24% of tweets are by bots: What does this mean?

Social media networks like Twitter have become and indispensable part of Internet Marketing. Giant Corporations use Twitter to reach out to their customers and get valuable feedback. A recent Sysomos study has revealed that 24% of tweets are by bots. Sounds cold, uncaring and not very social?? Probably but not actually so. There are a lot of situations when bots are useful.Tweeting of blog updates,collecting tweets on a specific topic from twitter users etc. Take a look at this Mashable article for more examples.

Most internet marketers automatically post their blog updates to Twitter. Although these are automatic updates, it does not mean that they don’t care (as long as the blogs contain relevant material). This is like drip- emails or newsletters; they are sent automatically but the content is original every time. Bots spell doom only if the tweets are from various sources and not very original most of the time.

A company using bots to follow keywords may still seem ‘social’ if it replies to people with appropriate comments. Just following all customers based on keywords and automatically tweeting pages is not going to make anyone happy. Auto-reply bots; Not very cool!!

So the conclusion: Use bots wisely and only when needed. They cannot replace the human connection!!The whole point of Social media is to be social. Bots can only make it easier in part.