2015-03-09

Are you looking for a way to manage multiple Twitter accounts for free?

Do you want to manage your social media with a standalone desktop app, with notifications and live streaming?

If so, TweetDeck could be exactly what you are looking for.

TweetDeck is a customizable tool that allows you to manage and organize an unlimited number of Twitter accounts and keep track of Twitter lists, Twitter searches, hashtags and more.

The Essentials

TweetDeck is highly specialized software that offers Twitter users a comprehensive and completely free way to manage multiple Twitter accounts. It is a popular tool that can be used as a desktop client on Windows and Mac OS X machines, as well as in a web browser or as a Chrome extension.

Several years ago, TweetDeck users could manage their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and FourSquare accounts with the tool but, when Twitter acquired the software, this was pared back to Twitter alone.

At the time, this angered many users – nobody wants to lose functionality in their favorite tool!  But, it did mean that TweetDeck could focus on making its Twitter integration as good as it could possibly be.

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What can TweetDeck do?

TweetDeck users can tweet, reply, retweet, favorite, send Direct Messages and manage and monitor multiple accounts and streams, all in one single interface. Accounts can also be followed, muted or blocked, and users can view Twitter profiles, all within TweetDeck.

When you hover a tweet, icons appear that make it easy to retweet, reply or favourite it.  When you click on the three dots on the right, further options appear.



Manage tweets and users in TweetDeck

From this dropdown menu, you can send Direct Messages, add or remove people from lists, mute or block a user, report a tweet, get a link to the tweet or get the embed code to share the tweet on your blog.

You can also click ‘Details’ below any tweet to find out more information about it (such as the tool used to send it and the time and date it was sent).

If the tweet is part of a conversation, you can click ‘View’ to see the entire discussion.



See details of how and when a tweet was sent. Alternatively, view an entire Twitter conversation

When sending tweets, TweetDeck uses Twitter’s own URL shortener so that any link pasted into a tweet will be automatically reduced to 23 characters. Up to four images can be added to tweets, and tweets can be scheduled to send at a later date, even if you’re not online at the time.

Manage Multiple Accounts

One of the biggest benefits of TweetDeck is that you manage an unlimited number of Twitter accounts.

To add a Twitter account to TweetDeck, click the ‘Accounts’ image at the bottom of the left-hand column in TweetDeck.

Add Twitter accounts in TweetDeck

Click ‘Add another Twitter account’ and follow the instructions to authorize the account with Twitter.

From this interface, you can look at details of all your connected accounts, including follower numbers and recent tweets.

You can also choose which account should be the ‘default’ account, which means the account that will be automatically chosen to send tweets if you don’t specify a different one.

When you start to write a tweet, all the accounts you have connected are displayed.  You can choose which accounts should post by clicking to highlight the ones you want, and you can send a tweet from several accounts at once.

You can also follow other Twitter users from several accounts at once. To do this, view their profile by clicking on their username within TweetDeck.  Click on the head-and-shoulders icon and then select ‘follow from accounts’.  From here, you can select which of your Twitter accounts should follow that profile.

Follow users in TweetDeck

Real-time Timeline Streaming

One feature that a lot of our commenters enjoy is the live-streaming of updates in the TweetDeck columns.

Updates stream in real time

You don’t need to click ‘refresh’ or scroll to see the latest updates, you can just watch as posts are shared in real time.

The tweets in the GIF above are trending topics, so they are moving very quickly.  If you want to slow it down, scroll down and you can control the speed yourself.

If you don’t like the live streaming feature at all, you can also disable it by clicking ‘Settings’ in the bottom left-hand corner, and de-selecting ‘Stream tweets in realtime’.

You can disable live streaming in TweetDeck

Manage Multiple Timelines, Searches, Lists, Mentions and More in Columns

One of the most powerful features in TweetDeck is the ability to add as many columns as you want.  You can customize these columns to make sure they are relevant and useful.

To add a new column in TweetDeck, click the + sign at the bottom of the left-hand menu.

You will see this screen, which allows you to choose the type of column.

These are the types of column you can add:

Home: This shows the Twitter stream for a particular account

Search: Input any search term or hashtag, and this column will show all matching results

Notifications: A notifications column shows all mentions, replies, retweets, favorites and new followers for a Twitter account

Followers: This column lists the followers of a Twitter account

Mentions: Similar to notifications, but only shows the mentions and replies for an account

Messages: This column displays a Twitter account’s Direct Messages

Mentions (all accounts): This column shows the mentions and replies to every Twitter account you have connected to TweetDeck

Messages (all accounts): This column shows Direct Messages to all the Twitter accounts you have connected to TweetDeck

Activity: This shows more activity than appears on your timeline, such as the tweets that people you follow have favorited

User: This shows all the tweets from a particular person or account

Favorites: This shows the tweets you have favorited, or starred

Trending: This shows hashtags, words and phrases that are trending at any given time

Lists: This column shows all the tweets from people in specific Twitter lists

Collections: This shows tweets that have been added to a collection, which used to be called Custom Timeline

Scheduled: See all the tweets you have scheduled for future dates.

When you add a column, you can then customize it. For example, this column shows a Twitter list made up of people who discuss social media.

By clicking the symbol in the top right-hand corner of the column, you can add extra instructions.

Customize columns in TweetDeck

If you click ‘content’, you see the following options:

You can choose to show:

All tweets

Tweets with images

Tweets with videos

Tweets with any media

Tweets with links.

You can also add keywords that should be included or excluded, and you can exclude or include retweets.

Under ‘Users’, you can choose whether all users, specified users, verified users or only your own tweets should be included. You can also select to only see tweets that mention you, or that mention other, specific users.

You can choose whether you want to receive audio or pop-up notifications when you have new tweets in this column, and you can choose how you want to see previews of images and videos. And, finally, you can edit the Twitter list from this interface.

Schedule Tweets in TweetDeck

One of the most useful features of TweetDeck is the ability to schedule tweets to send at a later time.

To do this, click the ‘New Tweet’ button in the top left-hand corner and write the tweet you want to send.  You can click ‘Add Images’ if you want to include an image.

Next, click ‘Schedule Tweet’ and scroll down.  You will see a calendar where you can choose the time and date.

Choose the time and date for your scheduled posts

Click the blue ‘Tweet on [date]’ button, and your tweet will send at that time, whether you are online or not.

If you want to keep track of your scheduled tweets, remember you can add a column (as above) to see them.  Since TweetDeck’s most recent update, if you share an account with others, they will be able to see your scheduled tweets for that account, and you will be able to see theirs.

Get Notifications and Alerts

If you want to make sure you don’t miss tweets from your favourite people or posts using a specific hashtag, you can set up a pop-up or audio alert within that column.

This is really useful if you want to make sure you don’t miss important tweets.

Mute Words or Users

If you are trying to catch up with the latest tweets in your industry but everybody is tweeting about Downton Abbey or the Superbowl, it can be really easy to get distracted.

The answer is to ‘mute’ the #Downton hashtag, or the most vocal offenders, in TweetDeck. You can always unmute them after the TV program or sporting event is over.

There are two ways to do this:

Mute users directly from their tweets by clicking the three dots under the tweet and selecting ‘Mute [user] in TweetDeck’.

Mute a Twitter account

For more options, go to the Settings menu and select ‘Mute’. Here, you can mute users (e.g. a particular account), text content (e.g. a hashtag or a particular word) or a source (e.g. a horoscope bot).

Mute words, hashtags, users or tweet sources

Being able to mute users and key terms helps you to manage your Twitter stream more efficiently.  You don’t need to unfollow somebody who is great most of the time, but really annoying during The Voice, and you can get rid of spammy bots or annoying auto-tweeters by muting them at source.

Summary

TweetDeck is a popular Twitter-management tool that offers in-depth functionality for managing one or more Twitter accounts.

Do you use TweetDeck?  Would you consider it as part of your social media management suite?

Let us know in the comments!

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

The post TweetDeck: How to Use TweetDeck for Twitter Management appeared first on RazorSocial and was written by Ian Cleary

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