Everyone’s favourite microblogging social network has gotten huge enough to inspire an ecosystem of its own. There are hundreds of web apps and services that revolve around Twitter, enhancing some of its features or introducing new ones. Even after Twitter locked down its API and made many apps have to close up shop, there’s still a ton of great apps for tweeting on the web.
Instead of recommending multiple tools for the same task, we checked out all the tools and narrowed down our favourite for each type of action. So without further ado, here are the best Twitter apps for different needs.
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The Power User’s Tool: Tweetdeck
This web client got so popular that eventually, Twitter itself bought it. But that hasn’t made Tweetdeck any less useful. The multi-column view is fantastic for power users, who can set up columns for timeline, interactions, mentions, messages, searches and more. The best part is the built-in mute filter that lets you mute hashtags and people — a much-needed tool when those Twitter contests and trends go a little crazy.
The Minimalist’s Favourite: Streamie
If you want a clean and simple web client for Twitter, Streamie is definitely the way to go. The app has a beautiful interface, with tabs to let you switch between timeline, mentions, DMs and other features. The Compose box also includes basic services like link shortening and image attachments. The most clutter-free way to browse your Twitter!
Poll Your Followers: Twtpoll
Twitter is a great way to figure out what people are thinking about any topic, so when you want to run a quick poll, head to Twtpoll. Creating a new poll is easy and fast, and it comes with some nifty built-in options like counting user responses based on hashtags. On the backend, you get a chart with everything you would need to know. The $9/m starting price is well worth it for professionals.
If you’re looking for a free solution, I really liked Pollowers, which also includes the ability to auto-post that poll at specific intervals.
Manage & Analyze Your Followers: Just Unfollow
Want to unfollow all those people who unfollowed you? Just Unfollow is where you need to go. The app analyzes your Twitter and gives you plenty of options about users, including who unfollowed you, who followed you, inactive followers, and more. Another nifty feature is the ability to copy the list of who someone else is following — fantastic for social marketers to see what their competition is up to.
Find Recommendations To Follow: Twellow
There are so many people on Twitter, it’s hard to know who to follow. One good place to start is to visit Twellow, which gives you a listing of Twitter accounts by category, such as recreation & sports, computers & technology, news & media, entertainment, society & culture, etc. You can also list your own handle at the site, in the appropriate category, so others can follow you.
Analyze Your Reach: Klout
So how powerful are you on Twitter? How many people pay attention to what you have to say? Who are the most influential people on the microblogging service? How do you stack up against your friends? For answers to all this and more, head to Klout, which smartly analyzes your Twitter profile to figure out your reach and give you a ‘Klout score’, which you can compare with others.
Identify Local Trends In Real Time: Trendsmap
So what are people around you talking about? Find out at Trendsmap, a Google Maps-like interface that tracks the latest trending hashtags on Twitter in real-time. You can browse the map like you normally would or look at the worldwide trends. Filter options include the ability to sort by words, time and other parameters. The basic account is free, and the Personal ($5/m) and Pro ($19/m) accounts add several other features that are useful for social media professionals, such as historical trend detail, search by cities, top videos and images by trend, and much more.
Find Out When Others Read Your Tweets: Tweroid
At what time of the day are most of your followers online and active? What is the best period during the day to capture their attention and get maximum reach for your tweets? Find out with Tweroid, which analyzes your profile and tells you the time-wise usage statistics of your followers, and tells you when to tweet to get the most exposure.
Schedule Tweets For Optimal Reach: Buffer
Instead of Tweroid, you can also rely on Buffer to just do the job of scheduling your tweets at times when the most number of people will read them. Also available as an extension, all you have to do is type your tweet and hit ‘Schedule’ and Buffer does the rest, automatically slotting it to be posted at an appropriate future time. And with a recent update, you can also specify the precise time your tweet goes out, so it’s an effective scheduler in every sense. It’s the social networking tool our editor swears by.
Start & Organize Contests: One Kontest
Twitter is host to several contests throughout the day, and you obviously don’t want to go through the trouble of tracking those hashtags yourself! OneKontest will smartly take all the hashtags and put them in one place, letting you hold hashtag contests, photo contests, feedback contests, trivia contests and voting contests. And all it costs is $29 per use, or $49 per month — a steal for social media professionals.
Many People, One Handle: GroupTweet
If you have a team of people that need to use the same account, GroupTweet is the way to go. Link up your team’s accounts and when they need to send a message from the official group handle, they just have to send it as an @Mention or a DM (direct message) to the group account, which will reformat and publish it as an original tweet. Super easy, super cool.
Create A To-Do List: TwitDo
To make a to-do list with TwitDo, just remember these hashtags: #todo, #undo and #done. Tweet your list item with that hashtag and it’ll automatically be added, deleted or marked as done, respectively, on your to-do list. To access your to-do list, just go to twitdo.com/<yourusername>. And yeah, if you don’t want to spam your friends with your to-do list, use @4todo, @4undo and @4done instead of the hashtags.
Find The Best Of Twitter’s Favourites: Favstar
While Twitter’s web app lets you see the tweets only you’ve favourited, Favstar allows you to see tweets favourited by other users, including those you follow and those you don’t. You can even create a list of people whose top tweets you want to see (without necessarily following them) and in doing so, find fun thoughts, ideas, links and people on Twitter, enhancing your experience on the world’s preferred 140-character social network.
Send More Than 140 Characters: Tall Tweets
Sometimes, you just can’t get the message across with Twitter’s 140-character limitation. In such cases, head to Tall Tweets and just write your message — no limits whatsoever. Tall Tweets can break your post into several tweets, numbered in order, or post the whole thing as an image. Both work perfectly well, but I’m personally partial to the image format, since it still keeps your whole tweet in one link instead of spread across several.
Fit Messages With Shorthand: TweetShort
Having trouble fitting your tweet into the 140 character limit? TweetShort can help you out. Type your message and it will uses shorthand like “dat” instead of “that” to reduce your character count. It’s a really cool tool, but you have to be all right with butchering the English language.
Add Special Characters & Symbols: Twitter Symbols
Want to write a message like “I ? You” or “He went that-a-way ?”? The easiest way to do that is to compose your tweet at Twitter Symbols, which provides a virtual character map of symbols across categories, such as arrows, stars, chess, hands, horoscope, various, etc. You can tweet directly from the app or copy-paste it.
Sort Timeline By Images, Videos, Links & More: TwitLamp
With so much information being shared on Twitter, you probably need some way to sort it all out. TwitLamp analyzes your account and sorts tweets by photos, videos, links, audio, text and hashtags. You can use that mode on your timeline, on your own posts, or mentions. And all with a lovely interface that lets you display the results by grid or list view.
Export Tweets, Mentions & More To Docs: TwDocs
Want to secretly read your Twitter while you are working? Head to TwDocs and export your timeline as a spreadsheet, document, PDF, text or HTML file — your boss will never know! It’s also a cool way to keep a backup of your tweets. You can also export other items, such as searched keywords, favourites, tweets from someone else, etc. And there are further options to decide what the tweet should or shouldn’t have.
Track Conversation Between Two Users: Conweets
Would you like to see all the conversations between Scrubs stars Zach Braff and Donald Faison? Or between Kim Kardashian and Kanye West? Conweets lets you do that in a super simple interface, scouring the two users’ accounts to present you a list of all the conversations between them in their Twitter history.
Make Your Tweets Self-Destruct In…: Efemr
Agent, your tweets can now self-destruct in a few minutes or hours. Head to efemr, sign in and write your tweet. Then append that tweet with a hashtag denoting how many minutes it should stay alive before being deleted: #5m for 5 minutes, #14h for 14 hours, and so on. The pro accounts also lets you use the service from any third-party client.
Listen To Music Recommendations: Serendip
Log into Serendip with your Twitter account and it will automatically tell you which of your friends often share music, and whom among them are already on Serendip. Follow those people and Serendip will auto-create a playlist of songs from YouTube so that you can listen to what your friends recommend.
Send DMs To Multiple Users: TweetGuru
By default, in most clients, you can send a direct message only to one person at a time. But sometimes, you want to send out a mass message without putting it on your timeline. In such cases, turn to TweetGuru, which lets you add multiple recipients to your private message.
Create A Book Of Your Tweets: Twournal
This is just so cool! Twournal will take your last 3,200 tweets and turn them into a journal that can be printed, complete with publishing-friendly formatting and even images. If you’re in the US, you can even order it and have it shipped to your home for $15 to $30, while you can download the PDF e-book for free.
Find Out If Your Followers Are Real: Twitter Audit
Twitter has more than its fair share of bots, and if your follower count has gone up, you might want to check if it’s real people or fake. Hey, it’s also an important metric when keeping tabs on a competitor! Twitter Audit will analyze the followers of any account and tell you how many of them are real and how many fake. It’s not 100% accurate, but it still does a good job.
Create A Real-Time Digest Of Your Tweets: Tame
Tame uses smart algorithms to cut through the noise and makes sense of your timeline and lists, and also provides you details of people, links and trends when you search about anything. It does this by relying on smart algorithms. It’s a single-glance view of all your links, topics and people.
Chat With A Hashtag: TweetChat
If you’re following a hashtag or making it trend, TweetChat is a must-have tool. It’s basically a mini-chatroom based on that hashtag, and you can tweet directly from it as well as see people using that hashtag.
Create A Chatroom For Friends: ChirpAt.Me
To talk with your followers on Twitter beyond the 140-character limit, the easiest way is to create a private chatroom on ChirpAt.Me. It takes a single click to start, and then just invite your friends. You can password-protect the room, and even set limitations such as allowing only people who follow you, or whom you follow.
Set A Tweet Reminder: TwtRemind
It doesn’t get simpler than TwtRemind when you want to set a reminder on your Twitter timeline. Head to the site, write your username, and list what you want to be reminded about (up to 5 items), whether it’s to buy eggs on your way home or place that important call. Choose the date and time and TwtRemind will send you a DM about it. The only problem is that setting the time has to be done in GMT, so you might need a time converter.
Set Out-Of-Office Auto Replies: TwtHoliday
Much like you have your out-of-office auto-reply for your email, it’s good practice to do the same on Twitter when you know you aren’t going to check it for a few days. At TwtHoliday, you can compose an auto-response message and then instruct the app to send it as a reply or as a DM to anyone who @Mentions or DMs you during that time.
Conclusion
There you have it: the 29 best online apps for Twitter that we’ve found. Got any more favorites you think we should have included? Let us know in the comments below!
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