Day by day more and more businesses are discovering that Twitter is a great way to connect on a more personal level with customers and even employees, and also to drive word of mouth and to help build their brand.
There are lots of Twitter tools, apps, software programs and services available to help you manage tour Twitter experience.
Here are a few tools and tips you can use to help you enhance your twitter skills. All over the world business professionals are using them to achieve Twitter success.
The Hashtag: The Hashtag symbol (#) is used before a relevant keyword or phrase (no spaces) within a Tweet to categorise that tweet and aid these keywords showing more easily in a Twitter Search. Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all the other Tweets marked with that particular keyword. Hashtagged words that become very popular are referred to as “Trending Topics”.
TwitterFox: This Firefox web browser plugin allows you to view tweets within your web browser (within a compact popup menu) thereby eliminating the need to constantly go to Twitter.com to see the latest tweets from those you are following.
TweetLater: This efficient service allows you to schedule tweets (much like you would schedule alarms) which would be posted at times/intervals which you determine beforehand. Another very powerful feature is the ability to receive email digests of keyword activity in the “Tweetosphere,” which allows you to join a conversation or track particular topics and trends.
Ping.fm: For users who have accounts with several social media services, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, this amazing site allows you to post updates across ALL of your social media sites in one single step.
Twitter for Facebook: If you are on Facebook (seems like a weird question these days doesn’t it?) this application forwards your Twitter updates directly to Facebook as status updates.
Finally, if the constant stream of updates and plethora of links on your screen overwhelms you when you first log on, here’s some advice from one of the leading authorities on Twitter, author, journalist and revered marketing consultant, Chris Brogan who says, “Most people who see Twitter the first time either immediately ‘get it’ or they say ‘why bother?’ They believe one should read every single update that rolls across their screen. Don’t!!! Just let it roll past like a stream,” and if the author may so add, “cupping your palms to scoop up the information which appeals to you most and which you can most utilise to broaden the reach of your business.”
