4 Killer Apps to Save Time and Effort – Making Twitter User Friendly (By Luthando)

Have you ever thought that the Twitter user interface is just awful? Do you think that you cannot do enough quickly to make it worth your while to use Twitter as a marketing tool?

Well all that is about to change. There are over 70,000 registered Twitter applications to choose from, all of which designed to enhance your Twitter experience.

I have trawled through forums and other sources and have found four to let you know about. I will introduce each of them, let you know where to get hold of them, and what features they have that will revolutionize your Twitter experience.

Application 1: TweetDeck.

You need to down load and install this application from the link below.

It is available for Mac, PC, Linux, iPhone & iPod Touch and iPad.

When installed & opened the application as delivered (desktop version) comes with four columns displaying.

From left to right these are All Friends, Mentions, Direct Messages & TweetDeck Reccomends.

Unsurprisingly the “All Friends” Displays Tweets from everyone you are following.

The “Mentions” column… In Twitter a mention is any Twitter update that contains @username in the body of the tweet. TweetDeck collects all of your mentions and displays them to you in this column.

The “Direct Messages” column displays all of your direct messages.

The “TweetDeck” recommends column – Twitter can seem like a lonely place when you’re first starting out. Fear not, help is at hand in the new version of TweetDeck with the new ‘TweetDeck Recommends’ column.

TweetDeck Recommends makes it easier for Twitter newbies or veterans of the Twitterverse alike to find new and interesting people to follow. TweetDeck have hand picked people they find interesting, thought provoking, or even laugh out loud funny.

TweetDeck is highly configurable and features like new Tweet notifaction sound, display etc can be adjusted or turned off. While working I found that have the ‘bell’ and notification pop up appearing every few seconds was irritating, so I just turned them off.

One of the configurable aspects of TweetDeck is the ability to add another column. My personal favourite is the TwitScoop column – this pulls information directly from the TwitScoop website. This allows you to get an over view on what’s currently being Tweeted right now, divided into two sections what’s Buzzing and what’s trending. This is a very useful tool for keeping your finger on the pulse of the TwitterVerse.

This application is free and can be down loaded from http://www.tweetdeck.com.

Application 2: Twhirl.

This application is free – just use a search engine to search for Twhirl and down load it from their home page.

It is another popular desktop client for Twitter.

Twhirl is much smaller than TweetDeck and doesn’t have as many features, but it does give you a small compact application to tweet and follow your tweet stream.

Twhirl will also let you know when you have new messages. It also has a search feature. It also allows you to keep track of some other social networking sites such as Friendfeed, laconi, ca and Seemic. Twhirl will cross post to Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn as well.

Both TweetDeck and Twhirl have built in link-shorteners, which shrink a link to help accommodate your 140-character limit on Twitter. These are only two of the various desktop clients you can use for Twitter.

Application 3: Formerly TweetLater now SocialOmph.

There are both free and paid versions available from http://www.socialoomph.com

This is a popular service for scheduling tweets.

SocialOmph lets you set up a tweet or a series of tweets and schedule them for broadcast later.

SocialOmph will also let you automatically follow anyone who follows you and you can even automatically send a welcome message to your new followers.

Application 4: SocialToo

SocialToo is a web based service – just use a search engine to search for SocialToo and sign up!

SocialToo is your companion to the Social web! SocialToo helps you manage Twitter and Facebook and unclutters your stream and Social Graph so you can focus on what’s most important – relationships!

* Auto Follow – SocialToo can help you to automatically follow those Twitter accounts that follow you, within 24 hours.

* Follower Synchronization – If you have been using Twitter for a while and just joined SocialToo, you can catch up your followers for a one-time fee of only $5, and your list will be in sync.

* Block Automatic Direct Messages (DMs) From Other Services – Getting annoyed by all the automatic DMs generated by other services? Block them by just the check of a box.

* Social Surveys – SocialToo offers a robust set of online survey tools, where you can create and send polls to Twitter and other social networks, customizing the message.

SocialToo also offers a Facebook Service.

So sign up or download any one of these applications now and revolutionize your Twitter experience.

Source: www.askpaccosi.com