Organize the Chaos on Twitter
Most social media mavens usually do not tweet directly from twitter. They regularly tweet from applications like Seesmic or tweetdeck. You can tell by looking at the small print after the tweet, which will let you know how they are twittering. These aforementioned applications are typically for heavy users who want to monitor and hold several conversations on twitter, or quite simply put, a social media addict. Then there is the less heavier application, that will still pop up in a small window fading away on your screen, just like an outlook message would. Its called twitter fox, an application for fire fox users. This application used to be my tweeter of choice until I started following many more tweeters. It was non intrusive, but would notify me of messages coming in. Ultimately, it became less useful when multiple tweets were coming at me with no way to organize the chaos. I was falling behind on tweets that mentioned me and used to provide me with valuable info, so in came tweet deck.
What if you are not as heavy a user? or Perhaps you have actual work to do? 
As mentioned, I do use Tweetdeck however, I cannot be on it as much as I would like as I meet with clients and am handling other projects. So, how do I not miss a beat on twitter and make sure I can pick up where I left off (at least almost)? Outtwit (now called TWnbox). Im suprised at how this application has not received more attention. I first heard about it from an impromtu tweetup I had with Joseph Jaffe last year. I finally installed it earlier this year and got a handle of to track and file my tweets of preference. If you a familiar with Outlook, you know how to create new folders and sub folders. Outtwit would be installed and into your Outlook and would synchronize with twitter. The tweets can be sent directly to your inbox or to a folder that you created in you outlook. You can also have tweets that mentioned particular keywords delivered to you even if you do not follow that particular tweeter!
So how do I utilize it? I have a folder called “Tweets” in my outlook, and in my sub folders I have @pathinteractive and “path interactive”, which is my company and anyone that mentions the handle and or “path interactive” will automatically sent to that folder. It is important to note that you must put the quotations around your keyword to get that exact phrase, otherwise you will have any tweet mentioning one word and then the other anywhere in that tweet in no particular order. I have another folder for @rubenq and ruben quinones, in case my name is mentioned and I should investigate. I also have another folder for competitors and some other keywords I want to track. What is the value of Outtwit? I almost never miss when my company or personal brand is mentioned, and allows me to react. I can also get a handle on what is being said about my clients. I basically get my preferred tweets in a nutshell whenever I open up Outlook. Additional features include being able to tweet, respond, direct message directly from Outlook. What cool twitter tools do you use?
7 Responsesto “Organize the Chaos on Twitter”
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The majority of people using twitter through TweetDeck however, I am not a fan of this application. It does provide many benefits to its users but I personally use Hootsuite 2.0 on a regular and find it great. It allows me to do everything I want including use a feature to send out pre-timed tweets.
It seems that for every application there is one thing missing – I’ve yet to find the one that does “it all” but Hootsuite sure comes close.
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I like Tweetdeck when I’m managing one Twitter account and Hootsuite when I’m managing multiple accounts.
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Reader2Tweet is an amazingly useful tool that I use on a daily basis. Essentially it will tweet whatever interesting news or posts you share from your Google Reader account. Once set up, it saves you time by automatically sharing the title and a trackable short URL of any blog posts or news items you have starred or written a note for in Google Reader (or phone application that access Google Reader). Real time saver for me as I can skim-read articles and share several within a few minutes. I daily spend about 15 minutes checking and sharing the business news I think my followers will appreciate.
The website itself looks very cheap/bad, but it works really well and is one of the core components in my daily Twitter routine and I even use it to sync my tweets to Facebook and LinkedIn!
Personally I use it to share the Google Reader posts that I’ve read on my iPhone/iPod Touch using the app called Byline.
Here is a basic step-by-step:
1) Set up a free Google Reader account – http://www.google.com/reader – Find your favourite blogs/news sources/magazines etc. online. Add their RSS feeds to Google Reader
2) Set-up Reader2Tweet – http://reader2twitter.appspot.com – by logging in with your Twitter account. You need to provide it with your Google Reader ID number (there is a button on the page to help you find it). I also provide my own http://bit.ly login and API number (although this is optional), which allows me to see the amount of click-throughs my Tweets get.
This is how I laid out my “Tweet Format” box:
“{title}” – {url} – {comment} #fb #in
The #fb means my shares will be posted to my Facebook profile using the Selective Twitter Status Facebook app – http://apps.facebook.com/selectivetwitter/
The #in means my shares will be posted as my LinkedIn status (you can set this up in your LinkedIn settings).
The {comment} will share whatever you wrote when you created a “Note” for that shared link. If you’re not planning on adding a comment with your shared reads (i.e. just it’s title and URL), then you can remove this. If you do use this, make sure your notes are very short (particularly if the post’s title is long), because Twitter’s 140 character limit will automatically cut anything that’s too long (and that includes your #fb and #li if you stuck those at the end).
(Optional) If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, install Byline – http://www.phantomfish.com/byline.html (Not free, but not expensive. There may be alternatives I don’t know about) – This will receive your Google Reader items and also provide you with the ability to create “Notes” or “Star” items you’ve read.
Hope that helps
Alex Trup
http://twitter.com/AlexTrup
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The basic layout is: RSS feed -> http://twitterfeed.com -> http://ping.fm -> social media
Setup a http://ping.fm account. Specify which places to post to (it supports many including Facebook pages).
Setup http://twitterfeed.com to post to your http://ping.fm account.
Add the RSS feeds of Google reader shared folder, flickr comments feed, or whichever other site, to your twitterfeed account.
More granular settings can be made in ping.fm to specify what goes where.
You should follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/pumpkinslayer
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Ruben, Friendfeed is an underrated Twitter Client and can be used to manage multiple channels.
First your Twitter publishing preferences in Friendfeed allow you to pick and choose the streams that will be auto-published to Twitter.
Secondly you can create groups as repositories for content that you might like to tweet.
e.g.
1. create a private group and use it as a bucket to clip and hold content for later tweets.
2. create a private or public group can be used as a reading room. Add feeds from authority blogs, feeds or streams that you can retweet
Thirdly
Your home feed is a Twitter interface (depending on your Twitter preferences) Type a message for a text tweet, add a image for a twitpic like service, add an mp3 for similar to Twaudio, add a doc or pdf for a scribd like experience
Fourthly
Automate even further using a tagged browser based bookmarking service like delicious to feed content into your Friendfeed groups and ultimately Twitter.
Right well that is a bit like explaining a cat in a bag but hopefully if nothing else it might encourage some of your readers to consider the power of Friendfeed
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dean Power, Million Tweets. Million Tweets said: Organize the twitter Chaos | Blog by Ruben Quinones http://bit.ly/4KrLwb [...]
Great perspective as usual Ruben.
With “TwinBox” I do a different approach.
Because the name of my business, LiveChatAgent, uses generic types of terms like “Live Chat” or “LiveChat”, etc…I have to be crafty.
Every morning I wake up and I have over 5000 Tweets in my inbox!!!
What I do is simple. I defaulted ALL TWEETS in the garbage.
I then will create rules that will import certain keywords into new folders within my Main Twitter folder.
I then will sort through the tweets I’m looking for for specific terms. like LiveChat or Live Chat, etc.
Saves me HOURS, literally HOURS of sorting through absolute junk and spam.
So it’s sort of the same idea, but using the product for potential new customers instead of keeping track people I’m friends with per se.
From this system I have garnered a heck of a lot more SOLID leads.
Sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s the truth. I’ll get a lead instantly and then follow up within SECONDS. I will then call that lead 5 minutes later.
Yes, I just said I actually find the business phone number and CALL THEM right then! People remember we’re in a bad economy…no time to for waiting.
Just go for it, what’s the worst that can happen…they say no? right? heh.
But great article Ruben as always!
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Great article, I will check OutTwit. I use TweetDeck, but have noticed that it sucks up memory on the Windows 7 PC. I also use PING.FM to send out updates to my FaceBook (personal and fanpage), LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter. I like it as I can send an email to my PingFm account and it post to all. Since I’m out in the field all day it’s a great way to post on the go.
Ashok.
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