Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts

UPDATED: Sep 11, 2011 to remove dead links and add new comparisons.
NOTE: Because these applications are always being improved and changed be aware that some of what is linked here will no longer be accurate.

Social Media Overwhelming? Image Credit Fuel Lines Social Media Blog

While most people are already using Social Networking sites, few are doing it in a time effective way that will generate results – or using the best Internet Marketing Tools.

No matter what your goals – or even if you only use Social Media for fun – there are still benefits to understanding what works best.

Be sure to read our Twitter Best Practices post too.

Before I get into how to make the time you spend on Social Networking sites more efficient, I want to make a recommendation that will save you time and major headaches:

Focus on the ONE thing you are most passionate about and create ONE power site and matching Social Media persona.

In the past, those who made money online emphasized multiple sources of income and many had dozens or even hundreds of sites. Even those who taught that in the past are selling off their additional sites because actively updated blogs are already far more important.

Search engines now favor new content. I sincerely believe that you will do better to focus on growing one blog consistently than you will spreading yourself across many. When you add Social Media into the mix this becomes even more important.

If you already have multiple blogs this series of posts will be most useful to you and I hope you will add your own tips to what I share. I have been challenged to advise on, manage, write for and promote multiple blogs – each with multiple Social Media accounts – and it is a huge challenge that I have yet to master.

Instead of having separate blogs consider finding the connection between multiple subjects. Center your blog around the topic that you write about most frequently and create categories for related topics.

For example, many of us write about How to Use Social Media, provide Blogging Tips, show you How to Build Your Blog, write about How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing, teach AdWords optimization or help others learn pay per click advertising.

All of those topics ARE related because to effectively implement Internet Marketing Strategies we use all of those and eventually so will our readers. Other connections are less obvious to many.

Less obvious is that the home improvement niche is related to real estate so bloggers in those niches should connect on Social Networks. People interested in buying Florida homes could be interested in home renovation products from Good Millwork and readers interested in home restoration could be in the market to buy a Florida foreclosure to fix up.

Even more obscure is that real estate is related to golf because people who love to play golf often buy homes built around golf courses like these Las Vegas golf homes or the River Hills Florida Golf Community. Real estate bloggers should cultivate relationships with golf related blogs.

Regardless of whether you have one blog or many, it is essential to find ways to make the time you spend on social networking more effective. If you have more than one persona the first essential tool is a way to manage multiple Twitter accounts.

The first priority is to decide which of the available Twitter management tools to use. The options I know of are TweetDeck, HootSuite, Pluggio, Seesmic, SplitTweet, Digsby, Matt, TwitIQ, Tweet3, Social Ooomph, and Media Funnel (formerly known as TweetFunnel) and no doubt there are others.

If you have a passion for one I haven’t included please tell us why in the comments and leave their link. I’m sharing the results of my extensive research below. Use these comparisons to make your decision.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, HootSuite is the clear winner (based on current popularity among power users), a slightly less complicated but serious alternative is CoTweet, and I am still very interested in trying out Pluggio (formerly Tweetminer) which has some interesting features the others lack.

Configuring, setting up and learning tools takes valuable time so my best advice is to decide which tool you’re going to use and forget about the others.

Focus on learning to use it effectively and only change if there is a compelling reason. You will accomplish more that way and save yourself a lot of stress. Once you have mastered your first selection you can always learn another and use two as some of the comparisons below suggest.

TWITTER APP REVIEWS:

Michelle Mangen published reviews of 7 Twitter Desktop Apps

Pluggio (formerly TweetMiner) was written by @TommyTRC
TwInbox (for Outlook) written by @mmangen
MyVBO written by @PrimoAssistance
Seesmic desktop written by @AnaLuciaNovak
Hootsuite written by @mmangen
MarketMeSuite written by @AnnEvanston
Tweetdeck written by @LissaDuty

HOOTSUITE to COTWEET COMPARISON

Michael D. Hart ~ Compare Hootsuite CoTweet

HOOTSUITE to TWEETDECK COMPARISON

NEW: TweetDeck: I’m Breaking Up with You – 10 Reasons Why You Should Use HootSuite
Dragon Blogger ~ Comparing Hootsuite to Tweetdeck
Silicone Beach Training ~ Hootsuite versus TweetDeck
How-to-Blog ~ TweetDeck versus Hootsuite
Sazbean ~ TweetDeck Hootsuite Comparison
Mark Clement ~ HootSuite TweetDeck Comparison
Marketing Shindig: Compares TweetDeck, Seesmic, HootSuite – This post says HootSuite does not display @Tweets from those you don’t follow. Is that true?
Terrence Young’s Market Mensch: TweetDeck, Seesmic, HootSuite Comparison
Tribal Boogie: Compares HootSuite, Seesmic, TweetDeck

USING PLUGGIO

Virtual Assistant ~ Why Michelle Mangen prefers Pluggio
Stacy Kinney ~ How to Use TweetMiner (Now Pluggio)
jasonbstanding ~ Pluggio Review
IntelChrisTwitterThoughts ~ Pluggio Review
Using Tweetminer aka Pluggio for Content Discovery and quick Tweeting + rolling scheduling