TweetDeck, arguably the most popular desktop app for managing all things Twitter, just landed in the App Store. It’s free. And it’s a winner.
Like its desktop counterpart, TweetDeck for iPhone and iPod Touch relies on customizable columns: one each for things like replies, direct messages, searches, and friends. You swipe back and forth between the columns using your finger, then tap one to bring it to the fore.
(Is it heresy to say the interface reminds me a bit of the Palm Pre’s “cards”? Well, sorry, but it does.)
Needless to say, the app lets you tweet, retweet, send direct messages, e-mail tweets, and mark tweets as favorites. It also supports multiple Twitter accounts; each one gets its own column(s).
Too bad you can’t set up separate batches of columns for each account, as you can easily end up with column overload.
TweetDeck’s slick, column-driven interface is a delight.
TweetDeck does let you create user groups for following friends. You can also search, save your searches, and tweet photos by way of Twitpic or YFrog. It’ll even shorten URLs, though I couldn’t figure out how to make this work.
(I’ll fess up to being stupid if someone will explain the feature in the comments.)
If you’re already a TweetDeck user, you’ll be glad to know the app syncs with the desktop version, and will even pull in your Twitter account settings if you’ve already configured them.
Though TweetDeck did crash a couple times during my tests, there’s no doubt in my mind that it’ll quickly become a favorite among Twitter users. Its slick interface and thoughtful feature set have already earned it a permanent spot on my iPhone.
Rick Broida, a technology writer for nearly 20 years, is the author of more than a dozen books. In addition to writing CNET’s The Cheapskate blog, he oversees BNET’s Business Hacks. Rick is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CBS Interactive. Disclosure. Deals found on The Cheapskate are subject to availability, expiration, and other terms determined by sellers. Follow Rick on Twitter at cheapskateblog.
I have been talking about the power of TWeetdeck to manage your Twitter marketing. I will be on a short vacation. In the meantime, I will share a couple of excellent articles about the how to use Tweetdeck. Enjoy and prosper.
Tweetdeck Explained by Rich Hopkins
If you haven’t tried TweetDeck, you either haven’t tweeted long enough, or you’re dutifully using Twitter in the way they intended. The craze called Twitter has more than doubled in the last 12 months, and is expected to grow exponentially in 2009. Why? Because most of us are using it wrong!
What Twitter brands as “a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” is now what its market has demanded: a micro-blog twisted with instant messages along with sides of marketing, sage advice, and outbound links – all thrown into a free buffet, available for anyone to partake a plateful.
Twitter itself has yet to adapt to this ‘abuse’ of its systems, and despite reduced appearances of its ‘fail-whale’, other applications, including TweetDeck and Twhirl, are filling the void Twitter has left for high-volume users.
Once you’re following hundreds, or thousands, of fellow Twitterers, the need to hit the refresh bar makes you feel like a lab rat continually tapping for its dinner. Using AdobeAir (a separate, free program nearly as easy to install as Acrobat Reader), Twhirl and TweetDeck both resolve that issue, creating a constantly running faucet of tweets. Both allow you to separate Direct Messages and @Replies, see the string of tweets from an individual user, and tweet within the application itself, without ever going to your browser.
I used Twhirl for the first two months of serious tweeting (like many, I had a mostly unused account for several months, before finally getting hooked). It was small, quick, and easy. Until I started following 300+ individuals, and had regular conversations with dozens at once. As I moved from the hundreds to thousands, Twhirl wasn’t enough. A quick complaint in the TweetStream later, I had many friends suggest I upgrade to TweetDeck. I resisted for a few more weeks, but eventually succumbed to the pressure of inconvenience and peer influence.
It didn’t take long for me to realize I’d gone from a plate to a platter.
The primary benefits of TweetDeck are its ability to show you everything you want to see at once, in an organized column format. It defaults with columns of @Replies, DM’s, and AllFriends. You can keep or delete those columns (and bring them back again if you choose).
Its power becomes apparent when you start creating your own columns. This allows you to ‘file’ your follows. Want a steady stream of life coach tweets? Hit the ‘group’ button, and select all the life coaches you follow. Repeat to create columns of IT folk, speaker coaches, celebrities, artists, family and friends – and organize the columns on your screen by moving them left or right. If you have 10 columns built, just use the slide bar. If you keep TweetDeck running, it keeps a long record of tweets, allowing you to go to a column after days away, and catch up. Caution: while friends, DM’s and @Replies are default settings, if you delete a custom column you must recreate from scratch – so think carefully before hitting that delete button!
TweetDeck also allows you to isolate individuals you follow by clicking their name at the bottom of a tweet, giving you a list of their stats and a log of recent tweets. Did your friend just @Reply someone you don’t know? Click their name in the tweet and they will show up as well, allowing you to follow, and even assign them to a column of your choice.
Looking for people talking on a particular topic? Create a search column on your term, and see a stream of Twitterers perfect for your list.
Other features include an automatic ‘12 seconds’ column, which interfaces with the micro-video blogging application, a scoop button which creates a cloud of what is hot on Twitter at the moment, and also has standard buttons allowing you to reply, direct message, and favorite, both on top of the application, and appearing when you hover over an avatar.
TweetDeck does have some downsides. It takes up more space (though you can create a single column view). It doesn’t allow for multiple accounts, a feature Twhirl offers. While having little to do with functionality, many people complain its just ugly. While the blocky skin seems unavoidable, custom colors are just a few clicks away (hit the wrench at the top-right to play with settings).
I have found TweetDeck enhances my ability to converse through Twitter by refining my focus. Instead of a meal that is thrown together willy-nilly, I can keep my veggies separate from my fruit, and experience the different flavors of those I follow with greater intensity and appreciation. Just in case I need Tweet-binge, the All Friends column sits waiting.
If you’re one the hundreds of thousands using Twitter ‘wrong’, give TweetDeck a seven-day shot. You never know what you’re missing until you’re not!
About the Author: Rich Hopkins is a presentations coach, speaker, and the author of Win, Place & Show, He is a two-time finalist in the World Championship of Public Speaking, and has been addicted to twitter as @RichHopkins since September of 2008. He can be reached at www.richhopkinsspeaks.com.
If you have used the Twitter tools discussed in previous posts, you should be experiencing an increase in your Twitter followers. Now you have a new problem. How do you manage all of the new people and conversations on Twitter?
For a long time, I did what most newbees do. I clicked on the Outlook emails I received about new people following me. This took me to their profile. I would read their bio and if it sounded interesting, I would click on their link to learn more about the person. Each of these clicks was time consuming and each of these clicks took me further away from my starting point in Outlook. It would take me several clicks to get back to Outlook where the process started all over again. There is no way I could continue this type of Twitter involvement. TweetDeck is a tool that solves this problem.
TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more on one screen. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organised and up to date. Here are some of the functions that TweetDeck offers you. Click on any one of these to learn more about them.
Tweetlater.com is another useful tool for managing your Twitter account. Tweetlater.com which has been purchased by socialoomph.com is a great tool for boosting your productivity. I use it for three functions.
Keyword Alerts Search. I put into this function the key words I want to watch on Twitter. For example, I put in “website development”. Tweetlater will send me an email each week with the Tweets that have “website development” in the Tweets. I look at these Tweets and the bio’s and decide about my follow up. I have made some wonderful connections using this function. Just like Google Alerts, it works while I sleep!
Automatically sending direct messages to new followers. Did you ever call someone on the phone and it just rings and rings? You find it rude that someone doesn’t have a voice answering machine. Use Tweetlater to create an automatic message for new followers. To me this is like a voice answering machine. It says I got your message and here is my message. I use a simple “Thanks for the follow. I look forward to your Tweets and insights”. You can put controls on who you want to atomically follow and who you would like to ignore. Again it works while I sleep!
Schedule my Tweets. There are times and days when I know that I will not be active on my computer. I still want to keep my Twitter presence. I can do this by scheduling my Tweets for when I am away from my computer. I use 5-10 of my favorite Tweets and pre-schedule them for specific times. Tweetlater will automatically publish the Tweets at the schedule times. This is not spaming. At any point in time, there are new people on the Twitter stream. Why shouldn’t them see my quality Tweets?
Tweetlater has a number of other functions. It’s a free tool so go ahead and give it a try and see how it can give you better management over your Twitter marketing. www.tweetlater.com
Get more Twitter followers by following leaders in your industry. Sound like a good strategy. If you are like me, you know the names of a few of these leaders but you are not sure how to proceed in finding and following them.
What if you could get help finding these leaders in your industry and even get recommendations on who you should follow? Http://WhoShouldIFollow.com is a free tool that does this for you and more. Click on Http://WhoShouldIFollow.com, type in your Twitter name and you get an initial list of people you should be followed based on your Tweets and your Bio.
When you click on a person on the list provided, it will tell you how many people they are following and how many followers they have. It will also tell you how often they Tweet and how often they reply to Tweets. You can click on a button called Follow and you automatically become a follower of the person. Right below the person picture, you have another option, “See More Users Like XYZ?” Click on this and another list of participants appears based on their similarity to the person.
When I typed in my Twitter name in to the Http://WhoShouldIFollow.com program, an immediate list came up. While I didn’t recognize some of the names, their Tweets look interesting. I check out some of their activities on Twitter and selected a few to follow. Than I selected “See More users like XYZ” and a complete list of the top internet marketing people emerged. It was a very simple matter for me to click Follow and now I follow the top people in my industry.
Within a day, I received over 50 people following me on Twitter. Reviewing their bio’s, they were the type of people that I want to be with on Twitter. I continue to receive large numbers of new followers are a daily basis using Http://WhoShouldIFollow.com.
Http://WhoShouldIFollow.com is the best tool I have found for getting quality new Followers. Try it yourself. It’s cool.
In the next posts, I share with you details about the most popular Twitter tools. Use them to enhance your social media marketing.
Search.Twitter.com
When you think of the internet, what feature pops into your head? Searching for information. The ability of the internet to search for information on any topic is the internet’s greatest power. Now you combine the search function of the internet with the real time function of Twitter, and you take searching to a new level.
What is Search.twitter.com?
Search.twitter.com allows you to search for any topic and get real time answers. Many people use Search.Twitter.com instead of Google searches. Why? Instead of wading through hundreds of Google pages to find your answer, you get answers in real time from some of the millions of people who are actually on Twitter at any given moment. Want a recipe for acorn squash? Type in a search or a question, and within minutes people will provide you with squash recipes they have enjoyed.
How does Search.twitter.com help your social media marketing?
Marketing to everyone is business suicide! You want to search, find and connect with people who are potentially your best customers. You want to search, find and connect with people who have the problems your business solves. You want to search, find and connect with resources that can help your business. If you are a local business, you want to search, find and connect with people in your area.
Search.Twitter.com gives you these search abilities in real time.
Using the Advance Search function in Search.twitter.com, you put in key words, the types of people you want to find, places where these people live, a time frame and you can even look for negative or positive people around your key word search.
Like a Google search, you refine your search criteria until you get the right people for your business. Once you locate these people from their Tweets, you can Follow them or send a direct message (DM) Tweet introducing yourself as someone who can help.
You can repeat your searches many times, using different key words or other criteria. Since Twitter is an ever changing stream of Tweets, you tap into a group of potentially new customers each time you do the search.
Conclusion
Using the Search.Twitter.com function, allows you to focus and filter your efforts on Twitter. It helps you find the matches you want for your business. You no longer have to operate Twitter blindly.
Here’s the best part. You don’t need a Twitter account to use Search.twitter.com. It’s free. Just type search.twitter.com into your browser and follow the directions.
Online, Scott Tousignant was known as Doctor Fix in the weigh loss industry. As Doctor Fix, he offered an aggressive, sometimes harsh program to help people with their exercise and fat loss. He tolerated no excuses; no hand holding. Many people found his program the perfect medicine for their weigh loss problems.
Scott had a problem. He realized his Dr. Fix program attracted a group of customers that did not reflect his outlook on life and exercise. He believes exercise and fat loss should be a positive experience, a fun experience. Exercise should give your more energy and confidence rather than a task you must endure.
Scott used Twitter to change his business brand. He asked his followers what they wanted. He asked for their feed back. Based on what his followers were Tweeting, Scott developed a new brand, Fat Loss Quickie—The 10 minute man.”
He developed quick exercise programs people could use at their desks or home without any special equipment. Time is no longer an excuse. His Tweets were filled with positive thoughts about exercise and fat loss.
With his new brand, he got more affiliates to promote his business. Before affiliates were afraid to refer Scott because they worried about turning off their own customers. With the new brand, they feel comfortable recommending his program to them. Scott’s sales have increased.
Fat Loss Quickie attracts a new group of customers—one more suited to his own personality and beliefs about exercise and weight control. Scott’s own personal brand!
Scott gives much of the credit to Twitter. Along with his blog and videos, Twitter is his primary marketing effort. Twitter gives him the opportunity to listen to his followers and get input from them. Twitter comments are the driving force behind the success of his new brand.
Scott is proof that Twitter can be used to change or reinforce your brand. Check Scott out at www.Twitter.com/fatlossquickie
In the last post, I described the shift Twitter marketing has forced on business branding. We have moved from the traditional 3rd person business branding to the 1st person Twitter branding. In this post, I offer a way for you to create this 1st person branding so you can make your Twitter branding more effective.
Starting point
1st person branding starts with the core set of beliefs and convictions you have about your business. What drives you about your business? What makes you get up in the morning to do your business? What are your core set of beliefs and values? What are the emotional themes that spark your business fire? Let me use my own business as an example.
An Example
For me I love working with small business owners and entrepreneurs. This passion expresses itself in a number of themes. I believe that…
Clarity is power. Are you absolutely clear about your business offerings and the benefits they provide to customers?
Successful small businesses are built with a service mentality. Profits follow service.
The future belongs not to the biggest or the strongest but to those who are willing to adapt.
Existing customers are your gold mine for new sales.
Confused customers never buy. Keep your business simple and easy to understand.
The power of stories to sell and market.
In today’s digital world, establishing credibility is critical.
Give people what they want, when they want it and how they want it.
People buy from people they know, like and trust.
Marketing to everyone is business suicide.
Focus on that special something you bring to the table your competition cannot?
Business should be fun.
There are many ways I elaborate on these business beliefs. This is my business DNA. This is my personal brand.
Content of my Twitter Participation
When I am looking for content for my Tweets and responses, I share thoughts from myself or resources from other authors that touch on the one or another of these themes. I may use different language but essentially I use the same 6-8 themes over and over again.
It is easy for me to use them over and over again in different formats because they are what I believe about my work with small business owners. When I share them with others, the juices begin to flow. I get excited because they are so near and dear to my heart. I am sharing my brand with them.
Getting Rejected…
Will everyone accept this brand? No. That’s ok. I cannot market myself to everyone. Some will accept; others will reject. All will feel the passion I bring to my business.
Conclusion
You will have your own set of beliefs about your products and services. Identify your own emotional themes around your business and begin sharing them as part of your Twitter content. People will feel your passion and your Twitter marketing will be more effective.
In the next post I will show you how Scott transformed his Twitter Brand.
Twitter has changed the rules for business branding. A shift has occurred. Traditional branding is a 3rd person experience. Twitter now makes this a 1st person experience. In this post, I will show some of the new rules for branding on Twitter. Enjoy and prosper.
Traditional Branding 3rd Person
Traditional business branding is a 3rd person experience. You looked at your business to identify what is unique and special about it. How is your business different from your competition? What is your unique sell proposition (USP)? When you uncovered this difference you find ways to express it in colors, in logos, in a short tag line that captures this business difference. “When it positively, absolutely has to be there over night” Federal Express.
Twitter 1st Person
Twitter shifts business branding to the 1st person. The goal of Twitter marketing is to create awareness and build relationships. Your Tweets, your responses are no longer places for the hard sells, for marketing manipulations. You are a participant along with thousands of other participants on Twitter. By sharing in conversations with others, you let them get to know you, like you and trust you. These conversations have the power to lead to business relationships with others on Twitter.
On Twitter, your personal qualities are more important than the qualities of your business. So how do you build your brand under the new rules?
You start b y identify your passions about your business; your set of beliefs, your values. What excites you about your business? What drives you about your business? What are the emotional sparks that connect you and your business with others? Look for these emotional themes from within yourself. Since there is only one you, you have no competition.
A Subject Near and Dear to Their Heart
Did you ever have a conversation with another person about a subject that was near and dear to their heart? You could feel their passion about the subject. Their gestures became animated. You could hear and feel the energy in their voice. You might disagree with them but there was no doubt about the power that resonated from them as they talked with you.
These are the types of conversations you want to share with your Tweets and responses on Twitter. It’s your passion, your core set of beliefs about your business, these emotional connections that should be your content. When you share this way on social media sites, people get to know you, like you and trust you. People follow people of conviction.
Conclusion
Twitter marketing and branding have shifted from the 3rd person to the 1st person. When you learn how to make this shift and share your personal convictions, beliefs and passion, your Twitter marketing will become more effective.
In the next post, I will show some of the practical ways to make this shift.
Rick Broida, a technology writer for nearly 20 years, is the author of more than a dozen books. In addition to writing CNET’s The Cheapskate blog, he oversees BNET’s Business Hacks. Rick is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CBS Interactive. Disclosure. Deals found on The Cheapskate are subject to availability, expiration, and other terms determined by sellers. Follow Rick on Twitter at cheapskateblog.
Tweetlater.com is another useful tool for managing your Twitter account. Tweetlater.com which has been purchased by socialoomph.com is a great tool for boosting your productivity. I use it for three functions.
