The Ultimate Tweet Cheat Sheet

I’ll be honest, when I first heard about Twitter I laughed a little because it's such a simple-sounding social network that I couldn't believe so many people were using it, I just didn't think it would be very useful to me at all, especially with my business. But I created a profile and I gave it a try. It turns out that Twitter can be quite addictive, if you're not careful.

Luckily I was quickly able to get my hands on a whole set of tools to manage twitter so it works for my business without being so time-consuming. Here are some that I found helpful and have saved me a lot of time and stress:

Tweetlater: Allows you to do several things all on the same site.  Choose from a free version and a paid version; more robust features in the paid version, of course.

1. Schedule your tweets for release at a later time
2. Automate repeated tweets, schedule, and alternate  related tweets
3. Lets you automatically send direct messages to people who follow you
4. Tweet-cockpit lets you focus in on the people and topics of your choosing and filter out the rest
   

Open networker:  This one is not specific to Twitter, but is a program that allows you to get more followers to you without you having to go and search for them. It looks for people who are ‘open’ to following and being followed in return.  There is a free version of this program as well as a paid version.  Both will help you add followers and connect to people in Twitter as well as about 20 other high volume social media sites.

TwitPwr: Helps you generate short URLs to use in your tweets in order to conserve the 140 characters you are limited to.  One thing that sets TwitPwr apart from other URL shortening services is that you get an actual page for each shortened URL, so you are creating backlinks to the sites you shorten.  In addition, you get your own page, with a short profile, and your links list or at least the last 20.  Additional exposure for you and your business.

Twollo: Is a free service that lets you follow people in groups by a given topic, so you can access what you need without having to filter through everything that doesn’t pertain to your search.  Pick keywords that you're interested in and Twollo will find those wrokds in Twitter discussion threads and then follow those people for you, automatically.

My Tweet Space: Lets you spruce up your Twitter page with different backgrounds, colors and fonts. They give you the option of choosing from the free backgrounds they have available or they will make one for you for about $50.  Easy to use and it makes

SocialToo Gives you the option of ‘unfollowing’ people that don't follow you back; preserves your follow/follower ratio. Follow total cannot be more than 10% above follower total. Huitter is free - works if you don't have very many follows; SocialToo works with any number ($5 for this particular service, use it repeatedly with no further charge).  SocialToo has several other features that can be valuable as well, some free, some for a small fee.  One that is interesting is the DM 'optout' feature, which allows you to opt out of Direct Messages and clean up your twitter box, which helps you efficiently use Twitter in social marketing.

Huitter:  This a free service for removing people that are not following you.  There is a limit, so it only works with less than 1800 people (as of this writing), but it is very good for helping you breakthrough the 2000 follower barrier.  

I've talked about the 2000 barrier and the follow/follower barrier and just want to be clear about the intent.  To some extent, it is a numbers game, meaning that the ratio of people you follow to your followers is part of the algorithm.  But your real focus on every Social site, including Twitter, should be on connecting with and attracting people who are a good match.  You do that by providing value, interacting with others in a positive way, and adding to the benefit of the community.

If you add value, people with follow you and connect with you - then you'll blast througth the 2000 follower barrier and have a healthy following.

Don't forget to follow me!  Michael Wilson on Twitter 

Of course I follow back, I'm an Open Networker myself and always interested in connecting with other network marketers.  Look for a direct message back from me after you follow http://twitter.com/1mwilson - I use Tweetlater, but I typically only send a single valuable message, automatically, to those that follow me.