5 New Twitter Tools You Can Use

Here’s a how-to post on some Twitter tools worth checking out. Keep in mind these are just the latest, “new to me” tools. This is not an exhaustive list and just the tip of the Twitter iceberg.

Friend Or Follow: Some folks have a fairly OCD matrix of who they follow and who they ignore. Others are more carefree. For those folks somewhere in the middle, I offer Friend or Follow. It sorts out mutual follows, folks you’re ignoring and folks ignoring you. Bonus points go to this site for not requiring your password to get the info to you.

Tweet Trak: Tweet Trak is just like setting up Google News Alerts, only for Twitter. Per its bio: “follow Tweet Trak, then send a DM to me: 'track (term)' to get messaged whenever someone tweets that term. Created by RyanK, it’s one of a few ways to track keywords via Twitter, including Tweetscan.

Mr. Tweet: Your “personal Twitter assistant” identifies influencers beyond your network you might want to follow. Mr. Tweet also notes which of your followers you should be following back. And once again no passwords required.

The Media is Dying: This service wants to “update the flack so pitches aren’t whack.” The name sounds macabre at best, but it‘s almost an informal media database – in reverse. Only not really. Just check it out and you’ll get the idea.

Micro PR: Brian Solis and others have created an early alert system for media looking for sources. An overly complex description is available here. MicroPR is dwarfed by the Help A Reporter Out (HARO) service, but it can’t hurt to follow MicroPR.

Speaking of HARO, if you aren’t signed up, check it out. And if you aren’t following HARO founder Peter Shankman on Twitter you should do that too. He posts urgent media queries to Twitter first.

Twitter is a handy utility made all the more useful by services like the ones above. If you are on Twitter, you can follow me here. If you’re not, check it out. Twitter and social media are a lot like the lottery, you have to play to win.

Wearing My Twitter Shirt uploaded by -nathan
tags | public relations | PR | media relations | media | Twitter | marketing

Comments

[RyanK]

Wow.. thanks for mentioning TweetTrak! =)

As its grown more popular, its been bumped off Twitter's whitelists, and seeing people promoting it motivates me to fix some of the nastier issues.

That's what holiday's are for!

[Lally]

Classic.

We seem to be finding lost of new ways -- all the HOW to use the twitmonster. Many are still working on the why.

[Kevin Dugan]

Dan - The "what to say" and "why say it in the first place" are the most important parts of it all. But in my opinion, you have to use it to understand it and then apply a strategy to it effectively.

And Ryan, thanks for TweetTrak...it's pretty handy!

[Lally]

So ... I have a hammer ...

You get the rest.

[Kevin Dugan]

Are you calling yourself a tool?

To be clear, strategy always before tactics. But you still need to understand which tactics work best to support the strategy.

[New Cars India]

Great..I will try these..

Thanks :-)

[Michael Pranikoff]

Hey Kevin,

Great links and tips. 2 other quick tips - and I don't mean to sound promotional...
Follow @prnewswire - This feed is from our media research team, and we are posting updates on media as we find out about them and posting them here - as well as answering the occasional question.

Follow @profnet - You and your readers are very aware of the ProfNet service...for urgent queries from reporters or queries that a reporter has asked to be tweeted. This was started about 3-4 months ago.

While it is somewhat promotional I admit, these are free services and open to anyone - so no cost...who doesn't like getting a free tip.

Michael Pranikoff
Director, Emerging Media
PR Newswire

[Beth Hardy]

Thanks, Kevin, for these tools. Our agency is always looking for updates like these to provide to clients who use Twitter. They will be a great addition to our growing list.

[Eri]

Thanks for the twitter info. You have a new follower!

[Michael]

Thanks for this great blog post! I've been looking for a couple of different Twitter tools to play around with when bored, and now I have a couple of different ones to try out.

[Robin]

Great info! Your blog rocks!

[Cindy]

Kevin,
All great tips. I'm astounded as to the number of my PR colleagues who still do not understand what twitter is. Look forward to following you on twitter and commenting on your site. I also blog about PR. Check out my site or follow me @cronzoni.

[Amy Ziari]

Had never heard of Friend or Follow, but it provides such a nice visualization. I was surprised that some of people I actually *know* aren't following me. Thanks for the heads up.

[Australia hotels]

"Mr. Tweet", I've found very useful. This one analyzes your current network of Twitter followers and followees and identifies other people that are influential in your circle.

[Twitter Tips]

Very helpful info!

[Scott Kingery]

If you want to track topics, I suggest TwitterSpy. Howto here: http://www.techlifeweb.com/2008/07/07/how-to-set-up-twitterspy-in-google-talk/

And if you want to build a complete information monitor, use Friend Feed here: http://www.techlifeweb.com/2009/02/19/how-to-build-an-information-monitor/

[Olivero]

Thanks for the list which covers most applications I appreciate. I strongly suggest you also check out http://MicroPlaza.com and its Tribal Search which has just been released under private beta and which provides a mix of Digg, Delicious and RSS that allows you to browse, search and monitor relevant news tweeted by the people or groups of people you follow... and lot's more.

An example is this search for most popular articles from the BBC website: http://microplaza.com/search?q=url%3Anews.bbc.co.uk

Cheers

[Chad]

Wow! Nice post. I've been using the Twitter Karma tool as of late, but I thing I'll switch to Friend or Follow as giving my password makes me a bit uncomfortable (for some reason). I'm a bit amazed that absolutely NONE of the tools I use were mentioned, but at the same time I'm always glad to learn something new. Thanks!

~Chad
Founder, NicheRichMarketing.com