Bigger queue sizes plus more frequent searching

That’s right… after listening to what’s going on, and watching what is and isn’t being replied to, the lifespan of an unconfirmed tweet has been reduced even further from 7 days right back to 24 hours.

Before you complain that you might miss a lead, the massive upsides to this is that it allows an increase to the rate at which TwitterHawk searches for you. Previously the most frequently you could search was once every 6 hours, this has been improved to once every 2 hours, per search.

Added to this, with the early culling of old leads, the limit on how many matches you can have in your queue has been increased from 11 to… wait for it… unlimited. This means that (unless you are searching for a term that is extremely popular) you can potentially never miss a lead on twitter.

In order to take advantage of the mroe frequent searching, all you need to do is modify your given searches frequency setting.

As a side note, you may receive some old matches in your first search run from this point forward, but all following searches will result in only the latest results.

Please take note though, that this update is to allow you to have a wider view and pick the right tweets to reply to, and shouldn’t be abused by replying to all tweets. Just remeber, you still have to pay a credit for that reply, abusing the system will not only cost you credits, but potentially your account usage should you be reported for misuse.

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Searching refined

As time goes by, and more and more accounts are being created, things inevitably begin to slow down. For this reason, the searching has had a small overhaul to increase stability and speed in getting your search results to you.

The result is a massive reduction in the time each search takes to complete, which should also mean the speed of the site in general will increase as a load has been taken off the server.

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Unconfirmed matches now have 7 day lifespan

As noted in a previous post (see here), matches to your searches that are unconfirmed, and older than 7 days will now be removed from the system as soon as that time limit is reached.

The effects of this are:

  • Outdated tweets are removed
  • You get more recent tweets in your matches list
  • Higher rotation of tweets to reply to
  • Lower load on system

As a result of this, over 9000 unconfirmed matches were removed from the system, opening up the opportunity for a lot more matches to be found for a lot of accounts that previously would have already been at their limit.

50’000 introductions made by TwitterHawk to date

6:41pm on Tuesday May19th (AEST), saw the 50’000th tweet sent via TwitterHawk since the site went live on February 1st 2009.

A big thankyou is in order to all the users of TwitterHawk, and those that have shared the site with their followers via Twitter or even better, their own website / blog.

As you may have noticed, while the site is going strong, updates are still being made and new features introduced all the time. The most recent being the link stats to help you track your true CPC through TwitterHawk.

There are more big features in planning, and coming soon. So keep the suggestions and feedback coming.

Next stop, 100’000 tweets!

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Unconfirmed matches to have 7 day lifespan

In an attempt to keep your matches flowing and more relevant to what’s going on now, tweets that have been found and placed in your match list (for searches that are set to ‘confirm first’) will now have a maximum lifespan of 7 days, any matches that are unconfirmed and older than 7 days old will be removed from the system on a daily basis.

As your match list will only hold around 10 tweets maximum at any one time, if your match list is full, any new matches found will be ignored. Therefor it makes sense to cull the oldest tweets, and replace them with more recent tweets for you to respond to.

The effects of this are:

  • Outdated tweets are removed
  • More recent tweets in your matches list
  • Higher rotation of tweets to reply to
  • Lower load on system

NB As this is a change to the system, and will result in the removal of existing matches, the change will not occur for at least 48 hours from the writing of this post. This change only effects searches that are set to ‘confirm first’.

CPC stats now available for TwitterHawk campaigns

As a follow up to the latest feature, link tracking, released today are CPC (Cost-Per-Click) values for your campaigns based on how many times the reply has been sent via TwitterHawk and how many times the pubic followed any links that were shortened by TwitterHawk (with the help of bit.ly) when setting up your search.
This now lets you get an overview of just how much it is really costing you to use TwitterHawk to drive traffic to our site, compared to other alternatives like AdWords, banner ads etc.
You can see the new updates by going to the link stats tab on your account page.

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Improved link stats

From immediate feedback on the new link tracking feature, one request stuck out. The ability to be able to see how many times a given shortened link has been sent out in the ‘link stats’ tab so that you can better see it’s effectiveness. The change has been rolled out this afternoon.

Now when you view the ‘link stats’ tab, you’ll see:

  • The shortened link
  • The expanded version
  • What the full draft reply is containing the link
  • What search it is for
  • How many times it’s been sent
  • and how many times it’s been clicked

A great overview of your searches effectiveness, and true CPC.

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TwitterHawk now tracks your links for stats

It’s been requested quite a bit from people, and it’s finally here… link stats!

When setting up your searches, you now have the ability to shorten a link using bit.ly to tack on to the end of your drafted response. What this means, is that we can now show you just how effective, or ineffective your responses are in drawing people in to click on your link.

A new tab has been added to the account page that will list all of the links that you currently have in your drafted replies, what the original expanded link was, and how many people have followed this link.

Unfortunately the stats provided by bit.ly are not real time, and there is a small delay between someone clicking on the link and the click being registered by TwitterHawk, so it’s best to use it as a retrospective tool and not an immediate gauge of your most recent tweet sent via TwitterHawk.

Currently this feature is not available in edit mode, however work is being done to allow a better way to modify your searches, which will include adding bit.ly links into your drafted replies. [EDIT] What good is a new toy that you can’t use immediately? The new feature is now available when editing your drafted replies via the account page.

Please do keep the suggestions coming in so TwitterHawk can further evolve into a tool that makes your marketing efforts easier. Also, if you notice any issues with the new feature, let us know by sending a tweet to @twithawk

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All TwitterHawk users just got 20 free credits!

That’s right, as a thanks for ongoing support and feedback, all existing users just got an extra 20 free credits added to their accounts.

This includes existing users who have run out of credits, so they can checkout and use the new sites features without having to commit to purchasing credits before they know what they are in for.

Hopefully you enjoy the new features, and appreciate the free credits.

Teaser: Another major feature is in development, which will compliment your Twitter based marketing efforts quite well.

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