Why Twitter Users Need TweetDeck

I'm fairly new to Twitter, but honestly it didn't take very long for me to become addicted. The whole premise of Twitter is pretty cool - micro-blogging at its best. If you've never heard of the term micro-blogging, just imagine mini blog posts that are no longer than 140 characters at a time.

All day long, fellow Twitter users tweet about their daily lives, jobs, and post links to articles, blog posts, photos of interest. There's also plenty of talk about that day's hot topics. Twitter is sort of like a chat room that is open to everyone, but you can be selective about which parts of the conversation you listen to and participate in.

Of course, the more people you choose to follow, the harder it becomes to keep track of the conversations going on. In fact, it's easy to become lost in Twitter-land if you don't have some help in keeping things organized. This is exactly why I love TweetDeck so much, because it helps me to keep track of all the random tweets that come through plus it puts every possible Twitter tool you need to post your own tweets right at your fingertips.

Here are the reasons why I love TweetDeck so much and why you should use it if you're on Twitter!

Create Groups to Filter Your Tweets

You can easily create a work group, friend group, family group, tech group, etc. to keep tweets separated and neatly organized. Each group will have their tweets displayed in a separate column.

Perform Searches in TweetDeck and Keep Tabs on the Results

Maybe you want to know what people are tweeting about American Idol or 24 or even the latest news item. Simply search for that keyword and TweetDeck will create a new column of tweets using that keyword.

Easily Shorten URLs, Attach Pics or Shrink Tweets

My favorite TweetDeck feature of all is the handy set of Twitter tools that are built in to help with your own tweeting. You click one button to post your own tweet and a counter keeps track of the characters you are using. If you go over the 140 character limit, the box turns red to warn you.

Directly below is a place where you can enter URLs and shorten them to a more Twitter-friendly size. There is also a button for attaching pictures via Twitpic. TweetDeck also has a TweetShrink feature that will shrink your tweet to under 140 characters if you happen to go over. And the new version of TweetDeck even has an option for translating tweets and easily adding recent hashtags to your tweet.

TweetDeck can be downloaded at http://tweetdeck.com and is available for Windows, Mac OS or Linux. The default version of TweetDeck has 4 columns - one for all incoming tweets, replies, direct messages and the last column has a tag cloud of all the current hot topics. You're free to move columns around or add and delete as you see fit.

I really can't say enough about TweetDeck. It would be almost impossible to keep track of my daily tweets given the number of friends that I am following. But TweetDeck makes an unmanageable task very manageable and because of this it has become one of the top Twitter desktop applications out there.

Happy Tweeting everyone!