Review of Hummingbird Twitter Automation Software – 7 Time Savers

If you are using Twitter for business you know that it is much more than status updates about your latest meal or family activity.  It is a way to build a following, build relationships with those followers, and potentially have some of those followers self-select in as one of your customers.  In fact, used strategically, it can be one of the best marketing tools in your arsenal.  Recently Mesiab Labs put out a piece of software that is ideal for those who want to automate much of the manual labor involved in executing a twitter marketing strategy.

Review of Hummingbird Twitter Automation Software – 7 Time Savers

UPDATE: August 2010, After multiple attempts to connect with the product creators yielding no response, let me encourage you to see the Review of Tweet Adder as a better alternative.  They have kept the product current, it is robust in features, and supports both PC and Mac. It’s here. Thanks for understanding.

Why I Chose to Review This Software

People get upset with the idea of using software to automate friend gathering online.  Rightfully so, there have been many friend gathering tools for other social networks that were gray hat at best.  I am not reviewing any of those tools, rather I’m interested in helping online business owners and marketers implement marketing strategies that can be automated whenever possible.

For this tool, I admit, I was skeptical, and let the creators know I wouldn’t guarantee a review.  After testing it out, I found it to be exactly what I was hiring a virtual assistant to do, but faster and better.  More than that it does not violate the terms of service that currently exists with Twitter, nor does it get penalized for excessive API requests that happens with other software.

Keep it a Secret: Some would argue, that I should keep this under wraps as a “secret weapon”, but truth is that helps nobody.  It is not contributing to the community, or what MarketingProfessor.com is all about.  Besides Hummingbird is publicly available and has been for weeks (it is here).

Core Features for those Using Twitter for Business

When I first saw the sales letter, I was, well, underwhelmed.  I read it, but didn’t understand what it did exactly, I decided to evaluate thinking it could help automate some of my twitter marketing strategy.  It’s likely they have updated the sales letter by now, but after testing the product I will highlight what I found important to me.

Quick note on Twitter API Calls: (skip if this doesn’t apply to you) Much of what Hummingbird does is automate what many Twitter users do at twitter.com.  It presents Internet Explorer browser in its own window.  I’m not a programmer, but what I understand is, due to its interacting with twitter.com in a browser, and not using Twitter API calls, it is not subject to the limitations the API (too many requests, throttling, and etc.).  This is good news.

Follow All – Time Saver #1

One time consuming aspect of building your twitter profile for business, is the tedium of following en masse.  If you identify someone you like and wish to follow their followers, you have to click to follow for each one.  Not a good use of time.  Hummingbird users get a “Follow All” option just off the gear icon on the toolbar.
Let me share more specifics on this. (Or check it out here)

Follow All For a Search Result – Time Saver #2

One of the powerful things with Twitter is the ability to search to determine who is talking

Results of Searching "Diet"

about your topic of interest. What Hummingbird allows you to do, is find targeted followers with the simple or advanced twitter search query and follow all the people in the query.  It will present the number of followers a given twitter user has, and sort it by most to least.  This search capability is available to everyone at twitter.com (it’s here and here).

With Hummingbird, by hitting the gear in the toolbar and choosing follow all, it will go through the search results and follow all the users (NOTE: As of 4/19/2009 this Follow All in Query feature is no longer working see subscriber comment) up to your Twitter daily follow limit (which is determined by several moving factors discussed on the Hummingbird forum).  More info here.

Follow All Followers of a Specific User – Time Saver #3

If you’ve identified someone who you respect, and would like to follow some or all of their followers, while looking at all their followers, you hit the follow all button.

Unfollow Those Who Have Not Followed Back – Time Saver #4

If folks don’t reciprocate your follow with a follow back, Perry Belcher calls them Twitter Snobs (see his Twitter Snobs video here).  This is an important aspect you need to decide for your own twitter marketing strategy.  If you want to unfollow those people (necessary if you are at your daily Twitter limit…and want to follow others), it is painful.  You might use a service like FriendorFollow.com but it is not always acurrate, and while it does save time in finding those you follow but aren’t following back, you still have to goto each one and unfollow (3 clicks each minimum).

With Hummingbird, similar to follow all, it gives you an Unfollow All, which will comb through your profile and unfollow those who aren’t following you.  Current price and details here.

Designate Twitter VIPs – Time Saver #5

“There are key people that don’t follow me that I don’t want to unfollow!”  Hummingbird gives users the ability to designate VIPs.  These are people it remembers as you never wanting to unfollow.

Example: I follow Shaquille O’Neal, he hasn’t followed me (yet! :-), I don’t want Hummingbird to every unfollow him, so I simply add him to my VIP list.

Protect Previously Unfollowed – Time Saver #6

With this feature Hummingbird allows you to not follow those you have previously followed (as they won’t likely follow you back). 

Protect Users with Private Updates- Time Saver #7

Logic here is, if you are following somone with protected updates (their updates aren’t searchable, and don’t showup on the public timeline), you probably don’t want to unfollow them, as they had to “approve” your follow.  With this feature enabled Hummingbird does not unfollow these people.

Update: March 18th Release Support for Multiple Accounts

I have to say I really appreciate when a software company updates their product with bug fixes, but especially when they listen to their community and update with new features that many need.  With today’s release, they support multiple twitter account, automated logins…another timesaver.

In the first screenshot here (far right), you can see where you setup your additional usernames and passwords.  The other screenshot you see where it is a couple clicks via “Twitter Accounts” dropdown to switch to another account.  Great work Kevin and crew, for listening to users, and implementing it quickly.

The Bottom Line on this Twitter Automation Tool

For anyone serious about their twitter marketing strategy or building twitter for business, you can either do it yourself, hire someone to help you do it, or purchase an application like Hummingbird.  I find the first two options too time consuming, and so far I haven’t found another application that can do what Hummingbird is doing. The details are here.

Why The Time Is Now: I think it makes sense to jump on a tool like this sooner than later.  As a good friend of mine and I were conferring, when Twitter figures out their business model, they will also likely introduce tighter restrictions on account activities, we’ve observed this pattern with Facebook and others.  Now is the time to build your twitter for business profile, and I know of no other tool that can help you get there. It is available here.

SAVINGS UPDATE: May 6, 2009… For the first time there is a *COUPON* to save 15% off Hummingbird Software, use RECESSION when checking out to save through May 2009.

Chime In: Would a tool like this help your twitter marketing strategy?  Are you using this tool?  Considering it?
Image Credit to flaviocb