Step Four: Using Twitter Apps
There are quite a few Twitter apps you can use to enhance your social media experience. Here are a few I’d recommend from regular use:
TweetDeck (free) or HootSuite (not free). These can help you schedule your posts ahead of time. This is perfect for some Twitter writing events or for the occasional shout-out to your books or blog posts. Just double-check before you send – the dates and times have a habit of coming out wrong. And please, don’t ever spam!
Link-shortening sites like Bit.ly. These can help you shorten long links and tidy up your posts. If you make an account with Bit.ly (it’s free), you can even rename your links, keep them on file, and keep track of how often they are clicked!
Follow/unfollow trackers like Crowdfire. There’s a free version of this too, and it’s so useful if you are concerned with getting more followers. However, DO give people time – like a full week – to follow you back before you unfollow them (since they might also use Crowdfire, but only once or twice a week). Just remember: DON’T ever post about how many follows/unfollows you’ve gotten. Crowdfire makes it easy for you post things like this, but no one – I repeat, no one – is impressed by these useless things. It makes you look bad. Don’t do it.
