I love stats, I really like to take them apart to see what did what and what didn’t. I also love twitter.
Now, if you can put stats and twitter together then I’m drooling.

Here’s 6 ways I have found to track the links that I post on Twitter.

Install Get-Shorty

Getshorty is a beta script available that allows you to install your own personal tiny url service to your server. It allows you to use keywords as part of the url or let it automatically create one for you.
Site: Get-shorty

Create your own URL shortener with WP 2.7

This is an excellent way to completely control how your links look and where they point to. It takes a little work and some template changes but combine it with some decent stats tracking and you will have a full service all to yourself!
More info: Business Mind Hacks

Google Analytics

If you have Google Analytics on your page you can add some variables to the end of the your URL so google can store some extra information about the visitor.
Example:
http://www.you.com/?utm_campaign=promotion&utm_source=twitter&tm_medium=social
You will still need to use a URL shortener such as tinyurl or one of the others that don’t provide tracking services.
More info: Epikone

Use Tweetburner

You can use tweetburner to shorten a url for you and track how it performs over time. The advantage of this is that the twurl.nl links are integrated into desktop programs such as twhirl and tweetdeck.
Site: Tweetburner

Use Budurl

This is another URL shortening service with added support for link tracking. Their dashboard for tracking your links is quite extensive and a dream for stats geeks.
site: Budurl

Use bit.ly

This is my favourite URL shortener service. It’s integrated with tweetdeck and the stats page is very useful. You can even watch results in real time as people click your links. You can look at the stats on any bit.ly link by entering it into the search box or if you register and provide your twitter username, you can bring up all the bit.ly links you have used in your tweets and see how many clicks have happened over time.
Site: bit.ly
(you can see the results of this post being retweeted by @styletime on this link here)

You don’t have to have twitter to use these tools, they’ll work perfectly well for affiliate links and flyer links. I’d recommend going with the self hosted option if you post a lot of links on forums or other places where they stay a long time so you can be sure they wont expire or if you need to update where it points to.

Ok, there are some things that tick me off on Twitter. Not enough that I lose my temper and throw stuff but, enough that I can move my fingers in a typey typey way to tell you about it.

This is how I shrink filter the growing list of people I follow..

1. if you send an autoDM with a link to your site

Take the above picture (please, take it and throw it away!). How is it these people have 4000+ followers with autoDM’s like this? do they work? oh god I hope not.

2. if you tell me anything about your god

This is a thing I like about twitter. There’s no religious tweets in my stream, for the life of me I can’t see how 140 characters could get someone to join your god. The religious can tweet to each other all day long but how many people of a different god will continue to listen?

3. if you spurt many many messages in one go so you dominate my column

I know you must be on an interesting site or going through some great links but, slow down! by the time I have checked out the first link. The public timeline has evolved more messages and I lose the rest!

4. if you use viral pyramid follow things

What’s the matter with you? will you hand over your twitter username and password to just any old whacko who promises you a squillion followers? take a second and think about it…

5. if you use number 4 as your first autoDM when I follow you

die die die.

6. if you use big bad swear words too frequently

I get it, I’m an adult and I swear so I understand when things need an expletive or two but not when it’s every second f***ing word!

7. if you have 1 update and it’s a link to your site

Hey! I has got url, an I has got twitter. I can add thems up and gets traffic!
fewls

8. if you spell reely baldly

it’s you’re funny not, your funny.
my funny what?

What gets your goat on twitter?

AutoDM is a method of sending a new twitter follower a direct message as soon as they follow you, usually along the lines of “hi, thanks for following me. check out my site/product/ebook/software” (delete as appropriate). You usually have to give your username and password to a 3rd party site so they can monitor your follower list and send out your message when a new one gets added.

As you can probably guess, I am not a fan! To me, using a bot to send a direct message is the height (or low) of insincerity. If someone wants to pitch me their product (and yes, giving away something you wrote is a pitch) then wouldn’t it be polite to actually message me first? Why get a bot to do it for you, sure it’s easy and it never forgets but would you send a robot with a card about your gift shop to every new person that sends you a Christmas card? I wouldn’t but, I don’t get Christmas cards (…long story!)

Now, most people get an email when they receive a DM. If I got an email from someone I don’t really know asking me to visit their site or download their ebook or buy their home made fluffy balls (really!) then I would consider it spam. It’s unsolicited, it’s sent to mass numbers of people, it benefits the sender and the receiver didn’t ask or qualify themselves to read/use/buy/play with it!

Here are some examples of what I consider to be an autoDM spam..

I used to do a straight unfollow for these but recently I have been replying with my own DM asking why they think an autoDM is a good idea when so many people say it isn’t. I have yet to receive a reply, except, from @CoachDeb.

She (her bot) sent this..

I may have been a teensy weensy bit annoyed or perhaps feeling too big for my boots because I had just pipped over 1000 followers a little earlier so I replied with ..

.. in the public timeline (for shame!) and gawd bless her, she responded less violently than I think I would have if someone had ‘forshame’d me on their public timeline…

Suffice to say, no-one thanked me Fair play to her though, she’s got over 11,000 followers and she coulda moidered me with her army of loyal fans!

I think I can see that those that use autoDM think it’s a great feature and tool to use but those that don’t use them, think they’re spam and not needed. Horses for courses!

I don’t hate ALL dm’s, just those that, before even a “hello, how are you”, are sent by a robot without the knowledge of the person being followed. Look at this one from @lorelleonwp, it’s the kind of DM I can receive all day long! it makes me want to visit their profile and see their bio description and what their site is like..

Isn’t that a MUCH nicer DM to receive? I got it part way through writing this post and it restored my faith in twitter and the people that use it again.

The problem for me though is, there are so many people that have a massive following that are using these tools and all their new followers think it’s perfectly acceptable to do it themselves and so the fad continues. It reminds me of MLM marketers who say, “the LIST is EVERYTHING”. They send a gazillion emails out multiple times a week (sometimes multiple times a day) and any network marketer that’s just starting in the biz, thinks that’s what they should do too.

It becomes more about building a list for how much they can make and nought about how much they can help. I think the worth of a follower reduces to zero if all you want is more of them. What for? is it a secret way to riches? does having a gazillion followers make you right?

What do you think? is giving something away for free a pitch? (like CoachDeb’s twitterhandbook) or do you need a bit of gentle tweetplay (like foreplay but with a blue bird watching) before you’ll follow any links or download any software?

I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on using bots to build your twitter following or send messages that you can’t/don’t want to make yourself..I could be completely wrong and alone in my opinion. Let me know!