Group messaging tool for Twitter

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Jaisen Mathai 4:36 pm on February 1, 2010 | 2 | # |

We wanted to thank all the users of PubliciTweet. Last week we finalized a sale of the site to a new owner. We still believe in the power of the site and feel that the new owners are a great fit to continue building on top o what’s already there.

Why’d we sell?
We sold the site in order to pursue other ventures we’re involved in. It’s been a great experience over the past 8 months and we’ve collected a lot of data. All of that data proved to us that direct marketing campaigns on Twitter can indeed be successful. The click through rates of campaigns were higher than we ever imagined, currently at around 40%. Keep on marketing!

Thanks,

Kevin & Jaisen
Jaisen Mathai 7:56 am on January 12, 2010 | 0 | # |
We’re gaining users, creating more and more campaigns, and driving tons of traffic to our users’ sites. We’re also looking for someone to take over running the site. Translated: we’re looking for a buyer.

Quick stats: Over 600,000 targeted direct messages sent and over 260,000 clicks for an average CTR of 43%.

Why now?
We’d love to continue building features into PubliciTweet. However, we’ve got other projects which are demanding too much of our time to properly build out our vision for this site. There’s a great deal of momentum and it’s a great opportunity for someone looking to pick up a Twitter start-up.

Clicks per day (peak at 9,170)

Contact us
If you’re interested in starting a dialog then feel free to contact us via email at support@publicitweet.com. Read on for more details of the service and what’s included.

How we started
We first came up with the idea for PubliciTweet in the first half of 2009. We believed (and still believe) that there is a great need for marketing tools on Twitter. Our goal was to help provide one such tool that allows you to create groups of followers and send them a targeted direct message. In addition to targeted direct messages we spent a lot of time crafting detailed analytics to help you determine exactly how successful your campaign was.

There are several unique pieces to the PubliciTweet software. These include:
1. Direct messaging engine
2. Integrated url shortener with custom analytics
3. Integration with Mix Panel and Google Analytics
4. Extremely effective user interface (over 90% of users link a Twitter account)
Direct messaging engine
This is the heart of the software and it works really well. Automating direct messages is a tricky task and it took us months to tweak the parameters to really get this right. It’s been running on autopilot for 4 months without problems. Because Twitter rate limits the number of messages a user can send we have to cleverly throttle the direct messaging engine. The engine sends messages and keeps track of rate limits and throttles itself up and down on a per user basis. It’s both complicated and wonderful.

Campaigns per day (peak at 195)

Integrated url shortener
We created our own url shortener to capture the details we wanted to provide. Specifically, we wanted to be able to determine which followers referred the most users to your campaign. This is a feature unique to our service and it’s invaluable.

Integration with Mix Panel and Google Analytics
We are obsessed with data. We’ve integrated the site with Google Analytics and with Mix Panel. Our Google Analytics is fairly straight forward but the Mix Panel integration tracks every click and parameter to truly track which links on the site work and which don’t.

Users per day (peak at 39)

Beautiful and effective user interface
Over 90% of users who sign up for an account on PubliciTweet link one or more Twitter accounts. That’s incredible. Over 50% of users have created one or more campaigns with an average of over 5 campaigns each.

Campaign Graph

Campaign Map
Jaisen Mathai 9:06 am on November 19, 2009 | 0 | # |

Direct messaging is a controversial topic amongst Twitter users. To understand the controversy we have to first understand why people oppose it. The majority of users who dislike direct messaging tend to generalize it’s typical use case as being spam. Unfortunately, they’re right. Spammers flocked to Twitter the instant they realized it was free and they might be able to generate traffic or money.

The baby and the bath water
This doesn’t mean we should remove direct messaging altogether from Twitter. Just because spammers flocked to email didn’t keep it from becoming the single most successful communication tool since the Internet. Spammers created plenty of problems which cost a lot of companies millions of dollars. Nonetheless the benefits far outweighed the headaches and we pressed forward. I believe the same will happen for Twitter.

How we’re dealing with the spam issue
We realize that PubliciTweet could be used by spammers but it’s a battle we’re willing to fight because we know there is tremendous value to be had. We’ve taken several steps to combat spam and have an arsenal of tools planned. We don’t believe it’s difficult to remove incentive from spammers. The most successful safeguard we’ve taken is to remove the option to send a direct message to all of your followers. That feels spammy just typing it. We had to learn the hard way though. But it wasn’t rocket science. It was obvious that more spam than good would come of it and it really makes the most sense to focus on targeting groups of users to send a message to. By removing the spam all followers feature we were able to focus on enhancing the group management features.

The never ending fight
If there is one thing spammers are then it’s persistent. Our immediate plans are to continue to focus on creating incentive for people to send high quality content to people that are interested in it. This is, by definition, the anti-spam. We plan on adding a feature so Twitter users can join groups in an opt-in manner. Further down the road we’re going to limit free accounts and decrease the value of using our service for spam by making it too expensive. Of course we’ll keep the service extremely affordable (and as free as possible) for users that are creating value for others. But it’s no secret that even low costs are high barriers of entry for spammers.

Group messaging on Twitter is inevitable. Help us make it as painless as possible! If you have suggestions on how we can help win this fight then leave a comment or join us at the PubliciTweet Get Satisfaction page.
Jaisen Mathai 7:31 am on August 19, 2009 | 1 | # |

As a musician, marketing is most effective when you are able to engage your fans. The beauty of having fans is that they’re waiting for an opportunity to spread the word about your music. Often times musicians don’t provide enough incentive or make it easy enough for their fans to spread the word about their music. If you are able to engage your fans into a feeling of community, you’ll begin to see some real results.

Using Twitter to build community
The most basic part of building a community is to participate in dialog. This means replying to questions, commenting on comments, and letting your fans know you’re still alive with random (yet interesting) tweets. By participating in the Twitter community, you manage not only to connect to individual fans, but to bring your fans together. This is a natural yet powerful byproduct of simply engaging with them.

Using Twitter to provide exclusive content
Fans love exclusive content! Give it to them. Have a new album coming out? Give your best fans a sample from it and tell them to share it with others. It’s a great way to build anticipation among your entire fan base and to reward your most loyal fans. Time this correctly and you’ll be able to capitalize on the excitement you built for an album release. This goes for concerts as well. Give your most prized fans free tickets for them and their 5 closest friends. This achieves basically the same goal as album samples.

Tracking results on Twitter
Last but not least is to track your results. Never put a marketing campaign in motion without having the tools needed to measure it’s success or lack thereof. These tools are still new when it comes to Twitter. We’re asking musicians to use PubliciTweet for free and let us know how we can provide better tools for them to engage their fans.

Creating a marketing campaign on Twitter
PubliciTweet allows you to create a Twitter campaign and send it to your followers in bulk. You can send it to your most popular followers or create your own groups. The campaign includes various statistics on which fan referred the most new fans, where your fans are located, and how your public timeline faired against sending direct messages to your fans. We’re sure that you’ll find features we haven’t thought of which is why we’re inviting all musicians to use the site for free.

Visit PubliciTweet now
Jaisen Mathai 3:52 pm on August 13, 2009 | 0 | # |

PubliciTweet now lets you send direct message campaigns to custom groups. This was the most frequently requested service and we’re glad to let you test it out. The custom group feature is a key part of PubliciTweet. Our goal is to help you create meaningful campaigns by providing you the tools to target your followers better. Think of us as the Porsche of Twitter marketing services.

Here’s how you can send a campaign to a custom group. Before you create your campaign log in and go to the home page. Click on “more options” for the Twitter account you’d like to send the campaign from and then on “manage groups“. This is your group management page where you can create and update your groups. Type a meaningful name for the group in the textbox labeled “create a group” and then click “create“.

The page should now show you a list of all your followers. Followers which are not in the group are denoted with a green icon and ones which are with a red one. Click on “add to group” or “remove from group” until you’ve got a list your happy with.

Now click on “Create a Campaign” in the top navigation and select the same account you’re managing. Type in a message like normal and make sure to include a link and press “preview“. You should see your new group listed under “Message recipients“. Select that group and click “Create Campaign“.

That’s it!
Jaisen Mathai 8:06 pm on July 28, 2009 | 0 | # |

95% of PubliciTweet users complete the flow to link their PubliciTweet account with at least one of their Twitter accounts. Securely granting one application access to an account in another application is a tall order. There are dozens of security concerns which wind up making the final user experience far from optimal.

We took many considerations into account when we were designing our OAuth flow which would take you off-site to Twitter. As soon as the user leaves PubliciTweet we completely lose control of the user experience. The best case scenario is that they go to Twitter, click approve and come right back. More often than not, they’ll be required to log in to Twitter at which point we cross our fingers that they do it correctly the first time else the completion rate drops. Worst case scenario is that Twitter’s site has a problem and they land on an error page. Needless to say, it’s a very fragile flow.

We were quite surprised that the follow through rate is so high. We’re curious what other teams’ experiences have been like. Is 95% common or are we doing something right? If so we’d love to share the thought process which went into designing our flow. Are others getting higher than 95%? If so we’d love to hear what you’re doing that we’re not.

In the end the goal is to give the user a great experience. Things need to work the way they expect it to. That’s often the biggest challenge when dealing with complicate flows that require handshakes between two people that have never met. Hopefully, mastering that will make the rest of the experience bliss.
Jaisen Mathai 11:37 pm on July 20, 2009 | 0 | # |

We will have a scheduled maintenance period on Monday, July 20, 2009 at 10pm PST as we move servers. The PubliciTweet website and service will go offline for approximately 1 hour. During this time the website will not be available and campaigns will be paused. Once the move is complete the website will be back online and all campaigns will resume. We don’t expect this to have much impact for our users.

Please contact support@publicitweet.com if you have questions.
Jaisen Mathai 8:48 am on July 17, 2009 | 0 | # |

We released a pretty important update to PubliciTweet tonight. The first phase of the much request group feature is ready for use. We’ve created a default group for everyone which includes up to your 500 most popular followers.

The next step is to allow you to create as many groups as you’d like and send direct message campaigns to them. We’re already working on that and hope to have it available within a week.

Let us know what you think.
Jaisen Mathai 6:23 pm on June 18, 2009 | 0 | # |
Interested in participating in our beta? If so, please send us the following information:

We’re planning on allowing some users to send Twitter campaigns this week. If you are interested, could you provide the following information?
1. How many followers does the account you’re planning on sending from have?
2. Do you plan on sending the message to your public timeline, as a direct message to all followers, or both?
3. Will your message contain a link?
Make sure you’re following @pbct so we can DM you an invite key.
Jaisen Mathai 4:48 pm on June 17, 2009 | 0 | # |
We released numerous improvements to the service and are looking for beta testers. If you have a need for a Twitter marketing campaign then drop us a line.

Improvements include:
1. Limits so you don’t run out of direct messaging capability when sending mass DMs
2. Better access to analytics data on the dashboard page
3. A more streamlined analytics page

Twitter
- Thanks everyone! PubliciTweet has been sold. Details here: http://bit.ly/94eCFO - Kevin & Jaisen 1 month ago
- @mulka Perhaps we rushed to "fixing" the problem. The next release will including triple slashes as a feature. 1 month ago
- No worries, we fixed the issue with multiple slashes! :) 1 month ago
- We\\\'ve switched servers. Let us know if you notice any problems. 1 month ago
- @DaytonaTweetup Should be back up this evening. Will send a tweet once everything is up and running. 1 month ago
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