I’ve been fielding a lot of questions lately on how to interact with Twitter. The Twitter website is the obvious place to start, and it covers most of the basic functions, but you are missing out on some nice features.
If you are checking Twitter on a mobile phone, using the mobile site has gotten a lot better. You can now check your mentions and favorites from the mobile site. Even a couple of months ago, all you could see was the stream of people you were following. However, you still can’t check lists on the mobile site.
The better Twitter apps do give you access to lists, which are one of the best ways to manage your time on Twitter once you are following more than 100 people. Without access to lists on the mobile website, you are losing out on one of your best time management tools.
If you see a tweet you like and want to retweet it, you’re limited to the new retweet style on the website. Lots of people (myself included) hate the new style because you can’t edit the retweet before sending. It’s nice to add your own endorsement to a retweet. Most Twitter clients (for both computer and phone) allow you the option to edit before sending.
What’s the best client? It depends. I use Tweetdeck on both my phone and computer. It’s free and gives you everything I’ve mentioned above. I also use Twittelator on my phone. Why two clients? Tweetdeck moves between lists and saved searches faster. Twittelator allows more options with a tweet. The one I use depends on what I need to do.
HootSuite is supposed to be an excellent client, especially if you want to schedule tweets or easily manage multiple Twitter accounts. They also have an iPhone app. I’ve not used it myself, but people I know swear by it.
Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to manage your Facebook account in addition to Twitter, which keeps multiple social media accounts in one place. Good time management!
Twitter via the web isn’t a bad way to start with the service, but in my opinion, if you want to use it seriously for business, you’ll want to move to a client as soon as possible.
Tags: iPhone, social media, time management
What a great review – thanks so much! It’s kind of overwhelming when you think about how many tools there are to support such a simple function -communicating in 140 characters or less!