74.jpg)
Although it may be hard to believe when you first set up your Twitter account, there could come a time when you find it hard to keep track of all the tweets from people you’re following.
To start with, you’ll probably be able to keep track of your ‘twitter stream’ (all the tweets from those you follow) on the twitter website. But once you reach a certain level, and depending on how ‘noisy’ tweeple are, consider using a desktop application like Twhirl or TweetDeck. Both are free to download.
Twhirl is very easy to use. You can see all @ and DM messages at a glance and keep up with tweets as they happen. I would recommend you turn off the audible alert though, as it’s very distracting. There are other ways you can adjust the appearance and update intervals to your preferences as well.
However, once the number of people followed grows to a few hundred, it becomes very hard to keep up with their tweets and the little update window popping up every few minutes on the screen starts raising your stress levels!
The TweetDeck dashboard seems, at first glance, to be rather complicated and has white type on a black background which isn’t terribly easy to read. However, you can change the colours and there are a few features that are far superior to Twhirl.
There are separate columns for @ Replies and DMs which are visible all the time, so you don’t miss any. But the best feature, in my opinion, is that you can create your own ‘groups’ which then appear as separate columns on the dashboard. For example, I have a VIP group consisting of my closest twitter friends. All their tweets are grouped together in the same column so I can easily track what they’re saying.
Another great feature in TweetDeck is the ‘filter’ facility, whereby you can isolate tweets according to, eg. user name or topic.
TweetDeck will make your Twitter experience more manageable and enjoyable once you follow more people. You won’t see every tweet (nor would you want to) but you can make sure you don’t miss any from your important tweeple.
About Louise
Louise Barnes-Johnston has been working in social media marketing since 2007 after realising that it was a powerful marketing tool which would enable her clients to raise the profile of their businesses on the internet, even when working to a limited budget. Her specialism is in researching social media practices; trying out the most effective online tools and then sharing the best of them with her clients.
