More Advanced Twitter Tips and Tools

So in my last post I told you how you can upload multiple Twitter posts at one time using Tweetlater.com and how you can use Tweetdeck to keep track of what people are tweeting about you or about specific topics that interest you.

Well, now I've learned and applied some additional Twitter tools for you to know about.

One is Your Twitter Karma at http://dossy.org/twitter/karma. It doesn't load well in Internet Explorer, so be sure to use a different browser, like Firefox for example. What it does it allow you to see all your Twitter followers and see who you are following and who is following you back by category. Twitter itself makes you look up each individual person, which is a big pain once you have hundreds of followers. But with Your Twitter Karma you can sort in bulk. It's a great tool to help you quickly decide who you want to continue to follow.

Grader is another really interesting Twitter application. You'll find it at http://twitter.grader.com. Put in your user name and grader will give you a grade at how well you're using Twitter. That's fun to know, but what is really cool about Grader is it will show you who has the highest grades by subject. So if you're interested in photography, input "photography" and Grader's top 100 top photography users will pop up. Now you can choose to follow some of those folks to see what's considered state-of-the-art in that subject area. Maybe you'll even learn of some cool new photography experts you didn't know.

Lastly, once you've been on Twitter a while you'll want to think about customizing your background wallpaper. You can do it in Photoshop if you're a graphic arts whiz, or you can go to http://www.twitbacks.com. Twitter backgrounds must be an image, so you cannot load active clickable links, but you can still post your company's sales messages, logos, photos or other contact information. I just had a custom twitter background done by @isotopestudios.com and I must say I'm delighted with how it turned out. You can see it at @barbarawayman.

Happy Tweeting everyone!