Twitter is a great tool but suffers from a lack of organization in the ‘posts’ department. (I think this might simply be because Twitter has exceeded the expectations of its creators.) After I hit 100 followers I noticed it was becoming difficult to keep up with all the neat links my followers were sharing. I kept gaining more followers by the day, but was eventually pulling my hair out because I was starting to miss out on my favorite guru’s links. So, I tested out as many applications as I could and came up with my own workflow.
Thanks to the wondrous efforts of our fellow humans, there are now a couple of third-party developers who offer more for the meticulous Tweeters who like to organize everything (myself included). At the moment, I use only two main applications (both online and offline) to organize my followers’ posts. First up is TweetDeck.
TweetDeck
In my opinion, TweetDeck is by far the most versatile offline application for Twitter. So versatile, there’s even a version for iPhones! The user interface is pretty straight forward, offering you a multi-column view for everything you need to view from Twitter: your friends’ posts, @mentions, Direct Messages (DMs), and (here’s the best bit) groups.
The ability to create groups is what makes this application ideal for neat-freak Tweeters. I currently have two extra groups setup to separate my close friends and “gurus” (or big-name posters).
TweetDeck also offers another couple neat features: TwitScoop for Twitter trends; 12Seconds for sharing short videos; StockTwits for integrating stocks with your Twitter account; and Facebook integration.
HootSuite
When I don’t have access to my computer at home, I use Hootsuite to take care of all my Twitter needs. This online application does everything that TweetDeck does, and then some. Along with the ability to create groups, Hootsuite utilizes its native owl.ly URL shortener to help keep track of user interaction with your posted links. This becomes very helpful when trying to determine which links appeal to your readers the most (although I still use TweetStats to do a more in-depth analysis).
If you want to know how I organize my posts, I do it using eight columns (only a maximum of four columns can be shown at any given time, though, because of a side-scroller). I have my first four separated like the left image. The other four columns are organized like the right.
Hope you enjoyed the post and if you have any questions, please feel free to comment below!
