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How to Use Tweetdeck: The Ultimate Twitter Client

February 9th, 2009 · 70 Comments · Social Media, Tech Fun, Twitter

One of the first questions I usually get about Twitter is “How do you follow 21,000+ people effectively?”. And my answer is “TweetDeck!”. There are lots of great Twitter clients out there, but the one I use and probably couldn’t live without is TweetDeck. TweetDeck is an Adobe Air-based application that runs on any platform (it requires Adobe Air 1.5 to be installed first). What is does is take your entire Twitter feed and break it down into small, manageable, bit-sized pieces. Using TweetDeck’s column-based interface, you can split your Twitter feed into topic or group specific columns. You can also see separate columns for your @replies and your direct messages. There are also lots of other useful little tools built into TweetDeck that help you shorten your URLs, shorten your Tweets and post pictures. I’ll cover those functions later. First, let’s look at how I use TweetDeck to break my Twitter feed into manageable chunks of information.

Here’s my main TweetDeck screen:

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I have 5 columns displayed: All Friends, The A-List, The B-List, Replies, and Direct Messages. Let’s take a look at each column and how I use them.

All Friends: This is my complete Twitter stream. All 21,540 of the people I follow show up in this column. About every hour or so, I scroll through this column and look for any interesting links or conversations to join in.

The A-List: The A-list is a TweetDeck Group Column. I use this group to pull a stream of people that I follow very closely. These are people that I work with, people that I have an established relationship with, or people that I find the most interesting to follow. I try to keep this group limited to no more than 25 people at any given time. Beyond that, I find it difficult to keep up with Tweets on a regular basis. Whenever TweetDeck detects a post to my A-List, I get a visual and audible alert. Unless I’m seriously engrossed in my work, or coaching a team, I usually check my A-List when my alerts go off. The visible alerts are small popup windows that look like this:

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The B-List: The B-List is another TweetDeck Group Column. This is a group of people that I follow closely, but not in a critical way. This is a mixed group of people I’d like to get to know better, people who are top Tweeters (like Guy Kawasaki, Arleen Anderson (Aloha Arleen) and GaryVee), brands and companies that I’m observing to understand how they use Twitter, people that I find interesting or funny, and other friends. I get visual and audible alerts when Tweets are posted in this group as well. However, they’re usually not critical Tweets, so I read them whenever I have some free time. I try to check this stream about every half-hour or so.

The Replies Column: This is a standard TweetDeck column that searches Twitter’s public timeline for any @replies to your username. This is really useful to keep track of who is talking about you or with you. It allows you to quickly respond to any conversations directed toward or about you. I have visual and audible alerts set for this column and usually check these as they come in (unless I’m busy). It let’s me interact with the Twitterati effectively and I try to respond to anyone who @replies to me (unless it’s really Spammy).

The Direct Messages Column: Another standard TweetDeck column. This keeps track of all of the Direct Messages sent to you and those sent by you. I really like this functionality. The only problem is, I autofollow anyone who follows me. So, if those people have automatic direct messages sent whenever someone follows them, you guessed it, they end up in this column. Unfortunately, that means that some important DM’s get buried in an avalanche of DM’s that say “Hey, thanks for the follow. And check out my website at http://IAmDesparateForSubscribers.com!” or “Great to meet you @<username>. If you’re looking for real estate in the Tri-State area, check out http://I’mALameRealEstateAgent.com!”. (BTW: Have you noticed that real estate agents seem to outnumber everybody else on Twitter these days?). Now, I have nothing against auto-DM’s, it’s nice to at least get some confirmation when you follow someone. Just don’t make them pushy, I hate that. OK, sorry for the mini-rant.

So, that’s my main TweetDeck setup. You can order these columns however you want to by sliding them left or right. I keep these 5 columns visible all the time on the left of my TweetDeck screen. I also have several other columns to the right of these that I can scroll to when I want to check them. So, here’s the other half of my TweetDeck screen:

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On this side, I have a few search columns, another group column, a favorites column, and a TweetScoop column. Here’s what’s in each one:

Search EdgeHopper: This is a TweetDeck Search Column. It allows you to specify a search term and then scours Twitter’s public timeline for that term. It displays all Tweets containing that term to the search column. I use this search column to see who is Tweeting about my blog called EdgeHopper. It let’s me monitor the public timeline for people including, but not limited to, my followers who are discussing or commenting on my blog. It’s very useful and allows me to interact with people very quickly.

Search Chris Spagnuolo: This is another Search Column. This one searches for my name: Chris Spagnuolo. Unfortunately, after the NY Giants were eliminated from the NFL playoffs and their defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was shopping for a new job, a lot of people were talking about him…and they all showed up in my search column. And before you ask, no, we are not related.

Cycling Column: I’m seriously into cycling and am a cycling fan-atic. This is a TweetDeck Group Column that I use to keep track of several professional cyclists who Twitter (including Ivan Basso and Lance Armstrong who is a great Tweeter and TwitPic user). I also follow several cycling coaches, some bike shops, a few cycling news streams, and a couple of cycling political action groups. Very handy for keeping track of a special interest without doing broad search term columns.

Favorites: A standard TweetDeck column that keeps track of Tweets that I’ve favorited. Very nice feature as it let’s me go back to these Tweets whenever I want to re-read them or use a favorite link that was posted.

TwitScoop: This is a standard TweetDeck column based on an integration with TwitScoop. TwitScoop crawls hundreds of tweets every minute and extracts the words which are mentionned more often than usual. The result is displayed in a Tag Cloud in the TwitScoop column. It’s a really cool way to stay on top of what’s buzzing in the Twitterverse at any given time. It also has a Trending Topics section that shows emerging trends in Tweets.

The one column type I haven’t been using (but probably will) is TweetDeck’s 12 Seconds TV column. This keeps track of your 12 Seconds TV stream if you have one. Nice feature, I just haven’t done much in 12 Seconds TV yet.

In addition to breaking your Tweets into topic or group specific columns, you can filter the stream within a column based on one of several attributes including keywords in the Tweet text, Twitter user name, source, or even time frame. This gives you complete control over what you see in your TweetDeck columns.

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In addition to the filter tool, there are several other tools at the base of each column. They enable you to slide the column left or right, mark all the Tweets in the column as seen, clear all of the seen Tweets, and clear all Tweets in the column.

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Also, from any Tweet, you can click on the user name of the Tweeter and TweetDeck will display that user’s profile and Tweet stream as well as a follow button in case you’re not already following them. Here’s my buddy Bert Decker’s profile à la TweetDeck:

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Other Cool Tools in TweetDeck

So, that’s the basic set up for columns and separating your Twitter stream. But, beyond breaking your information into easily digestible bites, TweetDeck has a great collection of tools built in to help you Tweet better, smarter, and faster. First, there is the nice Tweet Window:

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Easy Tweet entry in the Tweet Window. It even has a spell checker built in. It also keeps track of your remaining character limit and turns the entire Tweet Window red if you’ve exceeded your Tweet character limit:

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The Tweet Window also includes some cool tools for URL shortening. Just enter the URL in the Shorten URL window below the main Tweet Window and click the Shorten URL button. And, voila, a nice, short URL. You can also select from several different URL shortening services if you have a particular preference:

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If that’s not enough, there’s a great little TwitPic integration. Just click the TwitPic button while your writing a Tweet and it opens a dialog box to select a picture from your desktop. After you select a picture, it automatically uploads it to TwitPic for you and adds the URL to the picture into your Tweet automatically:

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There is also another nice integration with TweetShrink. TweetShrink tries its best to fit your text within the 140 character limit of a tweet by replacing common phrases and words with shorter representations. Kind of like running your new text through the dryer or sending it to fat camp. I don’t use this much, but if you’re from the cell-phone-texting generation like my 20-year-old niece, my guess is this works for you. In any case, with one click on the TweetShrink button you can go from this:

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to this:

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Another nice feature is the Twitter API Limit Tracker. The API Tracker allows you to see how much of your Twitter API limit you’ve used and at what time your API limit will reset to 100%.

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And speaking of your API limit, you have complete control over how TweetDeck is using your API limit for each type of function. Within the TweetDeck settings dialog you can control what percentage of your API limit is dedicated to your entire Twitter stream, your Replies and your Direct Messages. This essentially controls how often TweetDeck updates each category:

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And since we’re in the TweetDeck settings panel, you can control where you want your Tweet window, how you want update notifications to occur and your column widths from the General settings tab.

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And finally, you can manage the appearance of TweetDeck to suit your personal style through the Colors/Font tab in the settings panel:

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So, that’s my guided tour of TweetDeck. If you’re looking for a great client for Twitter, look no further. This is the only Twitter client. But don’t take my word for it, Guy Kawasaki says ” I swear by Tweetdeck and Tweetie.” You can’t get a better endorsement than that. And no, I didn’t build TweetDeck or have anything to gain by sharing this except to help you find an awesome client for managing your Twitter stream. Have fun and keep Tweeting!

UPDATE February 12, 2009: TweetDeck v0.21.5

From the TweetDeck Blog: Since this is a point release, rather than a full new version, it contains mainly minor functionality updates and bug fixes but there are one or two interesting new features:

  • you can now twitter to a global audience with the ability to translate tweets you’ve received and written into most languages
  • for those interested in monitoring stock information and chatter you can now turn your TweetDeck into a “StockTwits terminal” with the introduction of 5 StockTwits columns
  • get your tweets out to those who are not on twitter by emailing them from TweetDeck
  • for those times when I need to communicate something to all the open TweetDecks there is now a built-in messaging system
Your TweetDeck will auto-update when the release is available or you can get it directly from here if you already have AIR installed:http://tweetdeck.com/beta/TweetDeck_0_21_5.air
Rather than explaining everything in great detail, below is a video walkthrough of the main functionality. There is a full changelog at the bottom of this post.


TweetDeck v0.21.5 from Iain Dodsworth on Vimeo.

Update:March 16, 2009: TweetDeck v0.24 Pre-Release

TweetDeck v0.24 Pre-Release is out today for downloading. Key feature: Facebook Integration http://is.gd/nz1V

Update: April 8, 2009: TweetDeck v0.25 Release

TweetDeck v0.25 is out today.  Key features/improvements:

  • Major memory leak fixed
  • FaceBook integration
  • Short URL preview in TweetDeck
  • TwitPic preview in TweetDeck
  • Record 12seconds Videos direct from Tweetdeck
  • Option to have usernames auto-complete in the tweet box.
  • Option to automatically include hashtags when replying to messages.
  • Removing the ability to DM yourself, and in so doing stopping many of you from feeling foolish.
  • Updating the list of URL shortening services to the top 5 only and adding the Digg URL shortener.
  • Making it easier to tab between the tweet box and the shorten box.
  • Removing unread counter at top of each column.

The update will automatically be pushed out to everyone using TweetDeck today or it can be downloaded direct from http://tweetdeck.com.

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