Summary:

These days everyone is either on Twitter or knows what Twitter is. Digital Landing helps uncover some of the many uses for Twitter and the ways to utilize this hot social medium.

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As Esther Schindler wrote in her earlier article on Twitter, "Twitter is like hanging out in a very cool restaurant that's frequented by interesting people." Twitter can be a great tool for news junkies, media hounds, bloggers and anyone who just wants to keep tabs on what's going on in the world. However, trolling through the sea of feeds can be tricky, so the first thing to master is Twitter Search.

 

Hashtags (like #oscars) grow organically for popular topics, and keyword searches work just like in Google. Twitter now lists top trending topics so it's easy to follow what's going on by looking on the Twitter site vs. initiating a bunch of searches. Instead of webcasts, there are now tweetcasts, organized by hashtag, set at certain times of the week, usually for an hour, like #editorchat for editors and #journchat for journalists. Those can also be followed through Twitter Search. And for watching events unfold online, Twitterfall is a great - it shows tweets coming down the screen, like a waterfall.

Configuring Twitter

Most regular Twitter users create custom backgrounds with images, and some hire designers to create backgrounds for them, listing their contact information or other information about them on top of the Twitter backgrounds. PrettyTweet is one site that configures backgrounds for people.

 

And nearly everyone has a photo or avatar. Twitter's importing process can be buggy at times and often requires images to be uploaded 2-3 times before they'll work properly, but once they're in, they provide a great way to personalize Twitter feeds. For those who want avatars, a wide range of sites build them - just search 'twitter avatars' in any search engine.

 

A few other internal Twitter tips: for those who have a lot of feeds coming directly to mobile devices, it's possible to turn off phone tweets with 'off' or set for certain hours in Settings. Most importantly, make sure all Twitter feeds have a URL and One Line Bio written so people who look up the account can find out what to expect from becoming a follower.

 

Twitter also has widgets for browsers and other major social media sites, like Facebook and MySpace. It's also possible to link up Twitter and Facebook so they automatically send messages back and forth.

Twitter Applications

Some of the most major applications can be found on the Twitter Downloads page.  Of the most popular Twitter applications, TweetDeck may be the most popular to date. It can be run on Windows, Linux or the Mac, and it allows for grouping of followers by category and it's integrated with Twitter image software as well. Like Seesmic Desktop and many other desktop Twitter applications, Tweetdeck is built on top of the Adobe Air platform, so Adobe Air must be installed first.  For business use, Cotweet is the standard-bearer, allowing for multiple users on one account at the same time.

 

Other popular downloadable desktop Twitter apps that make using Twitter a little easier include Peoplebrowsr, Hootsuite and Tweetvisor, all of which are web-based. Tweetvisor's interface provides simultaneous views of tweets, @replies and direct messages all on one screen, which is a nice change from constantly toggling. On the Mac, Tweetie and Nambu are two sleek programs. Tweetie allows for multiple account viewing for people have work and personal Twitter accounts and want to maintain them simultaneously.

 

In the mobile world, Twitter applications have sprouted for every kind of device. Twitterberry may be the most commonly used, but users report it needs some improvements. Twibble is another option, and UberTwitter is becoming more popular. For Windows Mobile users, check out TinyTwitter, ceTwit, probably the most full-featured option, and Quakk, an open source application. Finally, iPhone users have a wide range of options that can be found through the App Store. The most popular apps are Tweetdeck, Tweetie and Twitterfon. Tweetie and Tweetdeck are both full-featured and allow for image inclusion via yfrog or twitpic. On the Palm Pre, Tweed and Spaz were named as two great choices.

Advanced Twitter Tools

For those who want to know more about their Twitter usage, run statistics and analyses, aggregate social media feeds, or compare their accounts to others, there are a lot of more advanced tools out there.

 

For bloggers and heavy social media users, FriendFeed aggregates all feeds - everything from Amazon and Yelp reviews to blog posts (and of course Twitter) and allows posting to Twitter as well. Twitterfeed takes the work out of remembering to tweet after putting up a blog post, by automating the process. And other favorites by tech-savvy social media types are Posterous and Lazyfeed. EasyTweets is a good option for businesses, posting automatically to Twitter feeds, with its cost varying depending on number of feeds, accounts, and continuous searches.

 

To manage followers, Twerp Scan makes things much easier by providing a simple, fast interface for reviewing followers and those being followed 'friends'. Cleaning out spammers and such is a piece of cake with Twerp Scan. To find others worth following, Mr. Tweet provides recommendations based on keywords and WeFollow has built lists by topic, so designers can follow other designers, for example.

 

For statistics and analysis, there's no one-stop shop, but the tools that are out there do an impressive job of aggregating data from Twitter. Want a reminder when a major milestone like 200 or 1000 followers is near? Tweet Counter will send out alerts. Twitter Analyzer builds impressive graphs of usage, based on keywords, hashtags, @'s and more. TweetStats graphs tweets based on hourly, daily, and monthly usage. TwInfluence does that as well, and reports as to relative influence of the user. Twitterholic tracks followers, friends and updates over time, and Twitalyzer analyzes overall influence, retweets, references and mentions. Twitalyzer Pro, the paid version, shows top influences in the network of the account reviewed and provides tips and analysis for improvement. Twitterank uses a sophisticated algorithm to determine how users compare to each other, based on a point scale. Twitter Grader gives grades on a 100% scale based on number of followers, update reency, power of followers, engagement level and follower/following ratio.

Money and Twitter

The big question that's been in the media recently is how people will use Twitter to make money. For marketers and advertisers, apps have been built around Twitter for those purposes as well. Several ad networks have been built around Twitter, including Twittad, TweetROI, Magpie and Izea. Each is a little different in approach, but the bottom line is that advertisers pay through these engines to be mentioned by users on Twitter.

 

For Twitter payment processing, aka T-Commerce, two simple sites have evolved. Twitpay, built on the RT2Buy system, allows Twitter users to process payments through PayPal. Tipjoy makes it easy to pay other users or to receive payments, through a new command of 'p $n @user' after a brief setup process. It can be used for anything from giving a gift to a friend to launching a major online fundraising initiative.

More Resources

For more Twitter resources, including applications, plug-ins, articles and more, see the full list used for researching this article, the Twitter Fan Wiki, and Alltop's Twitter page.