A local children’s museum is using a service like Auto Retweet (or something similar) to automatically retweet just about everything posted to Twitter by anyone involving the words “children” and “museum.” Never mind the fact that most of these tweets are completely inane and totally irrelevant to the retweeting museum in particular (things like “I went to the [insert random children's museum here] today!”), but the situation is made worse by the fact that this came through today: “Museum was nice but too many kids and add all the stupid an rude old people who think they deserve special treatment at a children museum!”

Perhaps this is not exactly the kind of thing a children’s museum should be retweeting, but I’m willing to bet the museum doing so hasn’t even seen this.  They rarely post anything real. I’ve wound up in conversations with more than a couple local people who’ve unfollowed this museum for the random rewteeting.

End point is that I’m not sure this is a solid Twitter “strategy.” But then again, they do have more followers than the museum for which I tweet, so perhaps they’re onto something. Are there other non-profits who do this, and does it seem successful?

Other Thoughts From Around the Web

Is Auto-Tweet a Dirty Word? Interesting take on what value can come from automated tweets.

From Beth’s Blog, Best Practices for Micro Blogging in Museums (some great tips the museum referenced above might want to read).

10 Thoughts to Get You Started Using Social Media for your Non-Profit or Do-Good Project
100 Best Curator and Museum Blogs (via the Burke Museum Blog)

The project site is both a great resource for those of us looking to learn more, and a wonderful place for those you who are already gurus at web 2.0 to contribute.