I agree with much of the advice that’s given here about Twitter etiquette. Some of it more than others, but this part in particular stuck out at me as being something I disagree with quite strongly:
8. Avoid automation if possible. Scheduling tweets is tricky. It’s not the worst thing in the world, as long as the tweets still sound human and there’s someone to engage with people once the tweets are sent, but something about it just feels icky.
This is part of the same mindset that says all social media comments from customers deserve – nay, necessitate! – a response from the brand they’re directed toward. But that overlooks the reality that neither of these pieces of advice are really achievable at any sort of scale, at least not as part of a core, multi-pronged program.
See corporate publishing programs need to be fed. They need to be fed around the clock. And there’s content – blog post links, photos, videos and more – that needs to be distributed on Twitter and Facebook and elsewhere inbetween all those idyllic responses and conversations.
This sort of advice assumes that every program has a 10+ person team that can cover all aspects of publishing, with a full team on duty 24 hours a day to push out links as soon as they pop, instead of being scheduled for an optimal time and in the context of everything else that’s going on.
So I’m sorry if some people think this “feels icky” but tools that allow for scheduled publishing (and the managed ed cals where such publishing is planned) are largely necessary for any program that operates at scale.
(I realize I’m kind of picking on a fairly innocuous comment, but this sort of thinking really raises my hackles.)
