TreyMarkel

Twitter is all over the place right now. I remember when the start-up social media site first hit the streets. It was kind of a simple copy of Facebook’s status update functionality. You could update all your friends on what you were doing or thinking at that very minute. I was definitely one of those people who told myself “There is no way this company is going to take off like Facebook. I mean who on earth wants to know what you are doing at this very minute in 140 characters?” Clearly, I was dead wrong as were many other Internet users. With the expansion and success of Twitter not only for personal use but for business use, it’s a bit tough to manage all those tweets and followers you may have simply using the user interface that http://www.twitter.comoffers. I have a solution for all you big tweeters out there. Whether you’re getting into Twitter for the first time or you are a user for several months, here are a few programs that I use to efficiently manage my Twitter account.

TweetDeck - TweetDeck is a program that you can download on your desktop or laptop that manages your entire Twitter account through one easy-to-use dashboard. TweetDeck allows for you to manage your tweets, other Twitter users that re-tweet your Twitter posts, direct messages from other Twitter users, and twitter users that Twitter says you should get to know. You can manage these areas in any which way you would like. TweetDeck has a cool functionality where if you are working on a Powerpoint at the office and someone who you are following posts a new tweet, it pops up on the right upper hand side of your computer screen. From this little box you can re-tweet that post, or reply to that post, and even send that twitter user a direct message.

UberTwitter – UberTwitter is a cell phone application that allows you to view your followers Twitter posts along with your own Twitter posts all through your cell phone. I have the Blackberry Tour and I use UberTwitter as my cell phone app and it’s awesome. Because your particular followers are tweeting all day every day, you can set your cell phone so that it only updates you about new tweets every hour, or every 5 minutes etc. You can also manage the settings so that when you post a new tweet using your cell phone, people who are following you can see where you are. If you’re in New York city and you post a tweet from your cell phone using UberTwitter, your followers can see that you posted that tweet from New York city. It’s pretty cool. Great cell phone app.

LocalTweeps - If you are a local business then I would assume you rely on consumers or businesses in your local community for your revenue. If you’re using Twitter, you can use www.localtweeps.com to find other Twitter users in your local area and within the same industry. This allows for you to create relationships with these Twitter users and potentially use them to help grow your business. On the reverse end of that, you can help them grow their business in your local community. TwellowHood is another great tool that allows you to find Twitter users in a certain city or region in the world that matter to you. You can go to www.twellowhood.com to use this tool.

I have formed all kinds of wonderful relationships using Twitter. I met Anita Campbell at SmallBizTrends on Twitter who is a small business advocate here in the United States. She got to know me and then invited me to be one of her expert guest speakers on one of her Verizon sponsored webinars.  It’s all about relationships and Twitter can help you form those relationships.