Do You Tweet? 9 Tools to Enhance Your Twitter Experience

October 6, 2008 · Filed Under Resources

Despite its critics, Twitter is a useful micro-blogging tool entrepreneurs can utilize in a social networking setting to build relationships, promote their blog and market their business. This post is not to debate the pros and cons of Twitter; whether it’s viewed as professional or otherwise; nor is it to cover proper tweeting etiquette or what is and is not considered spamming your followers. My intent is to provide you with nine tools that will simply enhance your Twitter experience.

Ping.FM

Do you have multiple social network profiles that you want to keep a daily presence without spending all day doing it? Ping.fm saves you the time and effort. Ping.fm will send a single post across 26 social networking platforms at one time. It utilizes the same 140 character limit as Twitter. Sites in addition to Twitter include: Facebook, Plurk, LinkedIn, MySpace, Google Talk, Delicious, and many more.

Tweet Later

Tweet Later works for you while you are away; whether you’re traveling, focusing on a project or simply living life. Tweet Later can be set-up to welcome new followers automatically either publically or by direct message. It will, at your election, automatically follow those that follow you. You can also schedule pre-scripted Tweets to broadcast while you’re away. Scheduled tweet is a great tool to alert followers of a new post on your blog.

Tweet Stats

Wonder if you’re making use of your efforts on Twitter? Graph your Twitter usage on Tweet Stats. Enter your Twitter name and in just a couple of minutes you’ll have a full graphic picture of your tweets. Tweet Stats breaks down your tweets by day and time. You will see a quick overview of when you tweet the most and the least along with a more in-depth look. Tweet Stats graphs include Tweet Timeline, Tweets Per Hour, Tweets Per Day, Reply Statistics and Interface Used to tweet.

While you’re there poke your head over to Trend Stats and see what’s on top of the Trend Cloud.

TweetBeep

Just like Google Alerts , TweetBeep will send an email alerting you to keywords and websites discussed on Twitter. This is a great for marketing research, monitoring your industry and interests or finding new business connections. You’ll see what’s being talked about and by whom. TweetBeep assists in identifying those that share an interest in what you do.

Twitscoop

See what the hottest trends and latest discussions that are happening on Twitter at Twitscoop. Results of what’s being discussed are posted in a real-time tag cloud. Click on the tag and get the list of the tweets. Twitscoop also features keyword search.

TweetScan

TweetScan is real-time search engine that allows you to keep up with the latest discussions and posts on Twitter. From the Twitter Search Cloud, click on a key word and observe the latest discussions. Searches are performed by using keywords and/or Twitter user. If you’re one that tweets a lot, no more tab back through “older” posts, just search yourself.

TweetScan will search up to five phrases for daily or weekly delivery and will send results via email.

EasyTweets

For those multi-account tweeters, there is EasyTweets. Yes, to answer the novice Twitter (me included) there are those that have multiple Twitter accounts. EasyTweets is a web-based application that allows users to manage multiple Twitter accounts.

TinyURL

Have a website you want to share? Tiny URL shortens the URL of any website so that you keep within the restrictions of 140 character tweets. TInyURL can be added to your browser tool bar.

TwitterGrader

I can’t leave out my favorite internet marketing group, Hubspot and its latest product Twitter Grader. Twitter Grader analyzes your tweets by looking at the number of followers, the power of your network of followers, how often you update, and your profile. Twitter Grader also creates a tag cloud from your tweets and a suggested list of those to follow. Find out where you rank on your tweeting efforts.

The Point

Twitter is a great source for nurturing relationships with those with similar interests, businesses and goals. The seven tools discussed will greatly enhance the experience by taking the menial labor out of the picture and will be effective in time management. Pick one and try it - - once you implement it and get comfortable, try another. Simple to use and best of all they are all free.