version may be product managers and advertising agency account managers.
If you are not using Twitter, you may wonder what is all the buzz about, why invest my precious time? With the research that I have done this past month, what I have found is that some people are actually selling their Twitter traffic services. Let’s say you have 20,000 followers, you tweet about a product and include a link. Even if 10% of your followers went to visit the link, that’s a whooping 2,000 new visitors exposed to your product or service. There have been some interesting stories lately on the Web of entrepreneurs making thousands of dollars a month driving traffic to paying web clients in this manner.
What does this all mean for the everyday business owner? Well first, I’m not going into business selling traffic, but what that does tell me is that if you have a new service, a new product, something you want to promote. You can do it easily, for free, to others in your wider social network thereby exposing your products, services, and content to a massive audience all by yourself. All it takes is some time to build your Twitter following base while interacting with others. It’s actually a win-win situation have fun, build followers, build website or blogsite traffic. TweetLater is just one of the tools to use in your arsenal to get and build your following in your first step towards marketing yourself and services online for free.