As an increasingly avid Twitter-er, I’m always on the lookout for good Twitter tools and applications. Lately, I’ve come across a lot, thanks to a never-ending series of stories listing out nearly every Twitter tool in existence. I set about to find and test the ones that I feel are truly useful, and that you may not have heard of. Most of the ones I came up with and now use on a regular basis help me create better Tweets and find new powerful friends. So, at the risk of providing even more link-bait, I offer the following:

TweetEffect - TweetEffect is one of the few Twitter tools I haven’t seen much about, possibly because it’s billed as an “experiment” on the front page. TweetEffect enables you to see which of your posts results in changes in the number of followers you have, including losses. For example, it appears I lost a few users the other day over a (admittedly) rather innocuous post about the inauguration costing $150M. This is useful data and made me realize that you’re only as good as your last Tweet, and that you can’t take your followers for granted. Each post should be thoughtful and useful. Although billed as self-described experiment, TweetEffect shows promise.

Why it’s useful: Helps refine your Tweets and understand why you may be losing followers.

Catching Twitter Quitters

Qwitter – I have mixed feelings about Qwitter. On one hand, I’m sorry to see the last truly anonymous part of Twitter — being able to unfollow someone without them being notified — gone. On the other, I think Qwitter, like TweetEffect, is actually quite useful. It’s also got a great tagline and a icon to boot. Qwitter notifies you when someone un-follows you, and includes the post that might have caused them to leave. For example, @shoemoney gave me the heave-ho tonight after a post about alternative search engines. One problem with Qwitter is that it took FOREVER for the service to start working.

Why it’s useful: Lets you see which followers you may have lost, and why.

Retweetrank – One of the most useful indicators of whether your a successful Twitter user or not, is if your posts get “retweeted” by other users, i.e., someone takes your entire post and send it out to their followers and includes you as the original source. It’s the ultimate compliment and a true indication of a good post. Retweetrank allows you to see how you rank in the Twitter universe in terms of retweets.

Why it’s useful: Allows you to see your retweet activity and how viral your posts are.

Four Twooshes in the Bank

TweetStats – TweetStats allows you to get a firm grip on your Twitter activity. Simply enter your Twitter handle and you’ll get an array of usage statistics, including posts by month, average daily tweets, tweet density, who you reply to the most, etc. The thing I like best about TweetStats is their TweetCloud, which allows you to see in aggregated fashion, what you’ve been Tweeting about. Oh yeah, I’ve also had 4 ‘twooshes,’ which are 140-word posts. Snap!

Why it’s useful: Take a step back and get a clear view of your Twitter activity, including what you’ve posting about all these months.

Twitoria – I just came across this tonight thanks to a RT by @allanschoenberg, and I love it. Twitoria is a well-designed tool that enables you to which of the people you follow is slacking and perhaps not worth following. You can see exactly who hasn’t posted in the last week, two weeks, month, etc. I won’t name names, but I got some people who, uh, must be busy.

Why it’s useful: Refine your list to focus on the people who deliver valuable Tweets.

Twilert - There are a few tools like Twilert, but few are as well done. It’s reliable, accurate and looks great. Twilert is an alert service that notifies you when people mention your company, your product, or a specific topic, such as social media measurement.

Why it’s useful: Use Twilert to monitor conversations on the web and keep update to date on topics you care about.

Mr. Tweet - OK, so you’ve probably heard of Mr. Tweet, but dang if the Mister isn’t kinda useful. I’ve used Mr. Tweet on several occassions to find new people to follow. What I like best is that it provides all kinds of easy-to-read stats about different Tweeters, including who’s already following them, their following-to-follower ratio, and most importantly, the average number of Tweets per day (sorry, I can’t follow someone who Tweets more than 50 times a day).

Why it’s useful: One of the better ways to find people worth following and connecting with on Twitter.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.