Top 5 Tools for Streamlining Twitter

Now that twitter has taken flight, there are dozens of tools available to streamline the process and make you more productive. If you are an avid Twitter user, these five tools will help you manage your Twitter accounts without tying up your entire day.

1. TweetDeck – This application works on your desktop. It allows you to manage your Twitter account without having to visit the site each time. You can create groups for friends, business associates or anyone else you like with this application. Best of all, TweetDeck works in the background and can be used offline at your leisure. Some cool things about TweetDeck to point out include:
   • The ability to post your Facebook status and keep up with your friends within your TweetDeck window.
   • You can group certain users together in one window so you don’t miss any tweets from them.
   • You have a separate window for your @ replies, direct messages and your main stream.
   • No need to refresh the page as it updates automatically for you and you can change the amount of time in between updates.
2. Twhirl – This handy tool also works on the PC desktop. Instead of spending most of your day checking and rechecking your accounts, this application notifies you when you have new messages. In addition, it shrinks long URLs to more manageable shorter ones for links in your tweets. You can search tweets for interesting new subjects and there is a spell checker included.
3. TweetLater – Just like the name says it allows you to schedule your Twitter messages much like an email system. If you are using Twitter for business, it is helpful to schedule tweet delivery, create draft tweets to be used at a later date, set up alerts such as notification when certain users send tweets and tracking users you want to follow.
4. TweeTake – It is always important to backup files that you might need later. Computers can crash at any time. With this tool, you can backup your Twitter information. Us it to backup files, documents and photos. You can save a copy of Twitter account information as well as your tweets and group lists just in case your computer decides to give up the ghost.
5. Twitterment – Well, Twitter has its own search engine as well. Use Twitterment to search for tweets using keywords or phrases. It’s also a buzz tracker to see what’s hot and what’s not in the Twitter universe.