Bots
are programs designed to perform a specific function on the internet
and to work independently of human action once set up. Twitter bots
largely provide information of certain types, in a variety of certain
ways, on Twitter's interface. I'm being ridiculously vague in my
explanation as I'm a writer, not a techie. Technology site Techmalaya explains
much better than I could. They also provide a list of the different
types of bots incorporated with Twitter.
On
Twitter one day last year, I found one of my blog posts had been
retweeted by Burroughsbot. This is a William S Burroughs-related “announcement bot”, RT-ing
anything with the author's name to 2000 followers. I'd tweeted a particular post in which I'd discussed the surrealist penner of Naked
Lunch and Junky.
Recently
it occurred to me that I could purposefully get the same bot to
retweet me again, only this time I'd link to my blog's home page.
This way, whoever follows Burroughsbot will get my link in their
Twitter feed and, provided they follow that link, they'll see my
latest crazed musings. Genius!
I
got a retweet within minutes.
The
blog currently stands at 49,593 hits. Lets see if it jumps a little.
A day later and I'm on 50,183. I sure don't normally get 500 hits in a day. 100 on a good day. Have you had any success with Retweet Bots?
ReplyDelete