Last week I promised to share information on Social Oomph, a website designed to help save you time and effort in your social networking efforts. Originally, it keyed in on Twitter (and, in fact, used to be called Tweetlater, I believe), but now it’s set up to help with Facebook updates and Google Buzz (though the latter is in its first stage of development), as well.
I happened to run across mention of it when I was researching Google Friend Connect etiquette (which, by the way, still hasn’t been addressed to my satisfaction) on this blog by marketing guru Matthew Neer. If you’re not already familiar with it, it’s well worth a look.
If you’re a Twitter beginner, like me, and feel as if you’re setting foot on foreign terrain every time you tweet, Social Oomph provides a type of passport, as it were, easing your way into Twitterland and allowing you to set some automatic responses for new followers who come your way. After all, one of the worst things you can do on Twitter is not acknowledge new followers…you’ll lose them fast if they’re more diligent than you about checking in on a regular basis. As authors, that’s the last thing we want. We need to KEEP our readers, not lose them.
Also, as this video by the same marketing blogger (Matthew Neer) demonstrates, you can point new followers automatically to your FB site, your website, or your blog…as long as you don’t act like you’re selling anything.
There are several YouTube videos posted by others that also address how to work with Social Oomph, and you may want to check them out, as well.
Basically, the free website allows you to do several things, including the following:
- Schedule tweets (plan for the day, set them, then forget them)
- Track keywords (especially helpful if you’re into a particular niche)
- Extend your Twitter profile (promoting yourself more)
- Send DMs to new followers (automatically)
- Track your clicks
- Follow those who follow you (automatically)
- Vet new followers (semi-automatically)
- View @Mentions and Retweets
- Purge your DM Inbox
- Secure Twitter and Buzz access
There is an alternative to Social Oomph. It’s called HootSuite, but according to one reviewer, they are really complementary programs and he couldn’t recommend one over the other. In his opinion, Social Oomph has “awesome automation abilities” while Hootsuite offers “customization, tracking, and user-friendly features.” I haven’t checked it out yet, but since he recommended both, I may have to give it a look (particularly because they have an iPhone app).
I would love to hear from any of you who have had experience with either sites.
Originally posted 2010-05-24 09:44:14.