3 Free Twitter Tools

As business owners, we are only too well aware that to do social media effectively can eat up a fair bit of our time. But if you don’t have the budget to outsource your social media requirements to a competent freelancer or marketing company, then I can recommend these 3 free time-saving Twitter tools that could help your business gain an edge over the competition.

Commun.it

Commun.it is a relationship management tool endorsed by the likes of Social Media Examiner and The Next Web. It is currently used by high profile global companies such as Dell, Nike and Sony. The beauty of Commun.it is that it allows you to build relationships, manage followers and monitor engagement from one simple dashboard. The Commun.it platform provides suggestions as to who you might follow on Twitter and you can see at a glance who your top influencers are – and reward them accordingly.

The Next Web says: "Commun.it turns the status-oriented world of Twitter into a relationship dashboard, enabling marketers to effectively analyse relationships and gain insights.”

InboxQ

InboxQ is a great little tool which enables you to engage with more Twitter users using the power of questions. InboxQ’s research identified that around 100,000 questions are asked every day on Twitter. In addition, 59% of Twitter users are likely to follow a business or organisation which takes the time to answer their questions online.

InboxQ allows you to set up a campaign using industry-related keywords, so that when somebody poses a question relating to your chosen keywords, you will be alerted in real time. Not only that, but you can use InboxQ as a networking tool.

Let’s say you run a PR consultancy. You can set up campaigns for each of your clients using their specific industry keywords. When you are notified of a question that one of clients might like to answer you can simply retweet them the information. Which means it’s great news for you and for your client too. Smart, eh? You can download InboxQ via your Chrome or Firefox browser.

Buffer

Want to give the impression that you are always online, without overwhelming your Twitter followers? Then you need Buffer. Buffer allows you to create a pre-written stream of tweets into a queuing system which you can auto-schedule for delivery, so that they are fed to your Twitter community at regular intervals. Last September, Commun.it announced a collaboration with Buffer, so you can now integrate both tools from one interface promoting added functionality (and creativity).

Many businesses shy away from social media because they believe they don’t have the time or financial resources to do it effectively. But to keep pace with your competitors, if your customers or clients use Twitter, then perhaps you should learn to love it too.