Why I Love Tweetdeck

Sunday, January 15, 2012
When I teach the social networking course for WOW!, students who haven't used Twitter before always feel overwhelmed at the end of the second week of class. Twitter seems hard to figure out and use for some, but it is one of my favorite social media tools. 

Students who are not so overwhelmed are asking, "But how do you find the time to keep up with all of this? Is there a way to update more than one social media account at the same time?"

The answer to all of these students' issues, problems, and concerns is Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck is a Twitter tool that you can download for free onto your computer, your phone, or your tablet. You can also add your LinkedIn, Facebook, and multiple Twitter accounts to the one Tweetdeck application, so you can manage them all at one time. For example, if I want to send out an exciting tweet about the illustrator who has been assigned to my picture book manuscript for High Hill Press, I can click on my Facebook and Linked In accounts, so the message is sent to all three social networks at one time! 

But the best thing about Tweetdeck is how you can organize the people you are following into columns. For example, on my Twitter account, I follow writers, editors, Champaign/Urbana and St. Louis residents, moms, famous people, personal friends, NICU parents, and more. I have columns set up on my Tweetdeck app for each category of Twitter users I follow. This way, when I log into my account, I can easily view what the writers are tweeting about in their column as well as any of my personal friends or NICU parents.

But the best part is the columns for mentions and direct messages. On Twitter, you have to go to a completely different screen to see your mentions and direct messages. If you forget to click on this part of Twitter, then you might have missed the other Twitter users who are responding to a recent tweet of yours. On Tweetdeck, you can organize your columns, so this is one of the first things you see.

If you are going to use Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn on a regular basis to market yourself, build connections, and network, then I highly recommend using Tweetdeck to get yourself organized.

For tips like this one and more, consider taking Margo's Social Networking for Writers course, starting on 1/18. For more information, visit the WOW! classroom! 

Post by Margo L. Dill

4 comments:

LuAnn Schindler said...

I don't mind Tweetdeck, but what I do mind is when it continues to constantly have a snafu and won't let me schedule posts. I've uninstalled and reinstalled and it makes no difference. So, I use HootSuite to schedule everything. It hasn't failed me yet! If I want the steady stream of updates, I'm on Tweetdeck, but if you have satellite internet, it uses a lot of bandwidth, something I hadn't really considered. :)

Unknown said...

Thanks for this overview of Tweetdeck, Margo!
Also, interesting comment LuAnn.

Margo Dill said...

Thanks, LuAnn. I don't use the schedule feature much so that's too bad that that occurs. I use both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, and for some reason, I just prefer Tweetdeck's set up. :)

Patrick LeMay said...

The famous micro blogging site twitter allows you to tweet messages up to 140 characters long . This 140 character limit is sometimes very annoying when your message is just few characters more than 140 . But now with the use of TweakDeck’s Deck.ly feature you can tweet 140+ characters longs messages. Nice infos.

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