Favourite Tools for Twitter
The great thing about Twitter is that it has been kept simple but given the freedom for many tools and applications to be created around it. The key is choosing to use the ones that have the right fit for you.
As a starting point these are some favourites:
Hootsuite is a social media dashboard, similar to TweetDeck. The preference I give to Hootsuite is purely personal – the layout and design is best suited to how I like to view things.
There is a free version of Hootsuite that allows you to have one person as an administrator and upload up to five different social media accounts. You can also upgrade to various professional packages that allow you to collate reports and have multiple administrators.
The main reason I use Hootsuite though is for its scheduling abilities. This is particularly useful with Twitter where it is common to post the same message multiple times over different days to try and ‘catch’ followers’ attention (see Tweetstats for the best times to Tweet).
This is a great tool that does what it says on the tin. It gives you statistics specifically related to a Twitter account. The part of it I get most use from is the graph that shows you when you followers are most active as this then gives a great indication as to the best times to Tweet.
It is also good for gathering statistics about who has retweeted and replied to accounts which helps with reporting.
There are many link shortening sites but bit.ly is one that has been around for quite a while and is simple to use. It is a great tool for Twitter where you are restricted on characters and has the added bonus of giving you the statistics relating to how many times the link has been clicked on.
This is another great little tool to help with Twitter. You can set up Twilerts quickly and easily for free for any word or subject. You can use it to track tweets about your organisation, tweets relating to what your organisation does or competitors. It can get a bit overwhelming but it great to use when you are setting up and growing a Twitter account to see what else is ‘out there’.
As I said there are many, many tools out there to help you to manage and monitor Twitter – it is really a case of trying them out and seeing what works best for you.
Why it is okay to share in social media..
The key to any successful social media strategy is in sharing good, relevant content.
This should be a combination of your own original content, either via images that you create or capture or through a blog, article, infographic or video. This will help to spread the message about what you do and also position you as a professional in your field. It can also help to push traffic to your website, blog, gallery or wherever you are keen for people to ‘land’.
Alongside this you should be regularly sharing the content of others. Social media relies on and is designed for sharing. By spreading the message of others you are helping to facilitate this and engaging on that platform. This should be a selfless act of sharing content that you find interesting and hope your fans/followers will find relevant. In turn others will share your content though and help to spread your message.
You should not be afraid or precious about sharing your content or others sharing it for you. This is what social media is all about. The days of controlling a message and being afraid of it getting into the ‘wrong hands’ are long gone. If you want to be successful in social media and use it to market yourself or your business you need to embrace this new way of thinking and working.
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