My Favourite Twitter Tools
Guest blogger Adam Thompson, the man behind our own social networking updates, shares his view on Twitter applications.
Twitter has hundreds of free applications each boasting its own features and benefits. Here’s a few that I’ve used in the past that can make life easier. This isn’t intended as a comprehensive guide or even a ‘recommended’ list, but simply to pass on a few tips to people new to Twitter or existing users that aren’t making the most of the available functions. You’ll have to make your own mind up as to what apps you find most useful.
- Tiny Url Rather than posting long links that use up your precious 140 characters use an application like this to shorten your url, there’s loads of them about
- Twitlonger If you’re struggling to fit everything you’ve got to say into one tweet this tool allows you to post tweets longer than 140 characters
- Bit.ly Some apps like this not only shrink your url but also provide you with real time click through results so you can measure how many tweeple have used your link
- Hootsuite gives you the option of scheduling your tweets in advance meaning they get sent automatically throughout the day. It also boasts a built in URL shortener.
- Hashtags (#hashtags) not an application but a feature of Twitter that seems to confuse people. Basically this enables you to tag your tweets making them easily found in searches. All tweets with the same hasthtag are grouped together which can be useful for people discussing the same topic or at the same event
- Mr Tweet recommends users for you to follow based on your common interests. All you have to do is follow Mr Tweet to get started
- Tweetdeck allows you to organise the people you follow into groups and add individual columns so you can view your @mentions, DMs and RTs easier. You can also update your Facebook and LinkedIn status using this desktop client
- Twitpic and Yfrog provide the option of uploading photographs and videos which can then be directly posted via a link in your tweet
- Twittersearch Very useful for finding out who’s talking about you right now and what they’re saying.
- Twitter for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. You can install Twitter apps onto your phone so you can view and post Tweets when you’re out and about. You can also set up alerts so you’re notified when you receive a message or @mention
- Tweetstats An interesting app which allows you to gather statistics on your tweets such as average number of tweets per day and reply volume
- Twitterscore This one’s just for fun and basically scores Twitter users out of ten based on friends, followers and frequency of updates. It also gives you a ranking to compare with your friends.
These are only a few of the many applications that you can use to improve your Twitter experience and they’ve all benefitted me in one way or another. Have I missed off your favourite? If so let me know…
This i brilliant. So useful! Rachel
Posted by: Rachel | 04/12/2011 at 09:28 PM