Ten Cool Twitter Tools

In a previous article, I explained how Twitter is a great way to help yourself grow as a blogger, but now it is time to help you keep track of your Twitter account. These are some of the tools I have found very useful, and while not all of us have varying opinions on how useful Twitter can and will be, it is time to take advantage of social networking.

I find micro-blogging quite fascinating at the moment. Now it is time to help you keep track of your Twitter account. Just like all most aspects of blogging, there are tools to help you with Twitter.

These are some of the tools I have found very useful, and while all of us have varying opinions on how useful Twitter can and will be, it is time to find out what makes Twitter so fun and productive to use.

TwitterFeed—One of the more useful third-party applications, TwitterFeed provides users with the ability to import content feeds. This is great for promoting your blog(s); it could also have many other uses for those clever enough to exploit them.

TwitterFone—What’s better than texting to Twitter? Talking to Twitter might be it. There are a few quirks with this service, but it is great for those moments when you need to briefly Tweet about something. Voice recognition seems to work well.

Twhirl—I can’t prove it, but I am certain that Twhirl is the most popular third-party Twitter client available right now. It is multi-platform and it works well. Even I use it, and you should too.

TweetStats—Tech geeks and statistics freaks beware—TweetStats might just appeal to those statistical stats that you all desire. It is not directly useful or productive, but it can tell you how addicted to Twitter you really are. Maybe you’ll cut back on your usage after seeing the data.

Twitterholic—Who’s number one? Although I don’t particularly care, you might be well on your way to making this list, and if you are, it could be worth keeping tabs on. Feel free to send some of your followers my way!

Hashtags—One issue with Twitter is that it is difficult to find people talking about the same thing. This is no longer the case. Hashtags allows you to mark a post for inclusion within a conversation. Check it out.

AutoComplete—One of my most desired features with Twitter would be an auto-complete function; similar to what you’d get in a fancy HTML editor. Well, it isn’t supported in Twhirl just yet, but for those of you that use the web-based interface, this script called Twitter Auto Complete will have you covered. No longer must you struggle to remember your friend’s handles.

TrackThis—I tend to do most of my shopping online, and with that usually comes tracking numbers. Sometimes I’d need to check individual sites to remember tracking numbers, but other times I’d just completely forget. TrackThis allows you to have a service message you via Twitter of package updates, and this means no more having to check emails or sites to know where your stuff is located.

TweetBeep—TweetBeep is a tool that can alert you when certain keywords and/or domains are being discussed on Twitter. For example, I could set up an alert that would notify me when anyone links to Performancing, and I will be notified via email on an hourly or daily basis. This is a great resource for managing a smaller blog or tracking discussions relevant to you and your company.

TweetWire—A news tracking site for tweets? Wow! Okay, so it isn’t as good as The New York Times, but TweetWire is an interesting look at what people are talking about. It isn’t perfect, and I just noticed some weird stories continually showing up in a few sections, but when it is working, it is nice to glance through. With some massive improvements, I could see this service becoming fairly useful.

Got any cool tools that I missed? Let me know in the comments section!