While browsing through my LinkedIn account, I just noticed this question about apps that allow you to schedule tweets. Some of the answers stated no one should ever schedule tweets, as it is spammy. Automation is bad, don’t do it. And I started wondering. Is it really spam? Or is it just a way to make work easier and give your followers a break? And the answer is, like always, it depends

I should first say I manage a few Twitter accounts. On some I schedule tweets, on others I don’t. On those who are there to provide news on a certain topic, I do schedule tweets. I usually find the news all at once and just sending them all out at the same time is actually more spammy to some users than scheduling them throughout the day. That does not mean I ignore the conversation. I check the stream every couple of hours, check what others are saying, retweet, reply, thank people for their comments and retweets.

When it comes to blog posts, a lot of what I write is scheduled. And when I set the publishing time and date, I also set the tweet. Basically because I tend to get caught up and I might forget. I do check it, I do interact, as I said before. And I really don’t think programming tweets is a form of spam.

When all your tweets are programmed and you are never there to talk, reply or answer questions, it is definitely spam. You are there to broadcast more or less forcefully whatever you please and you really don’t care what your followers have to say. But from that to saying any form of automation and of rendering your work fast and effective is spam is a long road to be traveled.

What about you? Do you schedule tweets? Do you think it’s spam when others do it? Should we ban all automation, good or bad from social media? I say not, yet it all needs to be approached with great care. And over to you…

Picture this! You find out about or stumble upon a really great new blog. You read a few articles and really like them. One of them is actually on a topic you’ve heard of before and were anxious to talk about with someone else. So you go to the comment box and try to post your thoughts. And then it happens: you’re asked to sign in. No matter how cool the blog is, your online time is still limited, creating accounts leads to profiles and to other steps you have to skip. What do you do? Sing in or click away?

I usually click away. If the blog really interests me, I’ll add it to my reader, but I won’t comments, so half of what’s so great about blogs, instant conversation, exchanging opinions and building connections, is completely lost. So here’s a list of reasons not to ask your readers to sign in before commenting:

1. You waste to much of their time. Yes, they only have to register once, but given yours is not the only blog they’ll ever discover, overall it’s too much.
2. While worrying about the password and ID and possibly confirming they account, they might be loosing interest in the actual comment and just click away.
3. It makes you look lazy as moderating comments is not that difficult, especially if you have the additional plugins. The alternative is that you give yourself way too much importance, and in some cases that’s worse.
4. Because it is quite annoying at times.

Conclusion: I really don’t want to create profiles for half the blogs I interact with. And I am not alone. So I recommend moderation instead wih all my heart

Really Simple syndication was definitely around when I started blogging. I read a few articles about it and decided it was not for me. See, I love visiting the actual blog. RSS aggregators seemed a bit like trading an actual meeting with the blogger in question for a quick hi on instant messenger windows.

I went about to use my blogroll, bookmarks, social bookmarking and custom lists to keep track of the blogs I wanted to keep an eye on. Until it became too much! There are so many wonderful blogs out there that just opening all the links in new tabs will take forever. So I decide to finally put my Bloglines account to good use. I took a while to register for all the feeds in my blogroll and it will of course take longer to register the rest of the blogs I read.

But I am definitely starting to see the benefits in what time saving is concerned. Did you make such a switch? If you did what do you think of it. If you didn’t, what other system do you use?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!