For social media marketers, the only way to fully maximize your time and efforts is through the use of tools. Sure, you could do everything by logging onto each platform and sending out tweets and posting updates, but tools and apps give us the ability to better plan and analyze our efforts, and align with audience expectations and usage patterns.
What's interesting, however, is how each platform has approached the use of tools, particularly scheduling and analytical offerings. For example, Facebook has made it more appealing for users to schedule updates through Facebook itself for the most part, as you're able to ensure the formatting is correct, the link preview displays how you want, and all the relevant links and targeting options are added.
This makes sense - the more time people spend on Facebook, the better that is for Facebook, both in terms of ad exposure and engagement metrics - so in line with this, Facebook's continually updated and advanced their on-platform content management tools to make it easier and more appealing for social media managers to come to them direct.
Twitter, on the other hand, hasn't always done so well at communicating their native scheduling and analytics options - though they are working to rectify this. Just recently they launched two new apps, 'Dashboard' for businesses and 'Engage' for creators, which both aim to better highlight the keyword monitoring and analytical options available within the app itself - but with the demise of Twitter analytics tools like Topsy, and now (likely) Moz's Followerwonk, there's a significant opportunity in the market, a way for Twitter to showcase what tools they have available to better utilize their data and get more social managers coming direct to them and spending more time within Twitter's own platform.
One particular tool that's often under-rated on this front is TweetDeck.
For those unaware, TweetDeck is Twitter's own dashboard tool, similar to Hootsuite or Sprout Social, but entirely devoted to Twitter. Through TweetDeck, you can monitor and action every aspect of your Twitter presence - but what many don't realize is that TweetDeck is always evolving.
So what's changed with TweetDeck and how can you make better use of it? I recently had a chance to speak with Twitter Product Manager Amy Zima to get some insights into how brands can make best use of the app, including notes on some of its more recent additions.
Zima highlighted these ten key tips:
1. Prioritize Your Columns
Through TweetDeck (and as you can see in the above screenshot), you can add custom columns to track everything from keyword mentions and lists to messages and saved searches. You can add as many columns as you like, which, Zima says, many businesses fail to utilize to best benefit. "You can add as many columns as you like, and you can also re-arrange your streams into the order best suited to your requirements".
To re-arrange your TweetDeck columns, hover over the "drag" icon to the left of the column name you wish to move, click and drag the column to its new position, then drop.
2. Link multiple accounts to TweetDeck to streamline Twitter management
Unlike other social media management tools, you can track up to 200 Twitter accounts through TweetDeck, all for free. You can also manage multiple Twitter accounts from within the dashboard.
To do this, go to the "Accounts" option on the left hand side menu.
Then add in the login details of any other accounts you want to manage through TweetDeck. You're then able to choose that added account when adding new columns and responding.
3. Create a TweetDeck Team
Last year, Twitter added a new Teams option to TweetDeck which enables business owners to delegate access to their profile to as many people as they like without sharing passwords.
"TweetDeck Teams enables brands to make it easier for team members to tweet, and action tweets, on their behalf - no more managing spreadsheets and changing passwords."
The option makes it easier for businesses to have more users to contribute to their Twitter efforts - which is important, considering that consumers now expect brands to respond to their customer service requests via tweet within an hour. Dependent on demand, having more resources available in this respect can be of major benefit.
4. Schedule your Tweets
Scheduling is one of the most utilized functions of any social media management tool, and TweetDeck offers its own tools on this front, including the ability to add images and GIFs.
"TweetDeck also enables anyone with access to the account to make changes to a scheduled Tweet, so you're always viewing the most up-to-date version of the content."
In addition, tweets scheduled through TweetDeck are also visible on ads.twitter.com and dashboard.twitter.com, which ensures that you're always able to stay across what content is being scheduled to go out from your brand profile/s.
5. Start a Tweet Collection
Last year, Twitter added a new feature which enables users to create their own, customizable Tweet Grid which can be embedded on websites to showcase selected tweets.
These grids are created through TweetDeck - to do this, you need to start a new Collections column.
You can then drag and drop the tweets you want to include in your Collection, arrange them as you want in the list, then view your Collection to Twitter.com to get a URL for it.
With that URL, head to Twitter's "Publish" platform and paste it in, then select the presentation option you want for your Collection.
Once selected, you'll get an embeddable URL for your Collection - enter it into your website code and there it is.
An especially cool feature of Collections is that if at any time you update your Collection, it will also automatically update in your Tweet grid - no additional embed code or website update required.
6. Create and edit Twitter lists within TweetDeck
Twitter lists are a great way to make more sense of the platform, and one that's not highlighted enough by Twitter itself. With lists, you can follow profiles for specific topics, which can be especially helpful if you're following a lot of people and you don't want to miss relevant news.
In TweetDeck, you can easily create and edit lists directly from the platform, and you can set up columns to monitor any lists you've already created or are subscribed to.
7. Filter your search to meet your exact needs
Twitter's advanced search operands are the true secret weapon of the smart Twitter marketer.
Twitter's real-time stream of data can be extremely powerful, so long as you can harness that influx of data and translate it into the actual insights you need. Twitter search operators enable you to do this - and through TweetDeck, you can save search streams to keep you updated any time a relevant mention comes up.
For example, wouldn't it be great to know if someone had mentioned your product or service within a certain radius of your location? What if you could track the most common keywords that lead people to your business, enabling you to reach out to them ahead of time? And influencers too - you likely want to know when people your audience trust tweet about your brand or industry.
Using TweetDeck and Twitter's advanced search, you can do this - for free.
Here's a full list of Twitter's advanced search parameters you can use.
search term |
Show all tweets mentioning these terms |
"search term" |
Show tweets that mention this exact query only |
this OR that |
Show tweets containing "this" or "that" (or both) |
this -that |
Show tweets that contain a mention of "this" but not "that" |
filter:links |
Only show tweets with links |
filter:-links |
Only show tweets without links |
from:@username |
Only show tweets from a specific user |
-from:@username |
Filter out tweets from a specific user |
to:@username |
Only show tweets sent to a specific user |
-to:@username |
Filter out tweets sent to a specific user |
@username |
Only show tweets referencing a specific user |
Filter out tweets referencing a specific user |
|
list:@username/my-list |
Only show tweets from accounts included on the list @username/my list |
filter:safe |
Tweets marked as potentially sensitive are removed from the results list |
filter:media |
Only show tweets including an image or video |
filter:native_video |
Only show tweets including an uploaded video, Amplify video, Periscope or Vine |
filter:periscope |
Only show tweets with Periscope video |
filter:vine |
Only show tweets with Vine video |
filter:images |
Only show tweets with photos (will include Instagram content) |
filter:twimg |
Only show tweets with a pic.twitter link (or multiple images) |
:) |
Positive mentions |
:( |
Negative mentions |
? |
Question |
#hashtag |
Only show tweets containing this hashtag |
near:city |
Only show tweets sent near this city |
near:city within:15mi |
Only show tweets sent within 15 miles of this city (you can list any distance and you can use 'mi' or 'km') |
since:2016-6-27 |
Only show tweets sent since a certain date |
until:2016-6-27 |
Only tweets sent up until a certain date |
min_retweets:100 |
Only show tweets with at least 100 retweets (you can enter any number you like) |
Using these, you could search for something like this (using this exact format):
"basketball shoes" near:Washington within:30mi
That would alert you to all mentions of basketball shoes, specifically, in this region. You could then save that search into a TweetDeck column to track any subsequent mentions from there on.
If you can narrow down the key mentions you need to track, this can be hugely beneficial.
8. Monitor your competition
In addition to keeping track of your own tweet activity, you can also use your TweetDeck columns to monitor mentions of your competition.
If you click on any profile in TweetDeck, you'll see a window like this, with Mentions shown as an option.
Select it and you can track all mentions of that profile, showing you how they're interacting with other Twitter users.
You can also see how that profile is interacting with specific users.
9. Set up an alert to stay on top of important Tweets
Through TweetDeck, you can also set up desktop alerts to ensure you're always aware of important mentions.
As you can see, alerts are column-specific, so you can also set up specific notifications based on the number of retweets, mentions or replies.
10. Add a confirmation step to prevent any #Tweetfails
And this last one is major, according to Zima. Through TweetDeck, you can add in a confirmation step on each tweet to avoid sending out accidental tweets.
It works like this - in your accounts tab, you can select an option to add a confirmation step into the tweet process when posting from any of your linked accounts.
When selected, it will add a new checkmark to the tweet process.
Users can't press "Tweet" till they've ticked the box, prompting them to double-check and confirm the details (including the profile they're tweeting from) are correct before they send.
The confirmation step also protects replies, scheduled Tweets and DMs in the same way.
As you can see, there's a heap of ways to use TweetDeck, many of which are not widely known or utilized by brands. What's more, TweetDeck is free. Twitter wants you to be more active on the platform, so it's in their interests to provide such tools to as many people as possible.
If you're not using TweetDeck, or haven't checked it out in some time, it might be worth checking in and seeing all the latest options and functions.