If you’re not on Twitter yet – Get Your Online Marketing Butt in Gear!

Twitter is growing like crazy!

Next time you watch the news I’ll bet you hear something about Twitter.

If you need to know how to set up a Twitter account, visit this article from TwiTip.com:

How to Set Up a Twitter Account

Once you have a Twitter account, the next step needs to be downloading TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is…

…your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more.

TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date.

4 Reasons I Love TweetDeck

1. Groups

This is probably the BEST REASON to use TweetDeck.  I can follow as many people as I want, but it can seem impossible to really get anything out of the twitter people I care most about.  TweetDeck Groups cures this problem.  Here’s what they look like:

I can select an option that looks like this at the top of TweetDeck – I will then be able to pick from all the people I’m following and turn them in to a small focused Twitter group.

Let me know in the comments if you have questions about this.

2. Re-Tweeting (RT)

Another cool function of TweetDeck – ease of “Re-Tweeting” (RT).  RT is best described as a “viral marketing” tool – a way to pass on good content.  The option shows up when you put our mouse on the icon of the person – like this (the arrow pointing to the right is the RT:

3. Search

Here’s what the search looks like –

This is an automated feature – all you have to do is set it up. The coolest thing about search is that you can monitor things being said about you, you can monitor specific keywords or keyword phrases, and you can monitor anything else you want to keep a close eye on.

4. Alerts

Many clients I work with think I’m on twitter all day every day.  The truth is…I am 🙂 – just kidding.  There’s no way.  But, with the Tweetdeck alerts, I can be notified when I’ve been replied to, when I’ve been sent a direct message or when something new was found in a specialized search I’ve been monitoring.  Heres what the alerts looks like (it shows up in the top right corner of the screen)

These are my top 4 reasons to use TweetDeck and recently I discovered a new one too – the TwitPic Ajax feature (at least I think that’s what it is).

Here’s what it looks like:

To many of you, this may not be that big a deal, but to me it’s a time saver and TIME IS MONEY!

TwitPic is a way to share pictures via twitter.  My “claim to fame” with TwitPic is when I helped @the_real_shaq learn how to upload pics to his Twitter Account (yep, another shameless plug for my Shaq Follow 🙂 )

The point is, TweetDeck is a great tool to help you save time with your Twitter experience; and now they’ve added this cool new feature where you can see the TwitPic pictures right on your screen without opening a new browser window or tab.

Have you tried TweetDeck.com yet?