So in the last article we talked about how Twitter can be important for business if used correctly. Twitter is a great marketing tool, but just like anything in life, if you don’t know how to use it, it won’t work! Luckily for you there are tools out there that can help you get the most out of your Twitter experience. So by implementing these tools and a good Twitter marketing strategy you should be all set and climb up the ranks in search engines. Twitter can be used for any type of business out there from top executives in Fortune 500 companies, all the way down to your local Mom & Pop shop.
Twitter Desktop Clients:
If you don’t want to open your Internet browser every time you need to Tweet something, then these tools are for you. They are basically applications you install, that create shortcuts on your desktop, so you can easily open them and update your Twitter account sending Tweets.
TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com) – this is the top most rated tool on the Internet, also the most used. Its very straight forward and easy to use. It runs on Adobe Air and has a ton of features including, but not limited to:
- Updating Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz and Foursquare
- Managing conversations including @replies and direct messages
- Twitter Trends and Twitscoop
- Watching YouTube videos within TweetDeck and recording and sharing video clips through TwitVid.
- Locate your friends, see who is following you and more!
This is seriously not even half of the features TweetDeck provides, so check out their website to download and install the client. It does not use much memory and is faster for managing your social network profiles then having to open an Internet browser window and going to each site separately.
Using Twitter on your mobile phone:
If you are using Twitter on your smartphone, such as the BlackBerry, HTC Evo, iPhone or similar then these are the tools you should be using.
TweetDeck(http://www.tweetdeck.com) – once again the top most used app for Twitter.
Tweetie (http://www.atebits.com/) – another great mobile app for Twitter. It only works on your iPhone and it provides a lot of great features.
Do you have more than one account on Twitter?
Some of us have multiple accounts on Twitter, or in the case of XTELWEB we manage several of our clients Twitter accounts as part of our search engine optimization services. When we need to manage several Twitter accounts at once, these are some of the tools we have tried.
HootSuite (www.hootsuite.com) – This is one of the best multi-account Twitter management apps out there. Its very straightforward and is everything you would expect from an app like this. Companies like Papa Johns, BET and the Los Angeles Times use HootSuite so you know its good. Be aware that it does cost $5.99 for the paid service, although there is an ad-supported free service.
HootSuite allows you to add different types of streams from Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn and more. You can also install HootSuite onto your Android enabled smartphone or the Apple iPhone.
Twitter Analysis and Measurement tools:
Well we couldn’t call it social media marketing if there wasn’t tools to measure our success, right? These tools allow you monitor how many mentions there are about a certain keyword or website.
SocialMention (http://www.socialmention.com) – this is by far the easiest to use. Go to their website, type in a domain name or keyword (say your business name) and hit search. This tool will show you all the Twitter mentions about that keyword or keyword phrases you are searching for. You can use this tool for StumbleUpon, Twitter, YouTube and more.
Finding People or searching subjects on Twitter
This is a very important factor when it comes to Twitter. Using these tools can help you research your target audience, or your competitors website to see what type of keywords or subjects they are posting on. Some of these sites provide directories that you can list your business in. This can help when you re-do your meta tags for example. Also when looking for data trends on certain subjects.
Twello (http://www.twello.com) – This basically the Twitter Yellow pages, its great if you are using directories to boost your search engine optimization (SEO). I have never had a client contact me based on finding me on Twello, but every little bit helps.
tweetmeme v2 (http://www.tweetmeme.com) – This is a place that shows you the hottest links on Twitter. Its basically what the most people are tweeting about. You can also do a search for your own keywords, company names or keyword phrases to see how your business is ranking.
And now we have it, a list of Twitter tools that will help your business utilize Twitters marketing potential.
