Bill Masson 
June 9, 2009, 5:47 am|
Today’s discussion on my choice of Twitter tools for productivity
You may have noticed lately that a lot of the articles have been guest posts, (I usually add my signature on my own articles) this has given me time to build and expand my social network. My main push on the social scene has been on twitter where I launched several other accounts. I wanted to diversify my twitter accounts into ecommerce, WordPress and technology along with increased interaction from my main twitter account. In order to manage and organize day to day use of these twitter accounts I needed to pick out the most practical and productive applications.
Here’s a quick rundown on the best online and desktop applications that I have found to be invaluable for organizing followers.
Hoot Suite I don’t know how I ever got along without this online application, it is quite simply indispensable. It’s great for when you are surfing the web and you find something you want to tweet about. You can setup multiple twitter accounts and automate them with any RSS feed, you are asked to limit your feeds to 5 for each twitter account. You can get round this by preparing a mashup of RSS feeds by utilizing Yahoo Pipes. The real beauty of Hoot Suite is the bookmarking applet which allows you to tweet any website to multiple twitter accounts, this save you a lot of time from having to sign in to your twitter accounts. All this and more comes in user friendly dashboard where you can edit delete accounts and track your clickthroughs.
People Browser This application is quite new to me and so I am still getting to grips with it. The best way to describe it is by calling it a “multi cross platform social communicator” Effectively you can setup multiple twitter accounts as well as other social networks like FaceBook, FriendFeed and many others all in real time. You can either use the online version from your favorite browser or you can download the Adobe Air desktop application. Both versions function the same way and I opted for the desktop version. I won’t go into all the features, there are just too many, but you have a huge amount of benefits including …. Innovate visual stacking system, Build campaigns, track keywords, add auto draft replies, receive email notifications, and create public or private groups, browse popular hashtags and loads more…. You really have to click through and have a look for yourself. You can get started immediately by entering your Twitter user name and passwords.
If you want to use the browser version, for best performance they strongly recommend that you use Firefox 3.0.10, Safari 4 Beta or Chrome. IE7 is not supported in Alpha version. Opera 9.64 works fine too.
TweetLater ; another Twitter productivity tool, with this service you can set up multiple tweets to go out over any time period you choose. As well as your main twitter accounts you can set up a separate RSS feed and personalize it with your own messages, then paste the code or feed URL into any website or blog, example at (maxhomebits recommends ). The free set up is limited to how many auto tweets you can send and there is a premium service which allows you unlimited messages and other options.
Just a few of the benefits of TweetLater
Schedule tweets – Plan, set & forget!
Bulk upload & schedule tweets – Save time!
Track keywords on Twitter – Empower yourself!
Save and reuse drafts – Save hours of typing!
Send welcome DMs to new followers – Automate!
Bit.ly URL shortening – Track those clicks!
Follow those who follow you – Automate!
Unfollow those who unfollow you – Automate!
Vet new followers – Semi-automation!
Purge your DM Inbox – Keep it tidy!
Personal status feed – Your own tweet engine!
Unlimited Twitter accounts – No charge!
Topify ; the default twitter email notification is a bit basic and bland so this email notification service is my preferred method. Privacy is a big issue nowadays and Topify clearly states their intention of securing your email and passwords. What I like about Topify is that their emails have a lot more information on follow requests; you can follow automatically by replying and reply to direct messages. You can easily block or unfollow.
Friend or Follow ; although you can do this on any of the above services I prefer to use Friend or Follow. I like the visual layout and drop down menu that switches you between who’s following you and who isn’t and who you are not following but are following you, confused yet? Just check it out for yourself and you will see what I mean. (-: The visual interface throws up thumbnails of Twitters so you can click to follow or unfollow, all the links open a new window or tab depending how you have your browser set up.
And last but not least…
This a great little tool to truly turn your tweets viral, just watch the video below to see how..enjoy
I hope you have found some value in this article, I would say that these applications are more geared towards power twitter users, but never the less can be put to great use by any individual. It’s important to remember that productivity is essential when running a social network campaign.
Feel free to share your preferred Twitter applications
Thanks as always for reading 
You might want to check out TwitterCounter. We provide analytics so you can see which tools have an effect on your follower count.
Oh, and Topify is my personal favorite on this list. Really changed the way I use Twitter. Great tool!
@Boris, Thanks I will check it out
Bill Masson´s last blog post..How to Get to grips with Twitter Productivity
Effectively you can setup multiple twitter accounts as well as other social networks like FaceBook, FriendFeed and many others all in real time.
Thanks for the great links! Like the look of Tweet Smarter
Calum Henderson´s last blog post..Top 5 posts to date
“Twitter productivity!” The bronosaurus of oxymorons! When do these “tweeple” do any work? Seriously, who has time?
@Bill Dyszel, So I take it your not a fan of twitter then?
oh well not to worry, more fun for us twitter folk(-;
Thanks for the comment
Bill Masson´s last blog post..Direct TV and the Internet
Hello Bill,
I’m a big fan of Twitter and I’m just realizing all the potential if used properly. Glad I stopped by because you mentioned some Twitter tools that I’m sure will be beneficial. I’m very interested in trying Topify. Thanks for posting these resources.
All the best,
Robert
Hello Robert,
Glad to be of service…Thanks for commenting
Regards from Edinburgh
Bill
(Excellent blog, by the way!)
I’m not saying that twitter isn’t fun – but calling it “productive” is a huge strech. Useful for marketing, possibly. Online gaming is fun, too, but not productive.
bill dyszel´s last blog ..About Bill Dyszel
The idea of this post is to help anyone who has a lot of followers to handle the day to day administration and be more productive, the tools are also helpful if you want to find specific users for your niche. So overall the message is be productive with your time, of course twitter is fun and and useful for marketing too.
Thanks for the comment
[...] How to Get to grips with Twitter Productivity (web-workathome.com) [...]
[...] How to Get to grips with Twitter Productivity [...]
These are nice apps. I also heard it was a good idea to recycle twitter posts. Post something in the morning, and then post it again at night. Its said that most people go on twitter at the same time each day, so different people will be seeing the same post.
-Randy
wow thanks for sharing these tips with us.
Now I think that I should create a twitter account and start doing what you have said in this post.
thanks
[...] How to Get to grips with Twitter Productivity (web-workathome.com) [...]
The People Browser and the TweetLater applications seem to me the really useful ones for Twitter. The different features will be really helpful in keeping things organized, increasing over-all productivity, and maximizing the use of Twitter as a social medium. Thanks so much!
I’m trying to do a survey to see what people think about the explosion of social media.
So how about it, do you think sites like twitter cause employees to waste time and reduce the companies overall productivity?
[...] How to Get to grips with Twitter Productivity [...]
What makes Twitter popular is its amazing set of tools. Of all the featured tools, what I like best is the Friend or Follow. Isn’t it neat to have thumbnails of Twitters and have your choice whether to follow or unfollow?
I agree with Bill here, tweeter is productive and pays out in the end of the day. It may start as a fun site, but nowadays it includes a set of tools which are more useful for business than just for fun. Thanks by the way for the links to the tools, some of them are very good. Tweeter is productive and a good way to promote your site and more things like giving them customer support.