Twitter Broadcasting

With 97% of the writers at Agent Genius actively using Twitter, we can tell you that a group messaging system is sadly lacking. In July when we were in San Francisco, we were all direct messaging like crazy that we’d won the Inman Innovator award and if we had a way to send one message to all the writers with one private message, it would have been very helpful. When we were at the Tech Crunch party in September, it would have been awesome to tweet all of our close Austin tech friends that we were ditching the party and heading to The Belmont afterparty, instead we relied on a few of us to spread the word of mouth.

So, the solution is Group Tweet, a group broadcasting system designed by Aaron Forgue. Because it’s an opt-in system for private messages only, the spam factor is minimized and administrators can always block people should they abuse it. Here’s how it works:

• 1. Create a new Twitter account specifically for your group (e.g. AGwriters or austintechpeeps). If you want to make this a private group, make sure that updates are protected in the settings.
• 2. Register your group’s new Twitter account at GroupTweet.com.
• 3. Tell all group members to follow the group account you created at Twitter. Note that the group account must also follow the group members. (If updates are protected, you will need to approve each follow request.)
• 4. Members can broadcast a message to the whole group by sending a direct text to the group’s Twitter account. For example: ‘D austintechpeeps this party sucks, going to open bar at Belmont, DM if u need us to get you in the private bar.’
• That’s it! GroupTweet is constantly listening for direct texts sent to your group’s Twitter account. When a direct text is received, GroupTweet instantly publishes it as a tweet from the group account.

Get Goin’

So try it out for your brokerage, your Association or your social group- let us know how you will use Group Tweet. If you’re new to Twitter or you have a buddy who wants to learn, here is a super easy crash course in Twitter, just follow the links for more directives.