Nice overview Matt.

I have become quite partial to Twhirl these days - it seems the most efficient of all the apps- Snitter was nice too, but took long "coffee breaks" from updating.

You turned me on to Quotably, which I'm loving as well.

Matt,

Good suggestions for keeping up with all the Tweets we receive.

I would add that like any communications tool, we should understand what we want to get out of Twitter. Once we understand why we are using Twitten, then only follow those who fall into the community that we see as our ideal. That reduces the noise and increases our opportunities to build strong relationships instead of just randomly following anyone who seems interesting.

Hi Matt,

Great post. It's easy to become overwhelmed when you follow a large number of people - but I like having a large community, because it means being able to learn more from them, get questions answered and discover new and interesting people to follow. But how to manage it all?

I've found that Tweetscan (www.tweetscan.com) is a pretty reliable tracking mechanism, especially when I'm on the go. I bookmark a search and just open in up in my Windows browser on my phone. Whether it's a person or a search term I'm trying to track, I get a comprehensive stream of mentions.

A couple of other useful features at Tweetscan include the ability to track search terms and have a summary of them emailed to you on a daily basis; and you can input your "core" network - those people you're most interested in tracking throughout the day.

I use Tweetscan in conjunction with Twhirl and find them both indispensable.

Toad -- Reliability is still an issue all around as people try to build apps that will scale with the rapid expansion of the network. The pure volume from a million+ people sending messages is hard to handle.

Lewis -- You're absolutely right. Some people just want to peek their heads into the conversation from time to time and others want to analyze the data over time. Others (like you and I) want to use it as a long-term relationship building tool. Knowing what you want to get out of it before you go in is helpful.

Scott -- Tweetscan is a good option for aggregating the conversation and there are more and more tools popping up daily. I think there is a lot of opportunity out there for developers to create smart analysis tools for marketers. I would love an option that combines Tweetscan and Twhirl and alerts me to trends and conversations in real time.

I'm going to have to try out twhirl. Thanks for the info. I found it very helpful. At this time, I basically just open Twitter and see who's doing what. I don't track ongoing conversations.

Thanks for the tips Matt.

I'm new to Twitter and didn't know I could add my twitter feed to my RSS reader.

I tend to live in Google Reader these days.

Hey Matt,

Great tips! I have recently learned how to utilize Twitter and I certainly enjoy learning more about the benefits and things to make my experience on there a bit easier! Nice name as well! :)

Kate Dickman @ Brick Marketing

Scott -- It takes a while to get into the rhythm of Twitter. It's great to experiment at this point and see what works for you.

Mark -- I live in Google reader as well and the RSS tip has saved me a lot of time. Best yet, you can create content folders to keep your Twitter content separated and logical (until Twitter ads a groups feature).

Kate -- Hey, a fellow Dickman! Nice to meet you. We're still in the wild west of Twitter. Exciting days are still to come.

We're looking at a variety of tools, including Twitter, but it's not clear to me how Twitter would fit into our organization's overall communication strategy. How are you using Twitter?