Just starting to try out TwitterHawk.  The idea is that you can track when someone on Twitter is talking about a specific subject in a specific location and send them an automated response that is somewhat relevant.  For example if I am an attorney in Pleasanton, CA, I could track everytime someone in the area mentions “DUI attorney” and send them a tweet that says something like “I am a Pleasanton DUI Attorney and would be happy to discuss with you”.  You can set up multiple responses so you are not always sending out the same one.

This thing has the potential to get pretty spammy.  Although the automated response thing is a time saver, I think you would be more successful if you used the system more like Google Alerts and responded manually to anyone who was talking about your subject matter.

Used correctly I think this could become a really powerful tool for local marketers.  I also think that to be truly successful, this service needs to expand beyond Twitter to as many social network sites as possible.  Drunk drivers tend to hang out more on Yelp after all ;).

I’ll keep using it and get back to you later with more thoughts.

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13 Response Comments

  • Ashleigh  February 10, 2009 at 3:38 pm

    I’ve not started using Twitter Hawk yet; thank you for the heads up. I’ll definitely need to look into using this feature.

    Also, I’d imagine users have the option to turn this feature off? This could potentially be as annoying as telemarketing calls to your cell phone.

  • Andrew Shotland  February 10, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    There is definitely a big risk here in being labeled a spammer and getting booted from Twitter. I suggest you test TwitterHawk with a Twitter account that doesn’t mean much to you.

    I am not sure if others can stop you from tweeting them but they can complain to Twitter or TwitterHawk who will turn you off instantly I’m sure.

  • Jim Moran  February 10, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    One advantage to a service (vis a vis individuals RSSing) is that it could assign scores to twitter users, which its clients could leverage to focus their efforts.

    I imagine Twitter will implement similar functionality when they start rolling out their (rumored) premium accounts.

    Don’t know from experience, but I’ve seen accounts booted off only when they follow too frequently, not over @-ing.

  • Andrew Shotland  February 10, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    I am not sure Twitter would want to allow premium accounts to spam (or even politely contact) users like this. My guess is that a premium account gets marked as such with some kind of badge. All of those accounts are listed in some kind of directory and Twitter markets the accounts to users. You tell Twitter that you are interested in XYZ and you get tweets from premium accounts in an XYZ folder that is separate from your regular tweets.

  • Jim Moran  February 10, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    At the same time, Twitter is an excellent customer service tool, allowing brands to address user complaints. I expect Twitter premium accounts might facilitate that avenue of brand communication.

  • Rob Shields  February 12, 2009 at 2:38 pm

    Interesting service. A bit like AdWords for Twitter.

    Seems like this could be a very effective way to monetize twitter traffic. Given that twitter has no advertisers (yet) and twitterhawk is free (at this point), all the benefits accrue to the advertiser. It would be hard to imagine that if this proved to be both acceptable for twitter users and effective for advertisers that Twitter would not eventually want to monetize this concept in some form.

  • Asma  March 4, 2009 at 2:29 am

    excellent features

  • Mark Kolb  March 9, 2009 at 4:46 pm

    Can someone explain to me why TwitterHawk is not considered spam and against Twitter’s Terms of Service. If I understand how TH works, it sends a reply to someone who is not following you. I thought Twitter doesn’t allow this practise and will suspend accounts that illegally use reply. Otherwise this is a great service.

  • Jim Cunliffe  April 1, 2009 at 4:50 am

    There’s nothing stoping me from sitting on the public timeline and @’ing anyone I like, is there… as long as it’s relevant…? Excellent product… and spammy if not planned out properly.

  • John Musca  September 21, 2009 at 10:15 am

    I am personally am a Twitter Junkie…….

  • John Musca  September 29, 2009 at 1:57 pm

    TwitterTracking…I like that idea

  • Lea Charlton  October 18, 2009 at 6:59 am

    TwitterHawk is cool. I have a whole list of resources I use. Not so infrequently that I am not making the social interactions, but the tools do help with tracking and promotion. I at least automate the welcome message. I do the rest manually.

  • Giovanni Benavides  April 1, 2013 at 9:30 pm

    I had not used this program since 2011 and my 999 credits are still valid!! found money. I just started a blog and this little app will start helping me target those that have the same objectives as me. Therefore not spam! If you have an established following it’s not considered spam its just another tweet that they might or might not be interested in. A vide on you tube would be helpful in different languages and the 25% perpetual credit sounds good.