Target audience: Marketing professionals, SEO specialists, PR pros, analytics managers, brand managers, businesses, nonprofits, educators, Web publishers, journalists.
Guest post by Megan Totka
ChamberofCommerce.com
Twitter can be a powerful marketing tool for any small business. But it’s not easy navigating the fast and furious world of tweets and retweets—building lists, knowing who to follow, and finding conversations that relate to your business can overwhelm even people who’ve been using Twitter for a while.
Fortunately, using Twitter effectively for your business doesn’t have to be complicated. These top 10 tools (brought to you in no particular order) can help you maximize your social media marketing efforts on Twitter, letting you spend less time figuring things out and more time actively growing and cultivating your network.
HootSuite
1We’ve previously recommended HootSuite as one of the best social media dashboards out there for managing your small business social media presence. The top social relationship platform out there, HootSuite is packed with powerful features that help you make the best use of not just Twitter, but all of your social networks.
With HootSuite, you can send and schedule tweets, use tracking streams to find lists and keyword-relevant tweets, monitor all your Twitter extras in dedicated streams, and more. You can also filter your Twitter timeline by Klout score and take advantage of detailed analytics to track performance.
TweetReach
2Want to know how far your tweets are traveling? You can find out for free with TweetReach. Just enter a Twitter handle, phrase, hashtag, or URL and see all the tweets that match your search. This service also offers a more detailed analysis for $20 — great for analyzing a hashtag campaign.
Embedded Timelines
3This tool was integrated with Twitter in September 2012, and it’s one of the best features of the social media network. Twitter allows you to embed tweet timelines on your website or blog that your readers and followers can interact with directly from your site. You can either feed your entire account into the timeline, or customize the feed by favorites, search queries, lists, or hashtags.
The Twitter developer blog explains how to add a tweet timeline to any Web page.
ManageFlitter
4This handy set of tools helps you work smarter and faster with Twitter. ManageFlitter includes analytics, recommended follow and unfollow tools, relevant search tools, and a feature called PowerPost that helps you find the best times to tweet for maximum traction.
Streamie
5A real-time Twitter client and curation tool that runs in your web browser, Streamie lets you cut through the noise by displaying only relevant information from your Twitter feed — just avatars and tweet text. It’s a simplified way to see what’s happening on Twitter in real time.
SocialOomph
6Get more productive with SocialOomph, a highly effective and customizable automation tool for all major social networks, including Twitter. Use this app to auto-welcome new followers — though keep in mind that many Twitter users view this as spam — automatically unfollow people that stop following you, get email alerts when your chosen keywords or hashtags are mentioned, and more.
GroupTweet
7Have everyone in your office contributing to your marketing efforts while you maintain your brand with GroupTweet. You can have staff members tweet under your main account with @names included, or hide individual identities. Each user gets a secure login and password. GroupTweet is free for up to 3 users, and paid plans start at $7.99 per month.
Seesmic Mobile App
8Previously a separate social media dashboard, Seesmic was acquired by HootSuite in 2012. However, the Seesmic mobile app is still available for Android and iOS devices. This app lets you manage multiple Twitter and Facebook apps across multiple devices, and provides monitoring capabilities for mentions and account activity.
Twellow
9A searchable directory of Twitter accounts with hundreds of categories and advanced features, Twellow not only helps you find the best people to follow on Twitter, but also lets you create an extended company profile for other Twellow searchers to view, so you get more relevant followers.
Tweriod
10Maximize your Twitter marketing with Tweriod, a free tool that analyzes your tweets and your followers’ activity, and lets you know the best times of the day to send out your messages. Just sign up with your Twitter account to get started.
Image courtesy of Shawn Campbell
Related
• How to get 1,000 Twitter followers in 30 days (Socialmedia.biz)
• New to Twitter? 18 tips for newbies (Socialmedia.biz)
• Twtrland: Find your nonprofit’s top influencers (Socialbrite)
Nice list, personally I find Sprout Social to be much nicer than HootSuite. Twitter is where it is at for B2B marketing. So if you are reading this list, get busy now and start building your Twitter audience.
No Buffer? Most useful Twitter tool I know, and very good analytics.
What about oktopost? great tool for B2B marketers.