Twitter and GroupTweet

Something I’m exploring at the moment is the idea of coordinating colleagues to amplify messages to their twitter followers.

DM seeding posts to colleagues and CC ing within tweets, works well. I’ve also come across GroupTweet, which seems to be a good option for sharing tweet ideas to a closed group. Was painless to set up, and has some good options.

I know this seems a little anti the ethos of twitter and sharing what you feel has value. Yet if a group has the same opinions, but can’t keep up with who said what, this may help.

To set it up you:

1. Grab a new twitter account PLEASE don’t use your own account as it has to be set to private.
2. Set it private before the spam bots follow you
3. In Group Tweet, select that twitter handle.
4. Choose a prefix for all DM messages it receives
5. Give it a test.

So once set up, any DM to that account becomes a tweet, with your chosen prefix.

I send a DM:

DM @groupaccountforsharing “hi, here’s a test tweet”

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and that DM gets converted to a tweet in the @groupaccountforsharing account

Like:

“via @nickwallen “hi, here’s a test tweet”

I think its a great way to share more personal tweets, like “Dan grab me a coffee” or “lets all get behind X presenting at Y tomorrow night”. Things that you want to say to a select group, but not to everyone on twitter. And things you don’t want to have to DM everyone individually about. Keeping it in twitter saves the effort too of hafting to go out to emails or look for email distribution lists etc.

As you get more advanced, you could send options for RTs to those subscribed to the locked account. So they’d see this tweet, and choose a hashtag and title they like.

“via @nickwallen Post: Twitter and GroupTweet [URL] #twitter OR Post: GroupTweet, just great [URL] #socialmedia

Have you guys used anything like this and for what?