Not sure if the title of this post should be ‘Tools for Twittering’ or ‘Tools for Tweeting’. Twitter is more than tweeting, so I think the title I went with is probably correct. Regardless, you’re reading this because you’re keen to use Twitter. Welcome.
Yesterday I wrote about the value of Twitter for post-Sunday communication. Today I want to offer some tools for using Twitter.
If you’re new to Twitter you’ll know that you can tweet, search for people, direct message etc once you’re logged-in to your Twitter account online. This is good, but there are lots of other tools that enable you to do this and more from your desktop (i.e. using a piece of software) or mobile device (e.g. from your iphone).
I use a Mac and I’ve tested the following desktop applications:
My personal favourite is Tweetie. I particularly like Tweetie because it has a simple (and slick) interface for managing multiple accounts, and I have three accounts for Communicate Jesus, Church by the Bridge, and my personal Twitter account.
Not sure what to use?
- Check out the many options available at Twitstat, which lists the top 208 (at last count) Twitter clients being used.
- Mashable has a good article – “25 Twitter apps to manage multiple accounts” which is useful even for those who don’t need to manage multiple accounts, and also includes some good resources for PC users.
- PC World also has a useful article – “Everything you need to know about Twitter“.
How do you Twitter?
Good suggestions Steve,
Use Tweetie for desktop
Twitterific for iPhone
Thanks Calum. Have you seen churches using Twitter well?
I haven’t come accross many churches that use Twitter at all, I guess Mars Hill and Surf City Church in Surfers paradise come to mind. I haven’t really seen any Sydney churches. I have seen some Christian groups such as the Sydney Uni Evangelical Union and AFES NTE have one as well. I don’t think that many groups that use Twitter have hit a sweet spot using it though.
I would recommend cotweet.com as a great website for managing @ replies and DM’s and it also enables multiple people to manage multiple twitter accounts. We mainly use twitter for website updates and for specific events.