Twitterhawk has been out for some time, as a targeted marketing tool for Twitter — inevitably growing it’s user-base on a monthly basis. It’s unfortunate, because not all things that glitter are gold. Not to say Twitterhawk is a bad service, per say. Of course not, its more the uses that people have devised and the innocent actions of companies using Twitterhawk that do not make any sense from a social marketing perspective. Let me explain.
TwitterHawk allows you to send automated messages based on keywords and location found in users tweets/profile. The key function of the service itself, locating people on Twitter based on location and keywords in tweets, is an excellent resource for small businesses and solopreneurs. It’s the automation, even if semi, that worries me. (If you remember right, I’m no longer a fan of Twitter automation that rests relationship building on automated activities and jeopardizes a company into classifying themselves amongst spammers, even if innocently.)
So why would you want to locate those people, then not send them an automated message? Aw, such a good question. You want to locate them, but you want to locate them on the basis of either already having a connection with you and to have a human being contact them or make introductions — not some canned message you’ve come up with to sell something.
The question is, do you value your potential and existing audience enough to show a little respect and actually contact them in ways that clearly exemplify it? Sounds a little harsh, but do you really think the majority of people really don’t know when a message is canned? They do. Even if you glance over someone’s account, to do a quick “relevance” test, skimming over what they provide briefly in their profile — you’re still missing a huge opportunity to connect with them on a much more meaningful manner.
Draw the line with Twitter automation…
This isn’t to say that you simply can not build meaningful relatioships using tools like Twitterhawk to streamline your processes. After all, every business must realistically consider scalability and some level of automation in managing their social marketing presence. The problem comes when not knowing where to draw the line.
There are alternatives to services like Twitterhawk, that are fundamentally better in building the right, targeted Twitter following for your business. Developing your Twitter following should be a part of your monitoring activities, throughout your social marketing — not an act of farming followers like herds of cattle, hoping you’ve hit the target.
Social monitoring tools like Trackur help you monitor not only the Twitterverse, but the entire social landscape including the blogosphere. You use tools like this to make a concerted effort across the Net to engage, on a human level, with those that are talking about things that matter to your company (ie. your brand, keywords, niche topics…)
The trade-off that automation requires, with relationships and authentic engagement, isn’t worth it in the end for most small businesses and solopreneurs. After seeing tools like Twitterhawk in action across Twitter, that’s my official two cents, what do you think? Is it worth the trade-off for your company?
Twitterhawk news and thoughts across the Net…
Twitterhawk, Clever Marketing or Spam?
Twitterhawk, Automated Branding of Your Product
Twitterhawk Automated Social Media Marketing Tool
Twitterhawk Targeted Marketing on Twitter
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… looking forward to connecting with you!
Maria 
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