Commun.it - useful engagement features not worth aggressively spammy tactics
Overall Satisfaction with Commun.it
I am the primary social media administrator of a web publication that has utilized Commun.it as a means of tracking certain kinds of activity on Twitter. Commun.it helps us to track new followers, unfollowers, and keywords/mentions as part of its free offering (a paid version is also available). By tracking when our site is mentioned on the web, we can connect with Twitter users who are interested in our content.
I also have used it elsewhere, including another company and personally with my own Twitter accounts.
I also have used it elsewhere, including another company and personally with my own Twitter accounts.
Pros
- Commun.it's ability to track "Monitored Items" allows you to track mentions of specific strings of text. In practical terms this can mean things like your name, organization's name, URL, or products.
- Tracking new followers and unfollowers is probably the most important feature of Commun.it. Additionally, this platform has "Not Following Back", "Consider to Follow", and "Consider to Unfollow" tools based that suggest how to build your network.
- Engagement related tools help you analyze users who have retweeted, favorited, or mentioned you directly.
Cons
- Many of Commun.it's marketing "tools" are actually little more than ways to spam and annoy your audience with inane prattle.
- The free version of Commun.it has an absurd amount of aggressive in-platform self-advertising, often blowing out to full-page pop-up ads prompting you to try their paid product. These ads don't have obvious close or cancel options.
- Commun.it's truly hostile, distasteful, and despicable trait is its "campaign" or "schedule" feature. It not only activates when clicked, but periodically as a pop-up. When you acknowledge the pop-up (there is no option not to), it will automatically populate a schedule of tacky, spammy tweet campaigns which you must delete, lest they be shared with your followers. This is so maliciously aggressive that it has turned me off on the product in search of better alternatives.
As the primary social media operator and administrator, I am the sole user. Commun.it's pop-up quirks are so obtuse that I wouldn't want anyone else to use it (and fall into its campaign trap).
- Since we use the free version of Commun.it, monetary ROI cannot be measured. Gift horse and all that.
- The useful aspects of Commun.it have been welcome, but recent changes in their aggressive in-platform spam have resulted in wasted time and, on a couple occasions, annoying and completely UNAUTHORIZED tweets to our audience.
- Tweepsmap
Tweepsmap's audience and engagement tools aren't as powerful as Commun.it's, but they're far more trustworthy. I also like their tool for detecting inactive users (followed accounts who haven't tweeted in 2 or 6 months). I would actually consider shelling out for their paid tools, which sound quite useful (for instance, location-based statistics).
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