Let’s Get Practical…New Twitter Tools

After unplugging for longer than expected, I’m getting back into the game of blogging! In today’s post you’ll find relevant, timely and practical social media tips shared by Jennifer Fong, Social Media Queen Extraordinaire! Jennifer has been a catalyst in launching me into the social media world, and she can be a powerful resource for you in developing your strategy.  Read on to learn more about new Twitter tools that can support you in your business.

Major Changes in My Twitter World: HootSuite and a New Twitter ID

In the past 2 weeks I’ve had two major Twitter events happen in my life (OK so maybe “major” is overstating it). A few people have noticed and asked me to tell them more about it, so I decided to share it all here.

The first thing is that I’ve switched from TweetDeck to HootSuite as my Twitter management tool.  When TweetDeck released its upgrade, I upgraded along with everyone else, and TweetDeck promptly deleted all the columns I’d set up.  (It’s probably because I never registered with them, although they never said it was a requirement.)  Given that I have over 4,000 people in my tweet stream, this was no minor thing.  I had spent a LOT of time setting these up, assigning people to columns, and the fact that they were gone was rather upsetting.  I spent time resetting all of them, and then the next time I opened TweetDeck the same thing happened.  That did it for me.  It was time to move on.

So I had heard good things about HootSuite, and decided to try it out.  The first major difference is that I didn’t need to download anything.  HootSuite runs right in the browser.  This is good.  The other thing I like is that now I get more columns.  TweetDeck only gives you 10 columns, so I was limited in the number of terms I could search on, the number of ways to group my friends, etc.  HootSuite gets around this issue with tabs.  Each tab permits you to add 10 columns.  So recently when I attended a conference, I set up a tab specifically for the conference, and added columns just for the conference hashtag, mentions of the brand I was representing, particular categories of folks attending the conference, etc.  During the conference, that made it easy to track what was going on.

The other thing that’s great about HootSuite is that you can use more than 1 Twitter ID at a time.  I had long had a second Twitter ID, @JenFongSpeaks, but I had never done much with it because I had built a large following on @liajen, and tracking @JenFongSpeaks involved logging out and logging back in to check the other account.  With HootSuite, I suddenly could see responses and tweet from both accounts at the same time!  And that led to my second major Twitter event.

The cool thing about starting over is how liberating it is.  When I first started using Twitter, I was just figuring it out.  I followed everyone that followed me, and wound up with thousands of people I didn’t know at all talking about things that didn’t matter to me.  Now I’m being a lot more intentional about who I follow, with the result that my Twitter experience has become a lot more meaningful.  Most of the conversation that goes by now is relevant, and the people talking are people I know and care about.

So what have I learned as a result of this experience?  First, HootSuite is cool.  I haven’t figured it all out yet (and it doesn’t have ALL the TweetDeck features I’ve enjoyed), but so far I like it a lot.  Second, there is value in intentionally following people on Twitter.  While it’s great to connect with a lot of people, and you can use columns to manage those conversations, when you start using mobile devices for Twitter, you can miss out on a lot when your tweet stream is filled with junk (since now you don’t have your columns.)  So make a plan about who you want to follow, carefully evaluate those who follow you, and select folks who will bring value to your Twitter experience.

Jennifer Fong is a speaker, consultant, and trainer, who teaches direct selling companies and individual direct sellers how to use social media effectively as a business building tool. She also coaches and trains individual direct sellers, and other business owners, on how to put the principles of social media to work in a profitable way, maximizing the return on their social media investment.