Twitter 101, Part 2
Part 1 was all about understanding Twitter, its benefits, and initial setup. Now it's time to introduce you to tools and resources that will help you make the most out of Twitter.
Part 1 was all about understanding Twitter, its benefits, and initial setup. Now it's time to introduce you to tools and resources that will help you make the most out of Twitter.
Last week’s “Twitter 101, Part 1” was all about understanding Twitter, its benefits, and initial setup. Now it’s time to introduce you to tools and resources that will help you make the most out of Twitter.
There are too many tools to review, with more coming out every day. My goal is to help you get started with the basics. Then you can use Twitter to help you find all the resources and tools that will make you a pro.
Tools for Managing Your Tweets
Managing your tweets can be a challenge. When I started using Twitter, I was unimpressed with the lack of tools and capability from Twitter’s site.
Most of us like to use an application like Microsoft Word, which is self-contained with all the right tools. Twitter is just the reverse. Twitter’s strength lies in utilizing all of the external tools and applications, each with their unique approach to enhancing your Twitter experience.
The first tool I’ll share with you is TweetDeck. This application allows you to view all of your friends’ tweets in a columned interface.
The neat thing about TweetDeck is that you can group your friends into themed columns. Looking at just one column of “all” of your friends tweets can be overwhelming. I like to create one column (or group) for search-related tweets, one for friends, and one for my favorite sport of cycling.
You can also perform a search of all public tweets for a given keyword or keywords, and save that search as its own column. That’s useful both for reputation management and for discovering users with similar interests as yours.
TweetDeck also provides a one-stop shop to help you craft your tweets, shorten your tweets to fit the 140-character allotment, and even translate tweets from another language.
Another notable tool to consider is twhirl, which has similar functionality, but at this point is not as versatile.
If you use an iPhone or have a smart phone that lets you surf the Internet, you’re in luck. Several tools will help you follow your tweets while you’re on the road. There are even widgets (Mac OS), sidebars (Windows OS) and other kinds of tools you can use. For a list of all of these tools go to the Twitter applications page.
Finding People and Companies on Twitter
The first place to start searching for people is Twitter Search. This allows you to find people you might want to follow, search by topic, or find a company.
Another useful site is Who Should I Follow? A good resource for more tools and tips is TopRank’s marketing blog post on “12 Ways to Find Brands and Companies on Twitter.” Lee Odden cover tools like WeFollow, Twellow, Twibs and provides more tips for finding people to follow.
Understanding the Lingo
Now that you’ve been armed with tools to get up and running, we’ll review a few simple terms you need to know. When I first started looking at tweets it seemed as if everyone was speaking in code. Let’s demystify some of the most common signs so it all makes more sense.
Twittonary and Sitemasher also provide explanations of various Twitter lingo.
Now that you’re armed with these new tools and a basic understanding of Twitter lingo, it’s time to take your tweets to a new level.
In Part 3, we’ll conclude this Twitter series by covering tips on how to tweet, tweet etiquette, and other resources to feed you twitter appetite. Again, feel free to follow me (@ron_jones).