Twitter 201: Top Five Applications to Amplify Your Marketing Efforts

If you haven’t already entered into the microblogging world of Twitter, read my previous post for a how-to guide. Once you’ve got the service down, and you’re regularly Tweeting at least a few times a day, you should begin to see a decent stream of traffic to your website and be engaged in some discussions with others in your network.

Now it’s time to take it up a notch.

You’ve probably heard of a few Twitter applications at this point. HootSuite, TweetDeck, and Tweetr all provide a more user-friendly interface to Tweet from. Some have features like scheduling Tweets and being able to log into multiple accounts at once.

Here’s my list of the most useful applications that can help with your business networking.

1. Twitter Tools on Wordpress
   

   If your company’s blog is hosted on Wordpress, I highly recommend installing this plugin. Once installed, each time you publish a blog post, it’s automatically fed into your Twitter feed. You can also opt to not Tweet the post by unchecking a box at the bottom of your WP posting form.

2.  Tweet This
   Similar to Twitter Tools, this plug-in works with your Wordpress blog. While Twitter Tools allows you to Tweet your blog post from the user interface, Tweet This lets your readers Tweet the post from their accounts, allowing for more dissemination of your blog posts and more exposure.
   
3. TweetStats
   

   Simply enter your Twitter username, and the application graphs your account information and trends. I learned that my highest Tweeting day is Thursday, and most of my Tweets hover around 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. It shows that 16% of my Tweets are @replies (which should probably be higher), and that I Tweeted 118 times in February compared with only 81 times in January.

   Why is this helpful? If you’re new to Twitter, like Bizmanualz is, it’s important to know where you’re lacking. Taking this information, I learned that I should probably throw out a few more Tweets midday-maybe I’ll reach a different audience. I should probably Tweet more Monday through Wednesday and reply to more friends’ posts. 

4. Twimailer
   

   Have you gotten into the habit of auto-following everyone who follows you? At first it seems like a good idea. You don’t have that many followers, and the more people you follow, the wider your network and reach will be. But … Bizmanualz publishes prewritten business policies and procedures-so why would we want to follow an Australian surfing blogger? At some point, your network will become diluted with people whose updates you don’t really read and who don’t read yours.

   When you sign up for Twimailer, instead of receiving the typical “so-and-so is now following you on Twitter,” you received a more detailed history, including their past 20 Tweets, number of followers and number of people who are following them. Then you can decide whether to follow them back.

5.  Twollow
   

   So I know I just said it was dangerous to auto-follow others. But there is a way to do so without diluting your conversation topics. Twollow lets you enter in specific keywords and choose to auto-follow anyone who Tweets those keywords. For example, I put in the word “Bizmanualz.” Twollow will automatically sign me up to follow anyone who is chatting about our company.

   You can also use this tool to follow the discussion on a list of keywords without actually auto-following. It’s a great substitute for search.twitter.com because you can see the results for many keyword groups at once, and Twollow saves your list of keywords.

Are there any applications you would add? Let us know!

About Bizmanualz
Bizmanualz has been at the forefront of deploying business best practices since 1995 delivering Policies, Procedures and Forms; quality systems implementation; and strategic business process improvement to help business owners achieve the growth and expansion they envision.

Learn more about Bizmanualz solutions:

• Policies & Procedures Manuals
• Strategic Process Improvement
• Quality Training Courses

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Posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 under Sales and Marketing, Social Media

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Originally published in 2009 by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title Twitter 201: Top Five Applications to Amplify Your Marketing Efforts. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted with attribution only. www.bizmanualz.com