Twitter Client Applications
The biggest problem with the standard Twitter web application is that you
have to keep an eagle eye on your replies and Direct Messages as you only
see the main Tweetstream on the screen. It is also limited in that it only
displays about the last 20 tweets, so if you want to see older ones, you have
to keep going back pages. So what to do?
Easy, download Tweetdeck from http://www.tweetdeck.com The first thing
you will probably notice is that you will need to change the settings as the
default is white text on a black screen. Makes it hard to read I've found, but
each to their own.
Tweetdeck is brilliant in that it displays the Tweetstream, your replies and
your direct messages all on the one screen. The message columns allow for
500 tweets as a default, so scrolling down allows you to go back a fair way or
search for tweets you may want to refer back to.
The screen has a continuous right hand scroll, so you can set up different
groups and their tweets will appear in that column. You might have a group
called best friends and another for gardeners for instance. That way you
don't miss important tweets from people who are more important to you than
others. At the time of writing, Tweetdeck is probably the most widely used
application for Twitter and I would highly recommend it to you.
Twellow
Twellow, at http://www.twellow.com is another great way of finding people to
interact with. People here are categorized into all different areas and you can
search for those with similar interests to your own.
The main page shows you all the categories, which then have sub categories
as well. You just click on a category and the list of people in that area are
displayed.You don't have to be registered with Twellow to be displayed, but at
the time of writing there were nearly two million people showing on the site,
so you will have plenty to choose from. By all means though, register
yourself and set up a profile so others can find you.
When you click on a category, Twellow displays a list of people in that
category and they are ordered by the number of followers they have. If you
are already logged into Twitter via the web, (not Tweetdeck), you will be able
to follow people directly from the screens where the profiles are displayed.
Mr Tweet
Mr Tweet at www.mrtweet.net is another way of gaining new followers. All
you have to do is follow Mr Tweet on Twitter and your tweets will be
monitored for content and then you will get a Direct Message from “him”. You
then go to the site and login and you will get a list of suggested people. You
will also get a list of people who are following you that you aren't following so
you can then follow them if you choose.
It's a really nifty little site and worth registering at.
Grader
Grader is on Twitter as @grader, but also online at http://twitter.grader.com/
and is a site of some interest. As you get going on Twitter, you can get
“ranked” by Grader on a score out of 100. It is based on some secret
algorithm apparently so people can't game the system.
Apart from that aspect of Grader, you can have a look at who the top Tweeple
are in a particular area or even by topic using the search function.
When you use the search function, it will list the Tweeple by their score in
descending order. For example, if you search for “gardening” on Grader, you
will get a list of all the top 100 people interested in gardening on Twitter. You
can see their “bio” from their Twitter account and if you click on their Grader
score, it will take you to their Twitter account from where you can follow them.
Naturally, you must already be logged in to Twitter yourself to follow anyone.
Advanced Tweeting Tips
Now that you're all set up, let's get into some advanced Tweeting tips and
applications that can really power your Twitter usage up.
Twitter Backgrounds
We discussed earlier about setting up your Twitter background so that it didn't
just look like the default Twitter page. Leaving it like that shows a lack of care
on your part. You need to distinguish yourself from the crowd and that attracts
more followers, or at the very least impresses people with your
professionalism.
Now if you're a bit of a Photoshop whiz, then you can do your own
background, full of bells and whistles and load it up to your Twitter profile. But
if you're not, or you just want to save time, then there are some sites out
there that will do them for you automagically. To find these sites, the best
thing to do is to simply Google “twitter backgrounds” and you will find quite a
few sites offering this service for free.
My personal favorite is Twitbacs at http://www.twitbacks.com/ where you can
get some great backgrounds.
However, that said, if you want to do your own fiddling in Photoshop, you can
get some great layouts in PSD format from http://www.twitterbacks.com/
SocialToo
SocialToo at http://www.socialtoo.com is a useful automated tool for Twitter.
At Social Too, you can set your account up to do some autopilot things for
you.
First of all, you can set SocialToo up to automatically follow everyone who
follows you. This can take the drudgery out of checking all your new
followers and then going and adding them to your own list in order to
reciprocate.
You can also set up SocialToo to send an automatic Direct Message to
people who follow you. Don't do it! Automatic Direct Messages are absolutely
hated by most of the Twitter community, particularly experienced users
because they can pick them a mile off. It's a sterile and rude way of starting
out a relationship with new followers.
The backlash against this has largely been caused because many newbies,
and some old hands too, were setting up an auto Direct Message that
basically said, “Hello, thanks for following me. Now go and visit my sales
page at http://..... “. I'm sure you get the picture. I can't think of any worse
way to start a relationship with a new follower on Twitter. In any sort of
business, you build relationships before you try and sell someone something
and this is even more relevant in the social media space.
SocialToo will also provide you with an email every day of all your new
followers and those that have unfollowed you as well.
Another function of SocialToo is that it will automatically unfollow anyone who
unfollows you. Personally I don't think this is a bad thing. If people aren't
interested in you any longer, then are you really interested in them? If you
really want to keep the updates from someone, just go and follow them back
when you see their name on your unfollows email each day.
TweetLater
Tweetlater at http://www.tweetlater.com is a fantastic tool to use with Twitter. It
allows you to schedule tweets for various times of the day. So how can this
be of use to you?
Well you need to remember that the Twitter audience is constantly changing
and the tweetstream occurs quite fast. The more people someone follows, the
greater the number of tweets appearing and they won't read them all, I
promise you. It just isn't possible. By using Tweetlater, you have a much
greater chance of catching people's attention throughout the day and in
different time zones.
Let's say you have written a post on your blog and you want to drive some
traffic there. Rather than tweeting the link and subject once, you can do it
every hour for 24 hours if you like using Tweetlater. I'm sure you can see the
power of this in terms of driving traffic or getting noticed.
There is a free and a professional version of Tweetlater. Start out with the free
version and then if you need it, upgrade to the professional version when you
are ready.
Twitterfeed
Twitterfeed at http://www.twitterfeed.com is also a very handy tool. It is far
more secure to log into than the other sites I have mentioned as it uses Open
ID which is a bit of a pain. However, it is worth persisting with in the absence
of an alternative tool.
What Twitterfeed does is that you can set up your blog to feed directly via
RSS to your Twitter account. So every time you make a blog post, it gets
tweeted automatically on your behalf. You can use this in conjunction with
Tweetlater with the first post coming through Twitterfeed and then subsequent
ones at times you specify via Tweetlater.
SplitTweet
SplitTweet at http://splitweet.com is a great tool if you have a number of
accounts on Twitter. Rather than switching between them from time to time in
order to Tweet, you can set an account up her for free and bring all of your
accounts under the one roof.
Splitweet will display the Twitter feed from all your accounts at once, or you
can turn individual accounts off and on. When actually tweeting, you can pick
an account to tweet to, or you can do a broadcast message across all your
accounts at once.
Some very flash technology this and very useful for handling multiple
accounts.
Friendfeed
Friendfeed at http://www.friendfeed.com is an automating tool you can use in
conjunction with Twitter. Friendfeed is a bit of a hub if you like where you can
set up links to all your other accounts. Friendfeed collects information from
those accounts and publishes it in your Friendfeed feed.
Although Friendfeed is a topic almost in itself, I mention it here particularly
because of it's ability to link your Twitter and Facebook accounts among
others. If you have a Facebook account and you link it and your Twitter
accounts in Friendfeed, then what will happen is that all your posts in Twitter
will be posted on your wall at Facebook. It means you are running two social
media accounts via one and saves you time.
Your Twitter Karma
Your Twitter Karma at http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/ is a really useful site for
having a look at your followers and who you are following. It's great for
managing your account from a followers/following perspective.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to load a fair few times and can be unreliable,
but when it is working it's great. It shows you all you all the people you are
following and all those that are following you. Underneath each avatar it tells
you if you are following them and if they are following you. You can also sort
by people that you are following who aren't following you back. This is great
for management as you can decide whether or not to unfollow them.
By checking the boxes, you can actually do a bulk unfollow of a heap of
people at once as opposed to going to every individual Twitter account and
clicking on “unfollow”.
You can also list those that might only be following you and decide if you want
to follow them back. Again, this can be done in a bulk manner.
Conclusion
Twitter is absolutely fantastic application whether you use it for business or
pleasure.
I hope the tips and resources in this report will make it a fantastic experience
for you.
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