In a few short years, Twitter has gone from the service that no one could see the point of, to one of the busiest social and marketing channels on the internet. Here are some of the best tools I’ve found to tame the sea of tweets and make Twitter time-productive.

Software

If like me you find the official interface clunky and annoying, there are alternatives that make it easier to get things done.

Listed in order of numbers of users:

Hoot Suite By the far the most popular way of tweeting next to Twitter.com. This web-based app allows you to schedule tweets, produce and export custom analytics on follower growth, brand awareness, the reach of your tweets and more. There’s support for posting to Facebook and LinkedIn and for multiple accounts and authors. Sign up for a 30-day free trial here.

Tweet Deck Once a separate entity, Tweet Deck is now a part of Twitter. My favorite feature is the ease with which you can quickly edit and schedule a retweet as soon as you see something interesting. Tweet Deck works well, it’s free but there’s currently no analytics tools.

Twitter Feed The most popular way of sending new blog posts from an RSS feed directly to Twitter. Comes with real-time stats.

Marketing Tools

Social Oomph Originally called Tweet Later, Social Oomph is smart marketing and analytics for pro users. Features include keyword tracking, drafts, scheduled tweets, unlimited accounts and automated following and DMs. It also integrates with Facebook and LinkedIn.

Hashtags Provides a basic listing of #hashtags and their popularity.

Twubs Another hashtag tool but this one lets you search by partial match so you can see which is the most popular tag to use from close variations.

Monitter Pretty nifty tool for finding people and tweets on any subject in real-time. Add as many columns as you like to monitor multiple phrases and keywords at once.

Tweet Beep Think of it like a Google Alerts for Twitter. Get hourly email updates of all your @replies and @mentions along with any keywords you specify.

Twitter Tools One of the best Twitter plugins for WordPress, this allows you to exchange content easily between your Twitter account and your WordPress blog. Basically, you can tweet your posts and post your tweets.

Twitter Apps

There are a huge number of apps that use Twitter as a platform. Inventive developers have created photo / video / file sharing systems, games, tweet scheduling, surveys and polls and more.

Given that, it’s surprisingly difficult to find a decent app directory. I’ve found these three about the best places to try: Twitcom, TwtBase and the Twitter Fan Wiki.

Analytics Tools

Twitter Counter Are you getting all the followers you can? This stat service shows you a graph of your recent follower gains as well as predicting growth for the coming week. Handy for making sure you’re keeping up with targets. Extra features in the Pro version include a full year’s worth of analytics, PDF and Excel exports and reputation management tools.

Twitter Directories

A well-written listing in a popular users directory can help you gain targeted followers as people search based on their interests. Getting listed on all these sites is free.

WeFollow Nicely designed site with prominent blogger, social media and entrepreneur listings.

Just Tweet It A huge site that’s easy to navigate despite the large number of categories. It also has a tools / app directory.

Twellow Aiming to be the Yellow Pages of Twitter, Twellow allows you to find users by following and follower numbers but annoyingly some search features are disabled unless you’re logged in.

Tweet Find Easy to use and has a Top 100 feature. The free listing option has a wait of 1 – 2 weeks.

Twibs Business directory with over 36,000 companies and professionals listed.

Finally, let’s not forget Twitter’s own Suggested Users feature.

Need To Give Your Twitter Profile a Boost?

See my guide to improving your profile and increasing followers.