It seems that every week, if not more often, someone is expounding the virtues of some new tool they use for managing Twitter. Checking them all out could almost be a full-time job in itself, so I thought I would save you some time and trouble by sharing a few tips on evaluating Twitter tools and letting you know which I’ve found most valuable.

Follow Janet on Twitter

There are tools to help you search the Twitterverse for people to follow, to learn about topics being discussed, for setting up auto-replies when someone follows you, to schedule your tweets to go out at a later time, and much more. Finding a service that will benefit you will depend on what you’re hoping to achieve, and what Twitter-related task is taking up too much of your time.

Many services will require you to enter your Twitter ID and password. Before you jump right in, make sure you do your due diligence, as not all Twitter tools are created equal! Check the site’s Privacy Policy and any other Terms and Conditions, and do a Google search on the name of the website or tool plus the word “security” to see if any issues have been reported. Too many people have found this out the hard way, after a particular site began sending out promotional tweets through their account against their will. Once you’ve entered your log-in information into a site, if you have any reason to feel that something’s not right, log into www.twitter.com and change your password right away.

Here are three services I’ve found to be quite useful:

TweetDeck

Working within the Twitter website can be overwhelming, especially if you’re following a large number of people, but with TweetDeck you can mark tweets as read and clear them off your screen, making it easier to keep track of those you still want to read. In addition, you can also reply to a tweet or retweet it simply by clicking a button, and it has a built in function to shorten URLs when a link will make your tweet exceed the 140 characters allowed. One other valuable function is the ability to create groups, which lets you separate tweets from certain people so they won’t get overlooked.

I change my groups from time to time, but I currently have these four:

  • My “A” list – these are people whose tweets I never want to miss
  • My “O” list – professional organizers and people in related industries, so I can stay on top of industry trends and generate ideas for blog posts
  • My clients – so I can stay on top of their activities, and retweet their posts when it’s appropriate
  • Locals – just like it sounds – people in my area – to stay on top of local news and events

By splitting tweets in this way, I can focus on one topic at a time. As I mark tweets as read, I can clear those from the default “All Friends” column, which I browse whenever my schedule permits. I try to check my groups every day, but it’s not realistic for me to try to read all tweets all the time - that could also be a full-time job!

Each column holds 200 tweets (this number can be adjusted by the user) so as new ones are added, the oldest ones drop off. When certain tweets include a link that sounds very interesting, so it doesn’t get dropped and forgotten, I mark it as a Favorite and return to it at a later time when I have more time to read it.

Tweepler

If you check a certain box in your Twitter profile, you’ll receive an email to notify you when someone begins to follow you. You can then check out their profile and decide whether you want to follow them back, and it’s a fairly quick process. At first I was doing this once or twice a week, but once I started getting several new followers per day, instead of being fun, it became just one more chore. I was therefore really pleased to discover Tweepler, a service that streamlines this function.

When you log into Tweepler, it brings up a detailed list of all the people who are following you. In addition to their screen name and real name (if they’ve entered it on their profile), the list includes the picture, web link and brief bio that appear on their Twitter profile. In some cases, that may be all you need to see to decide whether you want to follow them as well. If you need more information, you can view their average number of Tweets per day (I prefer not to follow people who tweet excessively) and their total number of Tweets; the current number of people they follow, number of followers, and the ratio; and their last three Tweets. If you’re still on the fence, you can click on a link to their profile to see even more Tweets and/or their website.

If you decide to follow that person, you simply click on the left arrow to add them to your Following list. If not, you can click on the right arrow to add them to your Ignore list. The Ignore list is available to you at any time, so it’s easy enough to review those followers again if you wish. Just a few seconds per Tweep, and you’re done!

By the way, there are people who say that it’s proper etiquette to always follow back, but I am not one of those people. There are many reasons for and against, but that’s beyond the scope of this article. Only you can decide what is best for you and the way you use Twitter.

Mr. Tweet

When you follow Mr. Tweet on Twitter, “he” will look at the people you’re currently following and the topics you tweet about, and recommend other users that might be a good match for you.

Mr. Tweet also has a feature where you can recommend people you follow and help them get discovered by others.

I haven’t used this one in a while, but it’s well worth going back to – and it uses OAuth, so you can be confident that your information is secure.

What Twitter tools have you tried? Please share your feedback – good and bad.