As the world continues its transition to the digital space, the majority of companies have realized that social media is an essential piece of the marketing puzzle, Twitter being a key player. The site has experienced exponential growth over the past couple years, with 23.5 million unique visitors per month being reported in February 2010. While Twitter still has a long way to go to catch up to Facebook, it has proven itself as a powerful force in the world of real-time communications.
In order to take advantage of all it has to offer, we’ve come up with a key list of tools below:
Personalizing Your Presence
- In addition to maintaining a wide database of pre-made Twitter wallpapers that you can simply select to install on your account, Twitbacks also allows you to customize a background of your own. This website specializes in helping you create backgrounds featuring a left-hand column that may include your social networks, links, photos, an extended bio, phone number and more.
- MyTweetSpace is a user-friendly site that offers badges, fancy graphics and themes to help you personalize your Twitter presence. The standard backgrounds with badges are available for $5. In addition, the site offers backgrounds specifically customized for your business for a $79 fee.
Growing Your Account
- Known as the “Twitter Yellow Pages,” Twellow allows you to search for people on Twitter in specific categories, such as: Real Estate, Green, Football, Teachers, Fashion Design, etc. You can also register yourself on the site and select the category, or categories, that you fit in best.
- Nearby Tweets is a fun application that enables you to plug in your city, and see who is tweeting in your geographical area. While the standard public Twitter stream is bombarded with up to 12 million tweets per minute, Nearby Tweets gives you a microscopic view of who is saying what in your own community.
Platforms
Tweetdeck for desktop
- Tweetdeck is a popular Twitter publishing application that is available in both desktop and mobile versions. Having just topped 15 million downloads as of July 2010, theservice sends out approximately 4 million tweets and status updates every day. The value in Tweetdeck comes in the ability to customize your personal Twitter experience by creating different columns, groups, scheduled tweets and searches.
- Formerly Tweetlater.com, Social Oomph is a desktop-based application that is preferred by many due to the extensive number of features that it offers. The free version includes: scheduled tweets, keyword tracking, direct message inbox purging, extended Twitter profiles and the ability to save and reuse message drafts.
Analytics
- Twitalyzer is a free service that provides a high-level overview of where you fall in the Twitter-scape and how you are making an impact. When you sign in using your Twitter account information, the site generates a report that shows you your impact, engagement, clout, retweet ratio, follower statistics, personality and more. Twitalyzer also provides a section with recommendations for you to create a bigger impact on the site.
- TweetStats is a tool that allows you to take a broad look at how many tweets you are sending out monthly, daily and hourly, going back to the first tweet you sent during your first month on Twitter. Once you plug in your username, you will be provided with graphs and tweet clouds that offer an inside look into how you are using Twitter.
Linkedin
First of all, remember that social media works best when there is synergy. Simply put, social media comes best in pairs or more! Cyberspace is huge, but by utilizing multiple communication channels you will increase your chances of attracting people’s attention and interest.
