I have been on a mission to find the ultimate twitter tools to review (and to make twitter time cost effective for my small business!) With that in mind I have researched the best the internet has to offer twitter-wise and have my findings and suggestions here. Now you may be asking yourself, why so much twitter info in one place? Well I have found that if I make a big page like this where I “remember” all I have learned about twitter I don’t have to keep re-learning the same things!

Don’t forget – we also offer a social networking video course that walks you though setting up all your social networks and how to use them to increase your business!

Ultimate FREE Twitter Tool Review

These are the things that I am using or have seen great reviews from others who use them! If you have a great tool I have missed, please feel free to leave a comment and I will check it out – that having been said, don’t try to spam my gang, I moderate your comments and will not publish spammy stuff!

Ping.FM – This is the free tool that I use to update my big three networks on my basic status updates like “writing a twitter review page”. I haven’t found it to be wonderful for sending out links but I think it has that capability.

TweetLater.com – I use this one for my heavy twitter lifting! It allows me to send out a message anytime someone follows me (I drive people to my facebook profile), it automatically follows anyone who follows me AND I could set it up to tweet stuff for me automatically (haven’t done this yet but will soon!) One word of caution – it does allow you to “unfollow” anyone who won’t follow you. I DO NOT recommend this both personally (I live in abundance and that is SO counter-intuitive) and professionally (twitter seems to dis-like this practice and could suspend your account!)

Hootsuite.com – I have heard good things about this service and it seems to be similar to tweetlater.com, I think it is just a matter of preference!

Twitterfeed.com – Twitter Feed sends all the blog posts that I write to twitter AUTOMATICALLY! It was a little convoluted to set up but SO worth the time!!!

TwitterGrader.com – Really neat site that shows how many twitter followers you have over time!

LocalTweeps.com – Cool way to find twitter-ers who are local to your area or your target niche!

http://sur.vey.me/ – Make surveys for twitter, it was SUPER easy. I made one and will update this post with the results!!!

Twixplode.com – Free course from Sean Malarkey on how to grow a twitter following. I am only part way through but got some good info from what he has sent so far! I did not find ANY disgruntled people talking about Sean or his product.

XavierMedia.com – I used this free twitter follower service and did see a small spike in my followers. It works like a pyramid scheme where your name goes at the bottom and more and more people follow you based on how far it gets. It did not seem malicious and worked okay although I am not sure that I got targeted followers.

Hashtags.org – Allows you to see what is trending hot on twitter in real time. It is great for targeting tweets IF that topic is in you niche market!!

Twellow.com – Yellow pages for twitter. A free service and really easy to use!

Tweetadder.com – Free to $55 – seems to be a really good service. I have not used it yet but will update the post when I get more info!

WeFollow.com – Free service, you can add yourself to, it doesn’t seem to help all that much until you have a bunch of followers.

Paid Twitter Tool Recommendations

Opennetworker.com -Top Linked’s networking arm. I used the free Top Linked in Linked In for a while and got okay results. You have to manually invite people and there is no twitter alternative. I paid about $50 for year membership to Open Networker and WOW – I have doubled my linked in and gotten about 500 new twitter followers in the first couple of days. If you are going to pay for something – this is REALLY GOOD!

TwitterPowerSystem.com – Sells for $77 and seems to be a good source of information! Will update with more info if I buy it!

Social Networking Videos By Marketing Artfully – I SO recommend these for new social networkers! (they are mine!)

Not So Impressed With Twitter Tools

Disclaimer – I have not bought or used and of these tools and so am just going by the other things that I have seen out there. Please know that being on this part of the list DOES NOT mean that these tools are evil or not worth purchasing, they are just not what I would choose to spend my money on!

TwitterTrafficMachine – only $25 and claims to be able to help you get thousands of followers AND has a great affiliate program. I found some pretty harsh criticism about it so cannot recommend it to my tribe.

Tweetergetter – this one is about $9 and claims that you will tens of thousands of followers. Again, harsh words were spoken and so not a fan favorite over here.

Twitter4Marketing – This one charges a sliding scale for how many twitter followers you want from $80 to $360. I have to stand my Open Networker recommendation above since you get twitter and linked in for one price!

Lop.net – Charges ONE THOUSAND dollars per month. Nuff said.

Related posts:

1. Twitter Day – How to use twitter for your small business!
2. Twitter and Google Great Lead Generating Tools
3. Social Media Marketing Twitter Grader

So I am determined to get some value out of twitter and social networking for my business! With that in mind I have set out on a mission to figure out how to make twitter work for me and my tribe…:)

These are my twitter numbers right now (I did follow a bunch of people this morning so that number is a little skewed!) 963 Followers, 1060 Following

Now I have to say to start, if you are just getting into twitter this will be a little harder for you. I have been on twitter for a while and so have updates that people can see and decide to follow me. If you are new make sure you (1) set up a twitter account, (2) post some updates relevant to your business and (3) follow some other people (they will probably follow you back!).

Here are some of the things I have done to get more followers and actually make twitter work for me!

1. Followed a bunch of people directly from Twitter – FREE
2. Signed up for Xavier Media’s get more followers program – FREE
3. Signed up for Tweet Later which sends a message out automatically for me to ask people to be my Facebook friend also (if you would like to learn more about this, I wrote about it on my marketing artfully facebook page, while you are there, make sure to become a fan!) – FREE
4. Signed up for some groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that allow you to post your twitter link (it looks like this http://www.twitter.com/taradactyl) – FREE

If I do anything else I will make sure to post it here but for now I am all tweeted out!

Related posts:

1. Twitter Tools – How To Use Twitter Effectively!
2. Social Media Marketing Twitter Events
3. How To Get More Twitter Followers 2010