Twitter Tools for business, research and ease!!

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Twitter is a phenomena in itself. There are hundreds of companies that have used its API and come up with their own 'Twitter Enhancement' tools. But in midst of these hundreds of tools which tools do you want to use or which tools are the best is a big question. At Conversations, we analyzed most of these tools and came up with our own list of the best tools in each class.


Following are some valuable tools segregated according to their functionality. Most of them are free but some advanced ones, especially in the CRM arena are not but nevertheless worth a click.


Desktop Twitter Clients


Many people use the Twitter homepage for tweeting. Indeed I do often as well but for many tasks, especially in a business context an advanced client indispensable. I have tried a dozen of them and these three are among the best for professional users.




  • TweetDeck, perhaps the most popular professional Adobe Air client for Twitter. Supports, searches, groups, multiple accounts

  • SeesMic is like Tweetdeck but less buggy and with a more polished interface. TweetDeck never really worked on my system.

  • Statuzer is similar to the above but with added multimedia support


Web Based Twitter Clients and CMS


Even with a desktop client like one of the above working in teams is difficult. Web based tools offer even more features for teams and companies



  • HootSuite, a web based Twitter CMS for companies

  • coTweet (Twitter CRM?) - coTweet has been hailed as a Twitter CRM app but it's basically a Twitter CMS with very basic CRM features

  • Twaitter allows team accounts, scheduled tweets, RSS integration etc.

  • Tweetvisor is a horribly cluttered but very powerful Twitter interface or web based Twitter client


CRM/Social CRM/TRM (Twitter Relationship Management)


In case you are serious about business you most probably use some kind of CRM tools for customer relationship management. Both CRM software makers and new kids on the block attempt to harness Twitter conversations to get more leads and organize a better customer service. CRM solutions supporting Twitter are still rare though. At least one, Axopt already disappeared.



Twitter Directories


One of the most common questions people new to Twitter ask is: Who to follow on Twitter? In order to some quick overview of who might be the right person to follow in your industry or niche you should check out Twitter directories like Twellow.



  • Twellow - Twitter "Yellow Pages", one of the oldest and most reputable Twitter user directories

  • JustTweetIt is a clean and web directory with many users, some of which I recognize. The top result for SEO, Dev Basu is a well known local SEO expert.

  • Geofollow - Location based Twitter directory covering the whole planet

  • Twibes is not really a directory it's rather a collection of Twitter groups based on interests


Twitter Enhancements


Twitter has only ver basic features, even Twitter clients offer only a few more. there are literally thousands of tools that enhance Twitter in one way or another. here I can mention only some notable among them that are ideyll suited for busines people.



  • TwitterLocal allows you to address local audiences via Twitter, ideal for small businesses

  • Social Oomph (formerly Tweet Later) is a tool with multiple features, some of clients some of extra tools, scheduling and automating tweets are just two of them

  • Twaitter is like Social Oomph but with less features which doesn't mean it's less useful

  • PingFM allows to submit links to Twitter, Facebook and numerous other services at once

  • PeopleBrowsr is a very powerful suite of tools for creating and addressing groups and beyond


Twitter Search and Monitoring Tools


Twitter users produce huge amounts of data you impossibly can be digest or overview as a human being. Even your followers tweets are too much in most cases. search and monitoring tools make sure that you don't miss something important.



  • Topsy finds and sorts most of your brand's mentions, tweets and links

  • Yahoo Sideline is a Adobe Air based desktop search tool for Twitter. It also displays current trends

  • Twilert - Like Google Alerts for Twitter mentions, catches most of them

  • TweetBeep - Similar to Twilert but less reliable. Good to find additional mentions Twilert overlooks but not enough on it's own

  • Radian6 - This is an advanced social media analytics suite with some Twitter tools also useful for CRM

  • Twitturly - shows the most popular Twitter links in a social news like interface

  • Tweetreach - Find out who really is your friend, or at least who spread your message the most


Blog Tools


Being on Twitter is good for business but integrating it into your website or rather blog is even better. Many tools attempt to do that but only a few of them are good enough for business users.



  • Twittercounter - A Feedburner like counter showing you the number of Twitter followers, SEOptimise uses one

  • BackType Plugins allow you a seamless Twitter integration into your blog

  • Twitter Tools by Alex King allows almost complete Twitter integration into your WordPress blog


We hope you find this relevant and useful to your business or work. Feel free to share it with your colleagues and peers.

1 comments:

Lauren Vargas said...

Thank you for including Radian6 in this list of listening and engagement tools.

Lauren Vargas
Community Manager at Radian6
@VargasL