TweetDeck For Twitter - Some Strategies For This Powerful, Free Twitter App By Daniel Swindells

When I first started out on Twitter I was overwhelmed by the quantity of apps available, and while I still feel this way sometimes, it gave me far less headaches when I realised that the majority of all Twitter activity can be handled with two clients.

One to handle auto-tweets, auto-DMs, all the automatic operations to grow an account quickly, for this I use Tweet Adder (reviewed on my blog). The other main Twitter client is used to handle the personal interactions with the community, the replies, the retweets, the non-automated DMs. If you're not using the free software Tweet Deck for this, you're missing out on an opportunity to save a lot of headaches!

In this review, I'll be explaining Tweet Decks features with reference to the previous client I used instead, and discussing a couple of tactics I've been using effectively to build targeted followers for my E-marketing campaigns.

Tweet Deck vs. my previous client Twirl

I used Twirl before I found Tweet Deck, both are free, both have similar fundamental features, but right from the get-go it was clear that Tweet Deck was a lot better.

Firstly, look at how much better the appearance of Tweet Deck is. You can view multiple columns at once, not just showing the basics, your DMs and mentions, but for the time-line of hashtags, or lists you've created.

The biggest weakness of Twirl by comparison is that you can't select your categories. Two such categories show the time-line for your friends or followers, but this is pretty redundant for most marketers because of how many followers and friends get added. Most of us aren't going to randomly browse through thousands upon thousands of tweets. This is where Tweet Deck shines, because you can view the time-line of your lists.

'#Worldcup where buy merchandise -www -com -http -https'

Another useful tactic that works for Tweet Deck and not Twirl is loading hashtag groups, and this opens up a whole new level of utility for clients like this. One use of this is to scan trending groups for a particular field relevant to your marketing. So for example, people affiliate marketing #Worldcup merchandise were using this tactic recently to tap into large quantities of potential buyers. The real genius of the client is that you can select combinations of hashtag groups and words. So that marketer could have had a column for '#Worldcup where buy merchandise -www -com -http -https'. By removing the posts with links in, a vast proportion of the competition is removed, and that marketer can then @ people individually to suggest where to buy products.

This can be quite time consuming, and I'm told of products like Tweetomatic profiteer that will automate the process of @mentions to potential buyers. I'm also told of a lot of problems with this software.

Following back

Whether or not to follow back is a bit of a grey area, a personal preference. If you do this, you can add 'I followback' to your bio, encouraging people to follow you, and adding to the number of searches in Twitter directories such as Twello that find your profile.

If you follow back, you can use Tweet Deck to add groups such as #followback and #ifollowback to. People that follow back offer a great way to build your numbers fast.

Some marketers will frown on this because the users aren't targeted to a particular niche, and I accept this, which is why wether or not you try this should depend on the type of accounts you use. If the information has general appeal to social media users, you might find some customers this way.

If you're not happy with Tweet Deck, it's a lot more configurable than Twirl, special mention has to go to the specific set up options for using your Twitter API. Remember that the more columns you use, the more API you use up, so if like me, you like to leave 7 or 8 columns open, reduce these quantities here at the cost of slightly slower updates.

Conclusion

It really is amazing what you can get for free, Tweet Deck can do everything that Twirl can do and a lot more. The most important feature of all is the ability to combine hashtag group and individual word searches, and if you can harness this properly, you'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

If you want to read more about Twitter strategies, check out my blog below.

I intend to have articles on all parts of the Twitter functionality soon, hashtags, direct messages etc...I'm also adding Twitter app reviews. I update that blog daily so keep it in mind.

http://SocialMediaSocialMarketing.com

I'd love to discuss ideas with people, find me on Twitter: