Recently, I made a change to my Twitter following policy. I now follow anyone who follows me. The reason I didn’t do that before was because I had a ton of followers and if I follow every one of them, I felt my Twitter stream would be overwhelmed with hundreds of new updates every few minutes. Fortunately, thanks to a Twitter client call TweetDeck, I don’t have that problem.
TweetDeck was made aware to me by Tris Hussey during a Third Tuesday live blogging session. TweetDeck’s big advantage over other Twitter clients is its ability to divide your stream into groups. Instead of having new tweets, replies and direct message all mangled together, TweeDeck shows each stream in their own group window. You can also create other groups to break down and better manage your Twitter followers. This has what allowed me to follow over 8,000 people and still maintain my sanity.
I created a group call “Close Friend” and put only people that I want to truly follow in there. These are the people who’s tweets I do not want to miss. I also have a business group and another group that monitors Twitter for my name or certain hash tags. With this setup, I don’t have to worry about missing important tweets, replies or direct messages.
According to Twitstat, TweetDeck is the number one Twitter client after the web browser. TweetDeck users make more tweets per user than any other clients. Considering how much better organized TweetDeck allows you to be, I’m not surprised by its higher use. Now, if only TweetDeck would create an iPhone version of their app.
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{ 59 comments }
I do the same thing follow ever person till it stops then open anouther account and repeat.
How does THAT work?? :S
I’ve been hearing a lot about TweetDeck. I’m still using the web interface on Twitter.com, but perhaps I’ll give TweetDeck a try.
You should! Much better than the web interface.
I use twhirl currently, is it worth changing?
JC, what group of yours am i in?
Huh then what do you get from this?
Tweetdeck is great. I use it for my regular tweeting. I also use Hootsuite to track stats on my tweets. Very useful!
Oh dark
I was planning to hire some programmers to help me create a program like this 
-Mike
Now if only TweetDeck would create a Nokia 5800 version of their app.
But, seriously – dividing your streams into groups is really a great option.
Lol a handphone application? Yeah its more organised this way!
TweetDeck truly rocks!!! I love TweetDeck for its features. Though TweetDeck sucks as much RAM as firefox 3.0 does, I’m all fine with it
I use Tweete on my phone: http://m.tweete.net
Its no app.. Just better than the regular Twitter Mobile version and faster..
Regards,
Monty
http://www.sensonize.com
I noticed that “Fatal1ty” Yurechko made the “close friends” group. Nice!
Tweedeck is pretty awesome. Been using it for a couple months now and it makes things very easy to manage.
I’m going to try it right now. Been putting it off for a while. It looks like a great organizational tool. For unorganized folks like me, that’s a huge bonus
I really enjoy being able to group followers together in Twitter Deck. It makes Twitter more useful.
I switched from Thwirl to TweetDeck in the last 2 weeks because of the groups. As you say it is easy to manage tweet streams.
Looks like a great way to keep track of all the tweets and group them for relevancy. Thanks John.
Tweetdeck is everyone I know’s favorite twitter client. You strategy for following only those you want to is good. I like having a second account that nobody else knows about where I follow those I want to and use the main account to allow everyone to reply and dm me. I do read all replies & dms daily & believe that opening up the 2 way communication is important for those that want to reach me.
Aloha,
Brian Campbell
Yes, TweetDeck is fantastic. There are a few features it’s missing but it’s easily the best way to Twitter!
I have not used twitter yet and not sure the benefits of it yet. Obviously I am missing out on something big as all of you are telling me how good twitter is. Not sure about the concept yet but it seems that I am still a beginner in this industry.
Very cool application for Twitter. Thanks Greg Ellison
I have been using tweet deck for about one month and I love it! It is a lot easier to just leave that running than having to keep checking the web.
But on a side note, they have an upgrade available for tweet deck which I am not able to install for some reason. Has anybody else had an issue with installation?
@bookerx3
I have heard os much review for TweetDeck. But some says that it is a memory eater and I don’t have enough memory. My desktop is an old school computer. HAHA.
I don’t follow everyone who follows me. Not to be mean but if someone doesn’t have at least one thing in common with me I see no reason to follow them back.
Not only that but I get a lot of spammers, if you auto follow back it won’t pick up on those.
You can always do it manually?
Yeah, I don’t really know why some people make such a big deal at some not following them back. Why would you follow someone you have no interest in?
Yeah I downloaded and started using tweetdeck as well. Really cool desktop tool and makes tweeting so much organised and easier.
I heard lots of tweetdeck, yeah this twitter tool is really cool, just be sure that you have enough memory to cater all your followers.
Hi John,
This looks a better tool than tweeting from twitter. Is there an option to unfollow people that does return the favor? Checking every single people you follow just to see if you are in their list of followings. is not my way of having fun.
You can use a service like http://www.friendorfollow.com
Hi John,
Thanks a lot, this was exactly what I were looking for. Hey I found out you are not following me back, maybe some other time, lol.
Hey John
Seems like cool software. Following 8,000 tweeters is still going to be an interesting task however. I wonder how many are tweet-whoring just to get your attention though and then a nice link. Hmm.
TweetDeck is seen to have more advantages than Twitter.
I’ve been meaning to try this client out, so now seems like a great time! I’ve noticed that tons of people are using it, but I never took time to look into, so guess what I’ll be doing tonight?
I am hearing a lot of Tweet Deck. Looks like I have to give it a try. I have been following you in twitter for some days. Your followers have increased exponentially.
Tweetdeck would be REALLY useful if it allowed you to send specific tweets to specific groups..I have various groups I wish to tweet to, and I have yet to find a good way of doing so..any ideas?
I’ve been hearing about tweetdeck a lot. But I’m more into twitpic rather
I’ve tried Tweetdeck in the past but I didn’t find it very useful since I couldn’t easily switch between the multiple Twitter accounts I have.
I have since switched to Twhirl which does allow multiple Twitter accounts (albeit each Twitter account can be opened in another ‘window’) and it has some other handy features which are actually useful.
Plus I don’t find it to be such a memory hog like Tweetdeck. Just my two cents.
Wesley
The Geek Entrepreneur
I’ve been using TweetDeck and Twhirl back and forth. I didn’t know you can group people together, that’s great.
I just tried TweetDeck because of your post. Looks like I’ll be switching from Twirl to TweetDeck. There’s nothing wrong with Twirl, but as you said, TweetDeck really makes it a lot easier to manage following more people. Thanks.
TweetDeck is awesome, thanks John for your awesome advice like always.
John,
Tweetdeck is amazing! It is so much easier to pre-filter the tweets you want, and off-line -review ones that may prove interesting.
I’m preparing a blog article about Tweetdeck on my blog here soon: http://donotreadthisblogunless.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the heads-up regarding Tweetdeck, they really help in organizing tweets.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase
http://www.twitter.com/nachase
I’ve not used TweetDeck and sounds real good. I’ll definitely be looking at it a bit more for my Twitter.
Peter Lee
Thanks for the shout-out John. I’m glad you like TweetDeck. I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing lots of cool stuff coming from the developer.
John,
I think you miss the point about Twitter, and so do a lot of others. Twitter is about building real relationships and interacting with those that you follow. Down the road you will see that your Twitter authority will be measured based on your Following-to-Followers ratio. The more Followers versus Following will be a better guage at how influential one is on Twitter. For all others – auto-following is the worst practice to do on Twitter, opens you up to spam, which can get you caught up in spam clouds.
@brentnau
I like how you post your direct msgs as well, of all those ppl thanking you for the auto-follow.
That’s awesome. I’m going to check this out because I’m going to need it.
I started using Tweet Deck about two weeks ago and to be honest I am suprised a full blazed user like yourself didn’t already use this interface its excellent, really nice lay out and simple to use.
Impressive tool if it allows you to follow that many people back!
Well that’s not really true, is it? TweetDeck is great but the title of this article should really be “How to not follow those other 7,900 followers I could care less about”
I use tweet deck as well – it is great – although there newest release is not as stable as the last one. It allows me to sort the people i follow and i also have it show search stream of keywords i want to follow on twitter. Just wish it had tabs so i could follow more stuff. I guess you could call me a twitterholic. Doesn’t following then and not actually flowing them kind of anti social?
I haven’t use it, but i will…
If you use MacOSX, there are other valid alternatives such as:
- Alert Thingy: http://tinyurl.com/cdwh55
- EventBox: http://tinyurl.com/akhj8z
I just know today about twetDeck, I have twitter! will find out soon! thank for the info..
I’ve grown rather fond of TweetDeck, as it does seem to keep things organized well. My only niggle is that if it gets very busy, I’ll run out of API and have to wait until the next refresh to get back into Tweetdeck.
Ah well, that’s probably a sign I should be doing something else anyway…
This is just what I was looking for John, I too have not followed a lot of people because of all replies, thanks!
My only question…
How do I get in that all important Close Friends group?
now i following you , first post and hope i be here always
I guess in Anonymous, LOL.
BTW i need to check this out.