There are literally hundreds of software, websites and other tools written specifically for the twitter community. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed with all the choices and just not use any of them. I know that’s what I did for the longest time.

Then, I discovered just how useful some of those tools could actually be. They can help you be more productive, follow your twitter streams easier, promote your sites and do all sorts of other great things.

In the interest of making it a bit more manageable I thought I’d share my top 10 favorite twitter tools.

Top 10 Twitter Tools

1. TwitterFox Plugin for Firefox: I’ve been using this firefox plugin ever since I started twittering about a year ago.  It installs seamlessly into your firefox installation, and allows you to twitter mindlessly throughout the day!  One of the few tools I couldn’t do without.
2. Twitterfeed: Twitterfeed allows you to taken a RSS feed for one of your websites, and set it up so your blog posts are announced to the world via twitter.  It works great as long as you don’t abuse it and send 50 blog posts every day to your twitter account.  Doing that is a quick way to get unfollowed.
3. Tweet Deck:  Tweet Deck is a stand alone desktop software that takes your twitter stream to the next level.  I’ve only recently started using Tweet Deck even though I’ve been hearing about it for quite a long time.  Only once I started using it did I realize just how powerful it actually is!   You can create twitter groups to follow only people who twitter about certain topics (mortgages, personal finance, etc), set it up to filter your tweets or search the tweets you’ve already received.  It really is a great way to make Twitter better!
4. Mr. Tweet:  Mr. Tweet is a great way to find good people to follow on twitter.  To use it just go to the site and click the button to follow Mr. Tweet.  You will receive a direct message via Twitter with a link. Click the link to find good, pertinent people to follow.   Mr. Tweet will update you with more suggestions bi-weekly.
5. Tweet Later:  Productivity tools that help you do all sorts of things from schedule tweets to be sent at a later time, to automated notes to new followers.   Moderation is key, don’t get carried away with this as it’s a good way to get unfollowed.
6. Tweet Stats: Great website that shows you all sorts of stats about your twittering behavior.  Check out my full review here.
7. Twitter Counter:  Twitter Counter is a great place to go if you want to see graphs about how fast your follower numbers have gone up.  They even provide a nice little chiclet so that you can display on your site just how many followers you have!  Remember people feel safe in groups – so if they see that you’ve got a lot of followers they’re more likely to follow as well!
8. Twitter Grader: Another fun little tool to see how you stack up against everyone else in the twitterverse.  After you enter your username it will give you a twitter grade out of 100.  For my other twitter username I’ve got almost 100/100 – which is pretty good.  For this new website and account I’ve only got 82/100, so I’ve got a ways to go.
9. Qwitter: Qwitter is a website that will send you an email anytime someone stops following you, along with the last tweet you sent before that happened.  It might give you some insight into why people would unfollow you so you don’t do it again!
10. Cheap Tweet:  Cheap Tweet scours Twitter to find tweets about hot deals, and then brings them all together in one place.  While I like this tool, it can also be dangerous because it gets you thinking about buying a lot of things you don’t really need!

So there you have it, my current top 10 favorite twitter tools!

What are some of your favorite tools?  Leave them in the comments, along with any experiences you’ve had with the tools above (both good and bad!).

More Links:

140 More Twitter Tools

The Top 10 Most Useful Twitter Tools is a post from: Tweeter Tips

Ever Wonder How Much You Twitter  – And When?

I was checking out my tweets yesterday when I came across a retweet of a link for a site called http://tweetstats.com.   I hadn’t heard of it before, but it sounds like it might be interesting.  Basically the site says that it can check your twitter stream, see how many tweets you have, when you tweet most often, who you tweet with and a bunch of other things. Basically it’s a way to check your vital twitter stats.

I decided to give the site a try to see just how my stats looked.

My Twitter Stats On TweetStats.com

To get your twitter states you just go to the website and enter your Twitter ID. Once your ID is entered it starts crunching numbers. I’ve got over 3000 updates on my timeline since the account was born in January 2008, so it had quite a few numbers to crunch.

Once the status bar had reached 100% a screen came up with a variety of interesting information about my account.

The first graph showed my Twitter usage by month since the account went online.   According to the graph my hottest month for twitter was December of 2008 when I updated my timeline almost 500 times.  That’s over 15 tweets per day!

As you can see my twitter addiction slowly took hold over the months in 2008 as I began blogging and using Twitter as one of the important tools in my toolbox.  The only real bump in the road was in September ’08 when I barely made 100 tweets.  What happened that month you ask?  I was in the middle of the Mediterranean Ocean on a cruise for over 2 weeks, so it made it tough to find a good place to twitter.  Why did my usage jump in December and January?  I was twittering from my new Ipod Touch that I got from a client.  More places to twitter? More tweets!

The next graph I perused was the one showing “tweet density” over the week.  As you can see below my tweet density falls mostly during the week, right after I get into work in the morning.   When I get into work I have that period where I’m settling in answering emails, twittering and drinking my morning coffee.

What days did I tweet the most?  Tuesdays and Fridays.  Those are slower days at work and instead of taking a coffee break I take a twitter break.  It figures.

There are several more graphs that might be of interest to the average twitter user. The one I found most interesting, however, was the one showing who I had replied to the most during my year on Twitter.  Almost all of them are my blogging compatriots with whom I’ve networked, traded blog posts or bounced ideas off of.  Others were clients that I did design work for.  Some were both!   Either way over half, 51%, of my tweets were replies to tweets that others had sent.  Another 10% were blog post announcements sent by twitterfeed, and most of the rest were just random every day tweets!

My top 5 words found in my  twitter stream? [blog, post], day, good, today. And I’ve  had 169 twooshes since I started tweeting.  Oor those of you that don’t know – a twoosh is a tweet that is exactly 140 characters! Learn something new every day, huh?

My Twitter Stats On TweetStats.com

TweetStats.com is definitely an interesting website, especially if you’re like a lot of geeks out there and you love crunching numbers and viewing stats.  It has a good variety of graphs, stats and otherwise arcane facts about your twitter stream.  If you’re not careful you could end up wasting quite a bit of time there trying to figure out how on earth you could have been wasting so much time on twitter!   I know I did.

Since I found the site now I’m sure I’ll be spending a  whole lot more time there over the coming months.  After all, now I have to try and beat my all time high score of 490 tweets in one month!  Who’s up for the challenge?

Check Out Your Twitter Stats With TweetStats.com is a post from: Tweeter Tips