I recently wrote a piece on TrueTwit and how recent changes took this horrible burdening service from bad to worse. I went further to explain that the burden of validating had become so much that I refuse to do it any longer. This decision placed an additional labor intensive set of tasks on my plate I didn’t think about beforehand. Since I respond to all mentions and many direct messages, I felt it was also necessary to respond to validation request DM’s in feed, explaining that I would no longer be validating with TrueTwit.
Understand, I typically receive about 100-150 new follows on Twitter each day. With a rising percentage of these folks requesting TrueTwit validation, I gave myself a big task. I decided I would send the following to each person that requested validation from our company account @BundlePost.
In Feed @Mention: ” Sorry, I no longer validate with TrueTwit! –> http://ow.ly/9vwx2 ”
The results? Actually it has been great. It has sparked numerous conversations and I would say that some 25-35% of them are actually reading and shutting off their TrueTwit accounts, which in and of itself is worth it!
Now the downside. It didn’t take to long before I ended up with a time sucking and logistical nightmare on my hands. But being true to my commitment of never ignoring someone in the social graph, I did a little messing around with Hootsuite. I decided to dig into the Draft” feature finally. This was a perfect solution for my dilemma.
How it works:
Select the social media account you want to save to and type your post in the compose box. Next, instead of pressing send, click the save icon.
To use a draft post, select the drafts down arrow and chose the post you wish to send. Be sure to add the twitter account name you wish to mention for the update and press send.
Don’ts:
I do not recommend using this feature to take the place of manually having conversations with people. That will ultimately be obvious to others and not a good way to really build relationships. Don’t use this function to spam new followers. Most people tend to ignore folks that do such a thing. Spend the time to build relationships and avoid the direct marketing approach with new followers!
I think this feature could have several effective and authentic uses within your social media marketing. It can be used for all networks, not just Twitter, expanding the possibilities immensely. Just do everyone a favor and listen to what I wrote in the “Don’ts section”.
BundlePost 
That is a great way to create engagement with people on Twitter who don’t understand the power of conversation. Keep it up :-)
Thank you so much Byron!
I hate TrueTwit. Preach on, brother!! And thanks for being a fellow tweeter who actually uses this social service to engage and SOCIALIZE!
hahaha it is Social + Media, not one OR the other. :-)
I love this feature Robert, thanks for bringing it to light. I hate tweet validations and don’t follow people back who use it, but thanks to you, now I have a solution. You rock!
We are not alone Sherry. Many feel the same!! Hope it helps hun!
I never really knew what that draft feature was for but now I do! Thanks! But since I’ve never used TrueTwit before, I don’t know how I would use it. Would you mind giving me a scenario? Thanks!
Maybe you get the identical question from people a lot. You could include the answer in a draft instead of having to type the answer every time, then customize it for the person/conversation. There’s a quick example.
Hey didn’t know about this feature. Its a cool way to start conversations. Good post :)
Awesome! Glad it was helpful!