Review of Hummingbird Twitter Automation Software – 7 Time Savers

Reviews

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

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About Travis Campbell

Husband. Dad. Marketing automator. Author. Educating and coaching others in their online business endeavors. Here's his Google profile.

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http://Martin.Lindeskog.name Martin Lindeskog

Interesting review. I think I will stick to do it manually myself for the time being. I will send out a personal touch to my new followers and create a new relation and start a new conversation, one by one. Later on, maybe I have to get this kind of tool. I am still trying to figure out the true nature of this kind of microblogging.
Tyson

This is a fantastic review! I have acheived 17k + followers using HummingBird myself.

Tyson’s last blog post..ObamaPath.com | The World Speaking
http://MauriceCastle.com Maurice

SLAM DUNK REVIEW!
Was considering doing a video review but your review covers it all really well. I started using Hummingbird last week and followers have skyrocketed. I did have one new account get shut down, probably because I slammed it right after creating the account. 2 tweets and following 2000 doesn’t look right.

Travis you should probably share best practice on how to use the app so your not considered a friend spammer or sorts. I follow up to 2000 for 3 days or so (gives them time to follow me) then I unfollow and look for more to follow.

Pssst, works well when you have an auto DM thanking them for following you and asking them to visit your blog. But I suspect you may have already know that part. So… this is also a great way to drive targeted traffic…. that’s what I’m gonna blog about… how I use it to drive traffic as well.

Thanks again Travis!
Carter

I have to say I agree with Martin, mostly because I’m still searching out the ways to make Twitter most valuable. At the same time You and Maurice have a great enthusiasm for this type of product…so much so that I’ll likely shift to it in the near future. I’ll be back to see if you’ve posted anymore tips! Thanks for taking the time to do this!!
Travis Campbell

@martin and @carter you are not alone. Twitter is not for everyone, nor is this tool. Most are still trying to figure out what Twitter is, and if it is worth their time. What I would encourage is that you *hurry up and find out* :-) Twitter is not strategic for all businesses, but based on what I’ve learned it can be strategic for most if they understand how powerful it is and how they can use it in their market.

You also want to find out soon, because it is likely your competitors are asking the same questions. A tool like Hummingbird is ahead of the curve, and online marketers need to be ahead of the curve in order to…well, get ahead. My guess is other tools will come, and Twitter may become more restrictive, that is why I think now is the time. 6 million visitors to Twitter in January at a 34% growth clip, is impressive.
Travis Campbell

@Tyson You look familiar :-) Glad you found the review valuable.
@Maurice thanks for stopping by. Indeed there are best practices, and you suggest a few. Perhaps I can discuss that further in a future post, or share it with email subscribers (those who have joined the site). What I like about Hummingbird is their sound advice the first time you open the application after installing, something to the effect, “you will fail on twitter if you tweet garbage…” bold but true. It is one thing to build a following, quite another to build a *loyal* following. They become loyal as they look forward to your value tweets that are helpful and not always self promotional. This is a great guideline for anyone wanting to use twitter for business.
http://egoist.blogspot.com/2009/02/three-good-things-on-twitter.html Martin Lindeskog

I will use Twitter for my own sake and capture good things during the day. Please read my post, Three Good Things on Twitter. I see an opportunity that Twitter and other microblogging platforms could become an “attraction” marketing tool. I think it is important not to forget the personal voice of social media.

I think that Friendfeed will catch on and it will become a natural online meeting place for continue the conversations in a thread form, create rooms for specific topics, etc.

Martin Lindeskog’s last blog post..POLITICUS SHIITAKE
Travis Campbell

Great comments Martin. From what I can tell, Friendfeed is a powerful tool, it just needs to do a better job of conveying it’s benefits to the marketplace. It took me several months using it to see some of it’s key advantages. Actually, I’m still learning.
Tyson

Im up to 31,000 followers! Thank You HummingBird!!

Tyson’s last blog post..Twitter Has Big Month, Grows To Over 8 Million U.S. Users

Travis Campbell

Gee Tyson, you think you could be a little more subtle? ;-)

Siddique

Wow! Great Review. For now looks like this is the best what is available out there.

Travis Campbell

Siddique- I’m on the lookout for something better, and if I find it I’ll probably share it here on the blog. For now, for those who want to build a twitter following for business, I think Hummingbird is the to beat.

Bob36

Hummingbird was a complete waste of my money. It does nothing but follow random people on your page. I paid $50 for a mass clicking program. What a pile of garbage.

I bought tweet adder the next day, what a difference. That rocks!

Travis Campbell

I think you got the concept here Don. It will be a big time saver for anyone who was building their business profile on Twitter manually.

Thanks for stopping by.
Liz

I wish there was a Do Not Follow that would get me off of these lists.

You call it being a snob but I select those whom I want to follow based on their contribution, what they have to say, who they are. Time-consuming yes, but I don’t want Tweets from marketers trying to sell me stuff clogging up my Tweetstream.

Rapidly inflating your Twitter Follower count might be an ego-booster but you are just randomly following people you have nothing in common with. People who Auto-Follow you back won’t read your Tweets as you’ve not taken the time to create a connection with them.

The hard truth is that anyone who has 5,000 or more followers is not reading every Tweet they receive, they are filtering out 95% of messages through tools like Tweetdeck. They create a group of friends they want to hear from, a few people they trust and value, and they they skim through their @replies and Direct Messages.

No one who is following 10K, 20K, 50K has the time or interest to do more than glance at Tweets coming in. So, you might be rapidly inflating your numbers but most people will pay the same attention to your marketing Tweets that they pay to spam. Ignore or delete!

Try building meaningful connections. It might take time but if you are interested in creating lasting relationships with potential colleagues or customers, it is better to target them and be selective than blanketing Twitterers with unwanted followers who will automatically unfollow them if they don’t reciprocate.

Liz’s last blog post..Some Twitter Advice for Newbies, Pt. 2

Travis Campbell

Liz-

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your welcomed viewpoint. No doubt your perspective is shared by many. And again, this tool is not for everyone.
For those in wanting to build a strong and targeted following, a tool like this is essential (and a huge time saver) as it makes it much easier to build a profile of targeted followers in less time (search). The point isn’t to just randomly follow, rather to leverage search capabilities to connect with those in a given target market.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t engage followers, and do the right thing on your twitter feed, certainly you won’t be able to respond and monitor all followers when you get over 5K, but you can certainly be purposeful in tweeting value for your followers, and target market.

Other input?
http://www.duncanwierman.com Duncan Wierman

Partial agree. You definately want targeted followers, that why you segment your activities to those in the same niche and their followers. Makes it easier to start a conversation.
Duncan

Travis Campbell

It’s important to keep personality in mind I’ve been softening a bit, and including personal antic dotes, this has created more conversation with followers. Humans are still reading your messages, helps to act human :-)

http://www.mojopath.com Chris

Hey Liz,

I hear you. Check this out as a cool tool to manage bulk adds/deletes for twitter.

http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/

Chris.

Chris’s last blog post..A Masterful Launch – Ryan Deiss – Continuity Blueprint

http://www.duncanwierman.com Duncan Wierman

Great Article! I love the product and highly recommend it. I have within the first month achieved new business and its opened the door to great opportunities tweeting, replies and DMs.
Keep promoting!
Duncan Wierman
Rick Ostring

Travis, I don’t see the free trial when I click on the link.

Travis Campbell

Rick-

Glad you stopped by.

Yes, they decided to remove the free trial shortly after this review went live, not sure why. I made mention of that in the March 7th *update* near the top of this post.

Ian

Hi,

Twitter has removed the follow button from the search results.

This means that “Follow All For a Search Result – Time Saver #2″ no longer works.

I own the product and have also had this confirmed to me by Hummingbird support.

Regards,

Ian

Travis Campbell

Ian-
(most recent comment you submitted on this post)

Thanks for taking time to post this comment. Honestly, I haven’t used that feature since writing the review. I will indeed update it above.

Good news, I heard from the developers, and it sounds like they have some interesting features slated for the next version that will further automate the product (beyond timesaver #2 in this post). I confirmed with the owner that they will not be charging a fee for current customers who wish to upgrade.

Again Ian, thanks for calling this out.

http://twittermass.com Jonathan Nelson

I’m not sure what the authors intent was in selling a product at $197. Especially when their not even allowing a free trial. I’m sure the product works as intended and I’d love to test it out, but I’m not going to be throwing down $197 for it.

I developed and recently launched a Twitter tool suite called TwitterMass and can be found at http://twittermass.com. I’m not charging a penny and each product feature or enhancement has been built with the user’s voice in mind. Oh yes, I’m using Twitter’s OAuth for login, so your personal information is never kept in my database.

Travis Campbell

Hey Jonathan-

Thanks for offering your input to the conversation. What is the advantage of OAuth?

While I’m not a programmer, one of the challenges with products that use the Twitter API is that Twitter controls how many requests a given application can make (Tweetdeck users unite in a collective sigh). With this Hummingbird product, it shell’s a browser session, and therefore doesn’t utilize the API or encounter its restrictions.

I’m not suggesting it is the best thing out there, I just haven’t found anything better (yet), but am open.

David Singer

Way to repeat there marketing material. Since your not a programer you should know a few things.

1) They way Hummingbird is written its subject to restrictions to (not the same as the API but restrictions none the less).

2) There are easy ways around the API limitations you mentioned.

3) Since they are manipulating the browser directly all Twitter has to do is change the output of the site and everything in your $200 app stops working. For example if Twitter added a simple anti spam questions like you have for responding to this post then Hummingbird would stops working.

Travis Campbell

David-

Thanks for stopping by.

You bring up some interesting points. Part of the reason I recommeded getting on board quickly, building a targeted following on Twitter, before they have resources to really clamp down on excessive follows and other activities.

I’ll ping the product creator and see what he comes back with.

To be clear, I’m not repeating their marketing materials, just what I understand (albeit limited when it comes to programming) and have experienced. Intending to keep it real for my peeps, and subscribers like you hold me to that, thanks :-).
Kevin

Hey, just dropping in to address David’s concerns and observations.

In regards to limitations in Twitter, this is true for all third party applications that wish to interact with the Twitter platform. These ‘limitations’ are imposed by Twitter directly, whether through the API or through their website directly. Hummingbird works within these guidelines.

Future versions of Hummingbird go beyond this notion and implements ‘smart’ behavior with regard to effectively managing your follow/unfollow lists and will use the Twitter API exclusively.

Hummingbird is a constantly supported software application, along with a very active community of users at our forum.

Travis Campbell

Thanks for your input Kevin. The next version sounds interesting. I know many are wondering, so I’ll just ask. Will there be an upgrade charge assessed to existing customers?

http://www.eppicsurf.com Branimir

I manage several twitter accounts. I’ve logged into twittermass with a few of them, but none of them have started working? please advise

Travis Campbell

Branimir-

Not sure what you mean. This was a review of the Hummingbird software… Please clarify.

Tyson

Response to David Singer:

Twitter has no reason to block hummingbird because all it does is follow people, it is up to the end user to follow you back ( opt-in ). If people are willingly choosing to follow you back, then twitter has no reason to care. They already have limits set in place.

Hummingbird is like a billboard advertisement, it goes out and shows people that your small business, website, or services exist and then it is up to the person to say yes or no to what is being put in front of them.

Despite that, hummingbird is currently being re-built in adobe air using twitters api’s, it will work as an 100% automated following machine.. choosing people based on specific keywords. This way it will be cross platform and all the naysayers will have nothing negative to say.

Tyson’s last blog post..Monetizing Twitter 101

Travis Campbell

Thanks Tyson, this helps as I believe David’s concern is shared by others. As it pertains to the upgrade, I asked Kevin this above, it sounds interesting, will there be an upgrade charge assessed to existing customers?

Tyson

Travis, the upgrade will be free to all existing customers.

Tyson’s last blog post..Monetizing Twitter 101
http://BodyByChocolate.com Guy Siverson

Interesting tool to be sure.

Equally interesting comments that have been received.

Some people are for full manual while others see the value of tools. For me, I’d love to ride in a covered wagon and blaze a new trail into the world — but time dictates that my covered wagon be built atop a Porche engine.

Thus I believe a mixture of both worlds is best. Leaving it all to automation really doesn’t create anything of value, while doing it all manually takes far to much time.

Therefore, I think tools like the above are essential for success on the web. Thanks for sharing your review of the product – many of the features mentioned are indeed tools I’ve been waiting for.

The Healthy Chocolate Guy :)

Travis Campbell

Guy-

Thanks for taking time to chime in. I’m with you, a Porsche engine on a covered wagon… If you are ok to bold an autoresponder like aweber onto your email communications, why would you not want to bolt automation elements onto your Twitter handle?

Healthy Chocolate…sounds like a great idea.

bulk_conveyor

I'm so love this blog, already bookmarked it! Thanks.
Emerson Matson

Interesting review; I've been hearing a lot about all these Twitter services chiming in to help you get all those followers and following all those people. But the price is kind of a meh for me. This new service, Robotir is sprouting up and free to use. Check it out?
http://www.marcap.com/ MarcapPub

Any software product or service which attempts to build a Twitter follower list by constantly following and unfollowing mass numbers of people in the hopes that they follow you back, has no value. And any follower lists created have no value. All you will accomplish, at best, is the building of a follower list of those who use another auto-follow program or service who follows you back when you follow them. Such followers will have no real value as they did not specifically choose to follow “you” for what “you” have to offer. They are just doing the exact same as your would be doing with this product. The vast majority (99%+) of those followers will never even see a single one of your tweets. And if all that is not enough, perhaps you should read Twitter Rules. Specifically, using any auto-follow/unfollowing software product or service is against Twitter Rules. Doing so will initially result in account freezing, and then after the 2nd or 3rd freezing, in permanent account suspension.

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

It is like many things, you get out of Twitter what you put into it. Thanks for chiming in, I agree with you for the most part. It all depends on what you are hoping to accomplish. This is what makes having an “operating agreement” with Twitter interesting for the Hummingbird2 product and Mesiab Labs (though I have yet to see a copy of it).
-Travis
JJ

How do you know this if your Direct Messaging capability is limited to 99 interactions
per attempt. You should not be so cavalier in your attitude if you don't know what you
are talking about.

communityshopper

Great review! 40% for a limited time makes it only $57.89 exclusively at Community Shopper
http://www.billwynne.com/ Bill

If you really want to tap into twitter or other social networks you can try Hootsuite but this specific software is great to help automate Twitter.

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

Bill-

Big fan of hootsuite for centralizing twitter, facebook, fan pages, and linkedin. Twitter automation isn't like hummingbird, but it is useful.

Thanks for chiming in.

-Travis

Martina

I have used twitter automation tools and found them to be very effective, and keeps me intouch with my followers. But to use them effectively you need to use the right kind of tutorials. Thanks for sharing this.
http://twitter.com/gooma2 gooma2

I guess I'm slow, but I've installed Twitter and have no idea of how to do the unfollow and all the other points I bought this software. I've contacted the company and had no response at all so I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've tried opening in browsers and nothing, just opening it through Hummingbird and still nothing. Mainly all I get is that annoying bird noise updating everyone else's tweets.

Please Help if possible!

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

I would encourage you to contact them directly, they have a customer support forum, which is usually pretty active. Hope that helps!

aaron

I bought this hummig bird 2 and had nothing but problems. I called for suport and was told that all the problems with the api was just how it worked.Then he told me to F off.If you are reading this dont buy.

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

Aaron- I wish you had included more info, so we know you are for real (get a lot of spam here). Perhaps someone @mesiablabs or @kevinmesiab will respond to your comment.

http://www.billwynne.com Bill Wynne

I decided personally to use Tweet Adder and have not had any problems.
JJ

How do you know this if your Direct Messaging capability is limited to 99 interactions
per attempt. You should not be so cavalier in your attitude if you don't know what you
are talking about.
http://www.eazolreview.net/ eazol

this is a great site full of great content
Unhappyuser007

I purchased Hummingbird, like many other people believing that the software was from a reputable company.

However, once the purchase had gone through, the trouble started immediately. Firstly it took over 3 days to get the license, during which time I tried to contact the owners (which was very difficult as their support mails don’t work and trying to find their support details is near impossible) without much success. Eventually I received the license form them, only to realise that it does not work on a mac, which is what I use at home.

I then requested a refund from them using PayPal (where I purchased from), and after nearly a month of emails and requests, PayPal completed the claim in favour of hummingbird (Jounce) stating that “The item is ineligible for PayPal Buyer Protection because it is intangible”. What a crock of BS!

The thing about this software company (Jounce) is that the attitude and rudeness of the people at Jounce is unbelievable, they even stated that I should run a “virtual machine” on my Mac to make it work! How dumb is that… why do you think I bought a Mac (NOT a Windows PC) in the first place? And furthermore, why should I have to? As far as I am concerned the software IS SIGNIFICANTLY NOT AS DESCRIBED. Their support system is basically NON EXISTANT, and as many people have come to realise (in this and many other blogs), there any many alternatives to Hummingbird, and nearly all of them either free or a lot cheaper than HB, and their functionality is far better than Hummingbird.

So after all my hassles with them, and them not refunding my money, I still cannot use the software that I don’t want. After everything, I even installed it on a Windows PC, only to find out that the license they gave me is not valid anymore (surprise, surprise). So I have paid $69 for Hummingbird that I cannot use at home because I have a Mac, and after all they have suspended my license anyway! Would you call this even remotely ethical?

My advice to anybody thinking about purchasing hummingbird is the following:

DO NOT BUY IT!
YOU WILL BE RIPPED OFF ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!

There are many alternatives out there and I will use all my comment and blogging ability to ruin their name!

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

Sorry to hear of your hardship with the new owners. The product ran it’s course, and as you can see with the note on the top of the post (August 2010), we are no longer recommending hummingbird. Let us know if we can help further.

Review of Hummingbird Twitter Automation Software – 7 Time Savers

Review of Hummingbird Twitter Automation Software – 7 Time Savers

Why I Chose to Review This Software