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vangogh
04-06-2009, 01:50 PM
Found this post linking to 130+ Twitter tools (http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/Tools/Twitter-Tools/enormous-twitter-toolbox.html). I haven't looked through the list beyond a quick scan yet, but I'm sure you'll find at least a few new and useful tools to add to your toolbox.

The tools have been organized in the post as follows:

Twitter Topic Trackers
Track Top Twitter Users
Find Other Twitters
Productivity & Bulk management tools
Other Online Twitter Tools
Blog and Website Tools
Twitter Gadgets
Earn Money by Twitting
Browser Plugins
Twitter API / Integration / Interface Tools
Tools for Mobile Devices
Windows: Apps, Widgets and Plugins
Mac: Apps, Widgets and Plugins
Other OS: Apps, Widgets and Plugins
Articles and Blogs

My favorite tool of the moment for Twitter is TweetDeck, which is listed under Other OS: Apps, Widgets and Plugins. Great way to organize your twitterstream and keep track of what you really want to keep track of.

What's your favorite tool to make Twitter useful?

rezzy
04-06-2009, 01:57 PM
So, far I am really liking TweetBeep. It alerts me to keywords, I input.

I see you are trying to outdo the Ultimate Twitter list title. ;)

Since I am here. Is it better to make a post listing the actual tools or a little blogs listing tools?

vangogh
04-06-2009, 02:19 PM
Is it better to make a post listing the actual tools or a little blogs listing tools?

I'm not sure I understand the question. What's a little blogs listing tools?

rezzy
04-06-2009, 03:03 PM
You dont understand, my statement at all.

I was working on a list of tools. I thought since there are some many sites with there on lists, I would make a post linking to those blogs. Good or Bad?

vangogh
04-06-2009, 03:29 PM
Oh I understand now. Hmm? That could still be a useful post. A roundup of the posts with roundups of the tools. The one thing about that is many of the posts you link to will probably cover the same tools. I would think putting your own list together would be better and maybe have a section that links to those other blogs. Kind of a combination of both.

Harold Mansfield
04-06-2009, 07:31 PM
Wow, it's just amazing how many tools and apps people keep coming out with for Twitter. Was it like this when My Space and Facebook started getting popular ?

Funniest thing about Twitter is reading the bio's now. Everyone is a Social Media Expert.
Since I target music, I always get these kind of bio's on my follows:

Social Media Expert, Music Producer, Events Promoter, Avatar Designer, Motivational Speaker, Marketing Consultant, and Professional Blogger.

You rarely see just one profession or title in the bio.

..and you always get the DM "Let's get together and bounce some ideas around".

I always think "Seems like you are doing enough bouncing around with out me."

It's amazing how many people there are out there, that are experts on just about everything "trendy" or all the Buzz words.

I just thought that was funny.

vangogh
04-06-2009, 08:30 PM
Part of the reason for all the tools is Twitter has an API you can develop with and also the basic service doesn't offer that much. All the extra tools really do improve the service. That plus Twitter is the hot site now.

janiels
04-11-2009, 12:11 AM
Thanks for bringing this up van, I'm looking for new blog twitter widgets, I guess I'll find something useful in that link.. I'll browse on it now.

vangogh
04-11-2009, 12:33 AM
Glad to supply the link. There are quite a few tools there. I use a few, though most were new to me.

bizcard
05-04-2009, 08:32 AM
Thanks for the link Vangogh... though I'm only Tweetlater.com. I'm fine with auto DM and auto follow, I manually post updates.

vangogh
05-04-2009, 12:03 PM
Auto DM drives me nuts. It's made direct messaging mostly useless and I now unfollow many people who send me an auto DM when I first follow them.

I think the auto follows and auto DMs completely miss the point of how Twitter can be useful. It's about building real and honest relationships with people. The auto stuff doesn't do that. Just because someone is following you doesn't mean they're paying attention.

I don't mind auto scheduling tweets or blog posts, but I think when people try to automate the social aspects it's really pointless.

KristineS
05-04-2009, 12:47 PM
Got to agree with you on the auto DM stuff, vangogh. I hate that. It feels so fake when I follow someone and I get some silly "thank you for following me" message that has no personality to it. Usually the DM tries to sell me something. That's pretty much enough to make me unfollow someone right there.

It's the same thing with people who follow absolutely everyone in an effort to build up thousands of followers. 90% of those people aren't interested in what you have to say. I always prefer to follow only the people who have some relevance to what I have to say, or who I find interesting. I'm interested in quality rather than quantity.

vangogh
05-04-2009, 12:56 PM
Add to that the latest tools like TweetDeck which allow you to follow anyone, but group your followers so you only pay attention to the ones you want to listen too.

I've recently switched to trying a tool called Seesmic. It works the same way. I'll generally follow back anyone who follows me and looks legit. If it's an honest person I'm happy to connect. But I organize all the people I'm following into various groups and I don't pay as much attention to the main stream that includes all my followers. I'll pay more attention to the streams I have created specifically for friends or for people who tweet on a specific topic.

Following someone doesn't mean you're paying attention to anything they say. The point of Twitter isn't to have the most followers.

Paul Elliott
05-15-2009, 09:55 AM
Found this post linking to 130+ Twitter tools (http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/Tools/Twitter-Tools/enormous-twitter-toolbox.html). I haven't looked through the list beyond a quick scan yet, but I'm sure you'll find at least a few new and useful tools to add to your toolbox.


Thanks for the link, Steve.

Paul

vangogh
05-15-2009, 10:39 AM
Glad to supply it Paul. Twitter is so popular right now it seems like every couple of days I've bookmarked another list of tools or ways to use it.

Paul Elliott
05-15-2009, 01:55 PM
I know what you mean. Probably in another 12-18 months, Twitter will be irrelevant.

Paul

vangogh
05-15-2009, 07:02 PM
I doubt if it will be irrelevant. There really are so many uses for the service. I'd sooner see another player entering the market and creating a better version of Twitter. Lately talk is of Twitter as a search engine. Some have gone overboard talking as though it could replace Google, but the idea of Twitter as a search engine has merit.

Twitter can provide more real time results whereas search engines are always presenting results based on when they last crawled the web. Information lands on Twitter much quicker than it does on Google or most any other source. You can tweet from anywhere, including your phone so it really is real time.

You also get a wisdom of crowds sort of thing happening. Search engines have always been hampered by quality and relevance. A search engine can match content to your query, but it really can't tell you if the content is good or not. People are much better judges of quality than search engines at the moment and a Twitter search would be presenting results from real people.

Twitter is never going to be a replacement for search engines, but it can offer a nice complement to them.

vangogh
05-26-2009, 12:51 AM
Came across a nice post on how to use TweetDeck effectively (http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/tutorials/learn-how-to-use-tweetdeck-effectively-and-save-time/) and thought I'd add it here. Lately I've been using Seesmic as my Twitter client. It does most of what TweetDeck does, though in slightly different ways.

Read the post I linked to as a way to use either and notice how you can really organize your followers as well as different streams of information. The organization and search capabilities really make Twitter so much more useful.

KarenB
06-20-2009, 08:20 PM
One fun one that I didn't see on the list is TwitterGrader.com (http://www.twittergrader.com). All you need to do is enter your Twitter username and it gives you your 'ranking' or 'grade' on Twitter. I found this one to be fun.

Socialtoo.com (http://www.socialtoo.com) is another useful tool that allows you to automatically follow people who follow you.

It also (for a one-time fee of $20) sends you an email that tracks all your new followers and all those that stop following you within the previous day. They also guess possible tweets that may have caused the follow or unfollow, along with providing stats about each user, allowing you to follow or unfollow straight from the e-mail.

The reason I like this feature is that it helps to determine which of your tweets are actually attracting followers and which ones are not. As a marketing tool (if you're an avid Twitter user) this may be helpful in determining your future strategy in terms of what you might 'tweet' about.

Karen

Patrysha
06-21-2009, 09:24 AM
See, I don't want to automatically follow those who follow me. A great deal of them are losers who either retweet the same message over and over again, or are following zillions of people but have no tweets and no picture. Then there are the porn tweets that I don't want associated with me. They can go follow my husband if they want to...well they could if he had a twitter account...but not me.

But then I hate those auto dms too...

vangogh
06-21-2009, 12:56 PM
The ranking tools can be fun. I'm not sure how meaningful they are, but they can be a way to find more influential people, depending on what they measure.

I'm not a fan of the autofollow either. I think they're tending to pollute Twitter. People now send out follows en masse and hope that the people they follow have the auto follower set. There are many using Twitter who think it's all about having more followers than the next person when it really isn't. I'd rather people follow each other because they're interested in what that person has to say or they'd like to get to know that person.

jazzdrive3
06-21-2009, 05:00 PM
Lots of twitter spam out there for sure. You really only want to follow people you actually know, and then tweet good content: followers will come with time. It's like anything worth doing: it takes time and effort.

vangogh
06-22-2009, 11:41 AM
Agreed, though I would ammend that it's ok to follow people you don't know. I think it's a good idea to follow people you are interested in knowing or who have interesting things to say. I'd also add that Twitter can be a good way to meet new people interested in the same topics you are.

But, yeah, you don't need or even want to follow just anyone.

KristineS
06-22-2009, 12:52 PM
Definitely don't follow anyone. I've been quite discriminating about the people I follow. As a result, I don't have thousands of followers, but I do have a good group who says interesting things. To me that's worth far more than being able to say I have thousands of followers.