SocialSnipe is a web-based Twitter tool, which means you can use it from any computer, any browser, anywhere in the world. This is a huge benefit, but it doesn’t come without its price…
Your Accounts
SocialSnipe has 1 price, no matter how many Twitter accounts you have. This makes it a great tool for the power-users. Are you a niche marketer with 12 or more accounts? This could be the tool for you.
With SocialSnipe, your account security is of top concern. You don’t need to give them a single password to any of your Twitter accounts. Unlike the other Twitter Adders, SocialSnipe uses oauth account authentication. This is very good for you.
NOTE: When you are authorising your account remember to tick NO for the “release of tweet” option.
Following People
SocialSnipe does this a little bit differently, compared to the other Twitter adders. It doesn’t have as many options as tweet adder, but it’s good at what it does.
Following people with SocialSnipe is called “sniping”. You enter in your keywords and key phrases, tell it how many people you want to follow, the time in between each follow, and you press “Start Snipe”.
As far as fine-tuning WHO you follow, SocialSnipe is about the same as TweetAdder. You get to set how many pages back in time SocialSnipe looks for your chosen keywords, you get to follow the followers of other people, everyone who has sent an @message to a particular person, and even follow everyone tweeting from near a certain location!
BUT: You cannot combine these filters.
Example: You can’t follow everyone who follows a particular person who is ALSO posting with certain keywords.
It’s a shame because a web based tool like this really has the potential for some serious filtering and customisation. If they added this I would seriously have to consider making SocialSnipe my main adder.
Unfollowing People
Unlike TweetAdder, SocialSnipe doesn’t appear to keep track of who you have followed with its following tool. It looks as if you have to be very careful when unfollowing people!
TweetAdder monitors who you followed, and when you followed them. This allows you to follow a group of people, wait a week or so until they followed you back, and automatically unfollow everyone who hasn’t. This is its most powerful feature, but SocialSnipe seems to completely lack this.
There is no way to set a time delay between following someone an unfollowing someone. This too is a real shame, and leaves me wishing that SocialSnipe contained these fairly basic features.
The Good
1. I love how Social Snipe handles following new people. Making a list of your target keywords and watching as it adds the people one by one (live) is really great.
2. The ability to run this from any web browser, on any computer, even your iPhone, will come in VERY handy for many.
The Bad
Sadly, that’s really all I like about SocialSnipe.
Everything SocialSnipe does, TweetAdder does better. Every time I use any of their features I found myself wishing for improvements.
For example:
1. The ability to filter the list of people you follow would be extremely powerful.
2. The fact that SocialSnipe is a web based tool means it SHOULD be able to run whether it’s open or not, whether your computer is on or not, and should be able to run automatically at certain times of the day. But it can’t. To set it going, to follow new people, you need to have it open in your browser… and leave it open.
When I signed up I had high hopes that I could tell it who I want to follow and let it get on with it. That would truly be worth the monthly cost.
Conclusion
The trial is cheap, so give it a go and see if it suits you. It may, it may not. I’m sticking with TweetAdder personally, as it does more for a one-off cost. True, SocialSnipe has unlimited accounts, but that doesn’t justify $250 per year in my mind!
As it is right now I honestly can’t recommend it over TweetAdder because it costs more and does less.
