Curious, what do people think about tweeting to people purely based on searching twitter for terms. Spammy, slimey? I’m thinking it’s no worse than targeted ads. Possibly a useful way to get conversations going with prospects.
I think it depends on the search terms you’re using, and your criteria for replying to the tweets.
On several occasions I’ve mentioned a topic in passing and had a sales tweet (or a sales follow), and I find it spammy and a bit creepy; it’s a negative experience, so I don’t think it’s a good way to introduce a company or product to a potential customer. Targetted ads are bad enough, but at least there the stalking and invasion of personal space is clearly done by a machine - it’s impersonal, the message doesn’t start with your name, and you accept that’s just part of the faustian deal you made when you signed up.
Of course, I think it’s a very different thing to watch for your company or product name, and answer questions or try to resolve complaints - but I think that’s because it comes under support rather than sales.
There is a grey area in between the two; for example, if you can directly answer a question and provide some sort of value to the potential customer (ie if your tweet is more than just “Buy this to solve that”), then you’re helping more than selling - I’ve seen some people do this without even mentioning their product. I have no idea how it would perform compared to more aggressive methods, but at least their first interaction with your company would be positive.
I think a middle ground would involve first searching for terms, and then culling the results for tweets from users who directly ask for assistance, or at least seem receptive to feedback.
Agreed a generic or auto response would be spammy. I’m thinking more of finding those tweets where people are looking for help or a recommendation on a keyword that lines up with keywords I have identified. Once I have a some possible matches then replying individually. It’s sort of like people looking for answers on stackoberflow but not for technical things. It seems like Twitter is a place people can reach out for advice from the ‘public’