Twitter is both fun and useful, although users can be much more productive by taking advantage of some of the fine third party apps built on the Twitter API. Here’s 10 add-ons that any business user might want to consider using to be more productive.
Do you ever wonder the age old question, who unfollowed me on twitter? Wonder no more! We allow you to easily check your unfollowers on your schedule, every 15 minutes, without waiting for an email or a direct message. A pro version is also available to automatically check and report on your unfollowers. What’s the use… well, if anything its fun to know and its also useful to detect people that simply jump on and follow you to try and increase their auto follow back numbers.
Twitter Follow Finder by Google
An Interesting app that suggest Tweeps that you might wish to follow – based on similar interests . The app analyzes a social graph based on a number of parameters and suggests additional followers. You don’t need to use your twitter name, for example, enter GISuser and you’ll be returned with a wealth of information on other GIS Tweeps that are worth following (perhaps). The app returns tweeps you might "like" and tweeps with similar interest.
Highly under-used, Pegshot is an awesome way to checkin from places. Where it shines is for sharing digital media (photos and videos) as the app crunches data and uploads very fast… no more timing out when uploading a video clip… te perfect twitter holiday companion! For avid users you can also easily create a custom venue for twitter collaboration.
CoTweet is a comprehensive Web-based social media engagement, management and reporting solution that helps companies of all sizes engage, track and analyze conversations about their brands across the most popular and influential social communities today, Twitter and Facebook. CoTweet Enterprise Edition and CoTweet Standard Edition help marketers and customer support professionals manage their day-to-day social media conversations from a centralized, easy-to-use dashboard.
What’s the use of any company being on Twitter if you aren’t monitoring who’s talking about you? Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything, with hourly updates! You can even keep track of who’s tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL (like bit.ly or tinyurl.com).
For the user who checks in frequently. An interesting time lapse that paints a clear picture of your travels… great visuals used in the service via data from Cloudmade and OpenStreetMap. Finally, the app not only reports on my foursquare checkins, it also displays facebook Places and GoWalla checkins! This is ether way flipping cool, or perhaps the ultimate stalking tool… I’m not sure which!
Glenn Letham’s Checkins by WeePlaces.com.
Create a daily newspaper (html) from your tweets, a twitter list, or a twitter hashtag.. a fabulous resource! Some people find it a little too automated and a bit mundane, however, paper.li can help to keep tabs on your lists. Create a good list on a specific topic, create a paper,li, setup to auto post and tweet every day. You paper will update every 24 hours and people will appreciate getting a mention from you. A sample us for a company would be to create a list of clients or customers/users and share with the World.. your clients will love you!
Tvider is the simplest and fastest way to share pictures, videos and audio on Twitter from your mobile and computer. Idea for any power user who shares loads of digital media, this is ideal for a company rep to use when on location at an event. Upload and share live video feeds with your clients and customers.
Perfect for the Blackberry corporate user… bit.lify integrates bit.ly into your BlackBerry browser enabling you to easily to shorten and share urls on the go
Again, another great app for the business travel while on location at events… Speak your mind on Twitter! TweetMic is a simple and intuitive Twitter client app for the iPhone that allows you to make high-quality audio recordings or "Tweetcasts" and publish them directly to Twitter.
These are just 10 suggested apps that can help your company justify investing your time on Twitter (and social media in general). For more useful Twitter and social media tools see also the following resources:
- Social Networking and Social Location Services
- Twitter Tools and Add-ons
- Archive of GISuser social media and social location articles
- Twitter Social Location Check-in Clients and Supported Mobile Devices
- The social media strategy – a starting point
- 5 Popular Social Media Tools Used by Twitter experts
Tip from the author… Make sure you use a Twitter client that informs you when people @mention you or DM (direct contact) you. Consider also using Twitter Search (search.twitter.com) to search for your name, your company, and your brand. Again, your ideal Twitter client should support the creation of columns that deliver search results for specified terms – I use Tweetdeck Mobile on iPhone to creeate columns for specific keyword seaches, this is particularly useful during events…