Now that Tweetdeck is integrating more social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Buzz, Foursquare, MySpace), I’m guessing there will be a name change soon. Ideas? Take this poll!

Click here for the results so far.

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on  August 4, 2009.

I can’t continue to write for the Wall Street Journal “Laid Off and Looking” blog anymore, because I have a new job! I will be the Director of Marketing and Social Media at Second Time Around, a consignment clothing retailer with 19 stores in 8 eastern states (MA, NH, RI, ME, CT, VT, DC, NY). Second Time Around’s owner, Jeff Casler, recently got venture capital funding from Generation Equity Investors, so is slated for more growth in the coming years.

I got this new position through a combination of Twitter, an online job website, and good old fashioned networking. Back when I first lost my job a year ago, I posted my resume on a site called Jewish Jobs. Lisa Colton, the founder of Darim Online, was looking for someone with my background for some consulting work and found me on the website. She also recognized my name because she had been following me on Twitter for a couple of months and liked the things I had to say. So over the next few months, we kept in touch and talked about how we could work together. Then on June 17th, I got an email from Brian Colton (Lisa’s brother-in-law), a partner at Generation Equity, saying they were looking to fill a marketing position at their latest venture, and Lisa had given him my name. One month later, on July 16th, STA offered me the job!

A year ago, I don’t think I would have gotten this job. I wasn’t well versed in social media, but I have been focusing on that for the year I have been out of work. Social media is such an important part of marketing these days, and I was behind the eight ball before this year. I also think that being involved in social media has put me “out there” so much more, that potential employers like Lisa or Jeff could see what I’ve been up to much more easily. One look at my Twitter account, my website, or the posts I’ve been doing for this blog, bring instant credibility to me. You can see the way I write, the way I think and where my interests lie. I know this had an impact on me getting the job I did, and think it’s vital to a successful job search, even for people not interested in marketing.

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on  August 4, 2009.

I was delayed in writing this post for the WSJ blog, because I was hoping to be able to write about a job offer I was expecting to have. It didn’t come. It still may, so I haven’t lost all hope, but it sounds like the company may be unsure whether or not to hire for the position. Sound familiar? I have been hearing this more and more lately with the poor economy. Either the company advertises for a job, and then decides they aren’t hiring any more, or they restructure the job in the middle of hiring because they are trying to accomplish more with less, or they just decide to put the position on hold.
So not only do we (laid off folks) have to deal with the stress of being out of work, and an unknown financial future, we are also impacted by the uncertainty that companies are feeling themselves. This makes it tough, and honestly a bit emotionally trying at times.
The way I have combated this is to try to not get too excited about a job until it becomes a reality. I talk about potential jobs with my friends and family, but try to not go into too much detail. The more we talk, the more excited I get, and the more they ask questions. “Did you get the job?” “When will you hear back?” “Did you hear from them yet?” “What are the next steps?” “Did you follow up with them lately?” It’s supportive, but for me, more and more talk brings more and more excitement, and consequently more and more disappointment when it doesn’t work out. So, no more detailed discussions for me!
The other way I have combated this becoming too emotionally trying is to continue plugging away, even though I have a good feeling a potential job will work out. Don’t stop. You need to keep going until you accept the job, or even the day you start your job. In this economy, anything can happen, and stopping not only wastes time if it doesn’t work out, but emotionally it makes you more invested in the opportunity you are waiting on. Keep many balls in the air, and don’t be “monogamous” until you get the offer, because you know the company certainly is not.

Readers, how do you prevent yourselves from getting too emotionally invested in a potential job opportunity?

So, I’m finally back to work after being out of a job for a year. Overall, my year was tough, but I learned so much about social media, networking, and basically just reinvented myself professionally.  Now, the rubber is meeting the road, and I’m back to work.  I started my job at Second Time Around last Monday, so it’s been a full 2 weeks.  So, I am more stressed or less stressed than I was when I wasn’t working?  Yes :-)

Obviously, being out of work was stressful.  It was stressful financially — how was I making ends meet?  How long was my unemployment going to last? Would I get the client I was trying to get?  It was also just a constant stress of feeling like I needed to do something to move my search or consulting work forward all the time.  Even at night, if I wasn’t out socializing or at a networking event, I was very rarely just relaxing in front of the TV or reading.  For most of the year, I didn’t really take a break.  So, in that way, work seems relaxing!  It’s not such a weight hanging over my head, like I felt all year. I do think I’m going to be working at night a bit, having some work travel, or weekend trips (I was in Chicago this week and am going to CT tomorrow), but for some reason, I’m better able to shut my mind off and relax.  I can come home at night if I don’t have plans, and take Stella for a leisurely walk, get dinner, and watch TV. Love it!

On the other hand, my schedule couldn’t be more different now than it was for the past year.  I got accustomed to having the schedule I wanted.  I went to bed no earlier than 2am on most nights, and woke up by 9am at the earliest.  If I was tired, I took a nap.  I took Stella for a walk in the middle of the day if I wanted.  Now, not only do I need to get up at a normal hour for work, I have started working with a personal trainer and am in physical therapy (for my knee), so get up almost every day by 6 or 6:30am.  Going to bed at 2am no longer works.  Napping in the middle of the day is not recommend, at least if I plan on keeping my job!  So, from this perspective I find it more stressful.

But, so far, I seem to be managing OK, and am getting used to going to bed early again.  I am LOVING the job. Everyone is incredilby nice, welcoming, and very dedicated to growing this company.  There is so much opportunity for marketing and social media, I can’t wait to get some of my ideas moving!

How have you coped with a change in lifestyle like this?  Any ideas to help me or others?

(Photo credit: Money Tree, Clock)

I am pleased to report that I have accepted a new full time job! I will be the Director of Marketing and Social Media at Second Time Around, which is a consignment retailer with 19 stores in 8 eastern states (MA, NH, RI, ME, CT, VT, DC, NY).  Second Time Around (STA) recently got venture capital funding from Generation Equity Investors, so is slated for more growth in the coming years.  I got my offer on July 16th, which oddly enough is the one year anniversary of me being out of a full-time job.  What an odd coincidence!

As with any rapidly growing company I know I will be wearing many hats, but my overall responsibilities will be branding, strategy, social media, internet marketing and general marketing materials.  Second Time Around is already on Twitter (impressive!) (each store has its own account… @STAThayerSt, @STANeedham, @STASohoNY, etc.) and Facebook, but there is a lot of upside with these, and with the website.

So, how did I get the job?  I really WISH I could say I got it through a connection I made on Twitter.  Then maybe people would start believing that Twitter has merit and isn’t just about reporting when you go out for a cup of coffee :-)  But, although I did have many job interviews and leads from Twitter, this wasn’t one of them.  It was from old fashioned in-person networking.

I posted my resume on a site called Jewish Jobs back when I first lost my job.  Lisa Colton, the founder of Darim Online, was looking for someone with my background for some consulting work, so we started talking.   (Update: Lisa reminded me that she actually DID find me first on Twitter… go Twitter!) We kept in touch over a number of months, talking about how we could work together.  Then on June 17th, I got an email from Brian Colton (Lisa’s brother-in-law), a partner at Generation Equity, saying they were looking to fill a marketing position at their latest venture, and Lisa had given him my name.  One month later, on July 16th, STA offered me the job.  And, yesterday, I attended an all day offsite with the new Board of Directors.  My first official start date will be August 24th.

I am so excited for this new opportunity.  It is a great combination of an established company (the first store opened 35 years ago), and a start-up environment with the new infusion of capital and the growth plan.  I will be able to leverage my marketing skills from my consumer products background, but also my new social media skills.  There is a huge opportunity for STA with social media, and they are believers in it, so I am looking forward to implementing some creative ideas.  Overall, I think this is a place where I will be able to make an impact, which is one of the most (if not the most) important qualities for me in a job.

My next post will go more into my thoughts about this past year and what I learned.

Thank you to everyone who helped me this past year.  So many people touched me, and I could never have gotten this incredible job if it weren’t for you.  So, thanks.

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on June 17, 2009.

A few months, I was asked a question by a potential employer that I couldn’t answer “What do you think of what we are doing in social media?” I couldn’t answer it not because I didn’t know what he meant, but rather, that I hadn’t actually looked it up. Although social media is the area of marketing I am most interested in, I was still stuck in my old ways of researching a company… by looking at their website.

Doing thorough research of a company is one of the most important steps in preparing for an interview. Not that they will necessarily ask you the direct question that I got asked, but because it gives you the opportunity to bring up what you have researched, or just have a better understanding of how the company operates. Realizing this, put me into action to change the way I now research companies.

Here’s what I do now.

• I search for the company’s fan page on Facebook. I look what they have posted, and what their fans are posting about them. I do the same for YouTube.
• I find their corporate account on Twitter, and again, see what they are tweeting about. I also search on an application called Twellow, to find employees of the company, and see what they are writing about.
• I find their company profile on LinkedIn, and look up the profiles of some of the people I might be working with or key executives, and definitely the people I will be interviewing with. I find at least one item about a person that I have in common with them, so I can bring it up in the interview somehow.
• I do quick searches for the company and key people on Hoovers and Zoominfo. Other good websites include: Vault, Glassdoor, Lexis Nexis, Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance. Of course, there’s a good old search engine on the company’s name, or coupled with key words such as “good” or “bad.” Through looking at these sites, I also try to understand who the company’s major competitors are.
• Of course, I still look at the company’s website, and at a minimum, read the About Us section, the press section, and overall what the company has been doing. If they have a blog, I read the first few posts.

Spending the time doing this extensive research has really helped me better understand the mindset of the people and the company I’m interviewing with. Yesterday, I was asked in the interview what I thought of a company’s website, and I could give a very thorough analysis.

What do you think?  What are your preferred methods of researching a company prior to an interview?

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on June 2, 2009.

When my position as the Director of Marketing at the JCC was eliminated in July, it was a complete surprise to me. It was just as the economy started going south, but I didn’t foresee it affecting me so close to home so quickly. Looking back, I wish I had been more prepared rather than being stuck like a deer in the headlights. Here’s what I would have done if I had been prepared.

Get involved with networking groups

Like many people, I used to only network when I was actively looking for a job, but that’s the opposite of what networking really should be. I recently heard a great definition of networking — building relationships before you need them – and I think this is a great way to look at it. So, if I had been more prepared, I would have joined local networking groups across a wide variety of people and industries, as well as industry specific groups. You never know who knows who, so your next job could come from the most unlikely person.

Connect through online social networking

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are key ways to network in this day and age. It took me some time when I first got laid off to connect with people I wasn’t already connected with on these sites. And for LinkedIn, I could have asked my former bosses/coworkers for recommendations and answering questions in groups to bolster my profile. Already having these steps done would have helped me hit the ground running.

I didn’t start my blog until after I got laid off, but now provides potential employers a window into how I think, what I’m interested in and what I’m up to. Having that up and running before the layoff, would have given me the benefit of having good content, a readership and comments.

The basics

The next few ideas are probably the most obvious ones, but were still important for me to get started on! I needed to update my resume, particularly with quantitative numbers from my job. I should have registered on the major job search sites, and started receiving emails or RSS feeds for relevant jobs. And finally, I could have gotten back in touch with recruiters. It never hurts to have them keeping you top of mind early on in the process.

Do you have any other ideas for how to be prepared for a layoff?

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on May 12, 2009.

Twitter seems to be all the rage these days, especially since it made headlines with the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN battle, and more so when Oprah joined. But, there are a lot of misconceptions out there about Twitter, the two most common I hear are that it’s a young population using Twitter, and that people are sharing just the “mundane details of their lives.” Neither of those is true. In fact, 76% of Twitter users are over 35. And, while Twitter can be about the mundane details of people’s lives, for the most part, it’s about people connecting with others who have similar interests. For example, since I’m interested in Marketing and Social Media, I follow people who are also interested in the same, and we share information on topics relevant to us. I have learned so much from interacting with people on Twitter since joining in September.

To understand how Twitter is helpful with networking, I like to think about how I do networking without Twitter. Normally, someone I know introduces me to someone they think I should talk to. I then email or call that person and set up a time to get together for coffee. We meet, and talk about their work, what I’m looking for, any opportunities they know of, other people they think I should talk to and any advice they have for me. I get home and send them a thank you note, and usually connect with them on LinkedIn. And, that’s it. We go our separate ways. They go back into their life, and may remember me, but within a couple of months, I have most likely slipped into the depths of their memory.

Enter Twitter. The process can be the same, but after we go our separate ways, we continue to interact on Twitter. They get to see the value I’m bringing; instead of making an impression on them in an hour long coffee meeting, I am making an impression in the coffee meeting, and on a regular basis after that. I am staying much more top of mind. I have had many situations with people I have had coffee with, where they spontaneously write me a couple months later, saying that they are still keeping me in mind for any opportunities they come across. That doesn’t happen as much with non-Twitter networking.

The other benefit is being able to find new people who I wouldn’t have met otherwise. Oftentimes, I’ll see someone interesting on Twitter and ask them to get together. Or, if I have a specific company in mind that I want to talk to, I look the company up on an application called Twellow, find out who works there who I am following (the term for being connected with someone on Twitter), and I ask them to meet with me. In both these cases, it’s like a “cold call”, but there is a lot of information about me at their fingertips to make me less “random” to them. They can read my bio, click thru to my website, see what I am doing on Twitter, and the value I provide.

And then there’s the more casual networking. Twitter is basically a big networking meeting going on 24/7, that you come and go into. I have had so many people just contact me and say that they have seen me on Twitter, and they know of an opportunity they think would be perfect for me. There are also a variety of “Tweetups” (events run by people on Twitter) that are basically networking meetings. That, again, provides a whole new group of people to network with that I might not have otherwise met.

Here is one specific success stories about networking on Twitter. I registered for an event at Harvard Business School to listen to a panel about the future of Marketing. Coincidentally, the day after I registered, one of the panelists (Diane Hessan from Communispace) started following me on Twitter. I sent her a private message saying that I was looking forward to hearing her and meeting her at the panel. She wrote back and said she was impressed with my background and she would see me at the panel. When I met her in person, our introduction was much more meaningful, as she already knew who I was, and I could stand out from the other people she was meeting. Fast forward three months later, and she just referred two potential consulting clients to me.

In addition to this, I have been referred to countless potential new clients and potential jobs. Twitter is definitely a great way to network.

What do you think?  How have you used Twitter for your job search?

Note: This is a version of a post I made on the Wall Street Journal online blog on April 28, 2009.

One of the biggest changes for me since I lost my job is being at home a lot instead of at an office filled with people. I’ve gone from chit chatting in the hall and having lunch and laughs with coworkers, to being home alone, sometimes all day. In addition to the financial stresses that come with being unemployed, I think this is why a lot of unemployed people get depressed. But for me, I don’t think it has really impacted me in a negative way.

For one, I am a social person by nature so I typically have plans at night to go out somewhere. I have really tried not to cut back on how often I go out just because I am unemployed, because I feel like I need this social interaction. I have, however, changed the way I go out, as I’m much more conscious about spending money than I used to be.

I also try to get out to networking meetings or networking events, which not only helps in my job search, but helps with the social interaction aspect and realizing that I’m not the only one going through this. And, as silly as it may sound, I feel like my dog has made my days much less lonely. Obviously I have to take her out a few times a day, so that helps get me physically out of the house. But, having her around also makes my house feel less quiet (plus, I talk to her sometimes!).

The other challenge of being home is that it’s harder to stay focused on the task at hand. Not only is it easy to keep crazy hours (I tend to go to bed late, and get up late), but it’s also easy to get distracted, and work on a lot of non job-search related tasks during the day.

To help people with this issue, a Boston based company, BzzAgent, came up with an innovative idea, and approached me to be one of the people in their program. Basically, given that they found themselves with a lot of extra office space, they started loaning extra space in their office to laid off workers and entrepreneurs. The idea is that rather than being alone at home, these people can come in and feel the camaraderie of an office. It’s a great idea to not only keep the office lively, but to also help out the job seekers. (I didn’t take them up on their offer, as I am getting used to being at home and working in my pijamas sometimes!).

Overall, I think getting out of the house at least once a day and being social outside of my job search have been important factors to keeping me from letting unemployment get the best of me.

Photo credit: Late night

How do you cope when spending more time at home during your search?

Note: The original post with comments is now ineditable, so has been recreated here. Please see the old post if you’re interested in the comments!

There are so many Twitter applications, I can’t keep track! So, I decided to start this list as a comprehensive place to list all the Twitter programs. I plan to keep this updated as I find out about new applications. If you have any to add, please leave a comment below, and I’ll add them. Or, if you feel I have described the applications incorrectly, please let me know as well! (ones in bold italics in the chart have been added since the last update)

*Note – See below for a list of even more programs and non-iPhone mobile applications. Any mobile applications are denoted with [m].

140it – Shrink your tweets directly from Twitter, using this browser button.

BackTweets – This application will search Twitter for links to a certain website, even if they are shortened. I have an RSS feed set up for my website, and have seen many times where people tweeted about my post without me knowing it. It give me the opportunity to

Backupify – A free backup service for Twitter, and many other social media applications, including Facebook, WordPress, Flickr, Delicious.  You can choose daily or weekly backups, and get a pdf of the backup.  Very cool application.

Birdhouse [m] – Capture your ideas, save them for later and publish them when you’re ready. Quickly jot down your ideas, just like in Notes. Count down to 140 characters, just like in Twitter. Save as many as you want, revisit them later. Capture your ideas offline, even in Airplane mode. Rate drafts with stars and sort by best or by newest. Manage and publish from multiple Twitter accounts. Unpublish the bad ones just as easily. Back everything up through email. $3.99 on iPhone store.e

BlastFollow – This is a great tool to follow a bunch of people with a similar interest all at once based on a hashtag.  So, if you’re at an event or on a webinar, enter the hashtag, and you’ll automatically follow everyone using that hashtag.   Simple but very useful.

Brizzly – A web-based Twitter client that has multi-account (including Facebook) and list support.  It also has a “mute” feature where you can mute a particular person if they’re tweeting too much (!), but you need to be using their interface to actually have the mute work.

BubbleTweet – Create a short video that pops up as a “bubble” over your Twitter profile page. Here’s an example. Cool service, but the bubble only shows up if you use the BubbleTweet URL given to you. So, anyone who just goes through Twitter.com won’t see your bubble.

ChatterBox – ChatterBox allowsho you to monitor Twitter conversations that matter to you. Whether it is a list of interesting keywords or specific user handles, ChatterBox can centralize that information into a common dashboard that individuals and teams can leverage to manage and respond to those conversations. Easily assign workflows, prioritize, tag and assign those interactions to team members ensuring that all tweets are responded to in a timely manner. Looks great for company use.

ClickableNow – Clickable Now is a plugin you’re your browser that allows you to add clickable images to your Twitter background, and allows you to see the clickable backgrounds of other tweeters.

ConversationList – A “conversationlist” is a Twitter list of the people that you talk to (and about) on Twitter. The list is automatically updated daily, so that it always reflects the people that you are paying attention to right now.  Cool application, but I don’t really see a use for it.  Also, if someone uses ListWatcher, it’s constantly telling them they have dropped from or have been added to your list.

Doesfollow – A simple program that does one thing… tells you if one user is following another user. It gives you a “yup” or a “nope” answer. I use it if for some reason I’m curious about if someone is following me (don’t use too often).

DM Deleter – This application will delete all the DM’s in your account. Apparently this saves Twitter money, because you help them conserve server space.

ExecTweets – Helps you find and follow the top business executives on Twitter.

Filttr – A program that allows you to adjust the tweets you see. You can increase or decrease certain people, and increase or decrease what you see from certain keywords. Great idea! They should integrate this into Tweetdeck! But, I can definitely use this as-is.

Followformation – I have not tested this application, because it does not use Oauth. Followformation is a tool for novice Twitter users to get started with following the top people in their categories of interest. It’s like Twitter’s suggested users list, but uses a few sources, such as We Follow, Twitterholic, and GeoFollow. Up to 10% of the auto-followed lists from any category will be paid placements.

Followize – This app’s description is “It’s a powerful, streamlined interface to Twitter which makes following lots of people and conversations quicker and easier.” But, honestly, when I sign in, I have NO idea what it does, or what the benefit is.

Freetwitterdesigner – Allows you to create a customized Twitter background with text, shapes and images.

FriendDeck – Described as “Tweetdeck for Friendfeed“. Seems amazing for those who use Friendfeed.

Friendfeed – “Helps you discover and discuss interesting stuff that your friends and family find on the web.” Basically, it allows you to see what your friends are sharing (and share yours with them) on various websites across the internet, including web pages, videos, photos, and music. It’s used for sharing, idea generation, conversation, marketing, etc. It’s used for much more than just Twitter. Seems great, but it’s just too much information for me right now. I will probably be an addict at some point soon.

Friendorfollow – Shows you who you are following that’s not following you back? Who’s following you that you’re not following back. I don’t use this… too much information for me. Gives you 3 tabs:

• Followers – those you are following who are not following you
• Fans – those who are following you but you’re not following them back
• Friends – Mutual follow

Greasemonkey – See bio text, following & follower count, and most recent Tweet for all friends and followers on the Twitter follow or friends list. Seems great! But, I use Topify to decide who to follow.

Grouptweet – Allows you to create a group to tweet with privately (i.e. bostontweeters). I haven’t found a need for this yet, but see that it could be useful for a work situation.

Hootsuite (formerly Brightkit) – HootSuite allows you to manage multiple Twitter profiles and pre-schedule tweets. Their newest feature allows you to link Hootsuite account with Google Adsense, so you can send links with banner ads. Here’s an example of what it looks like (see top banner). This is the only feature I’m using for now, although I am undecided as to how I feel about sending links with ads. (Thoughts? Let me know below!)

HowSociable – A free tracking/monitoring application that shows you how visible a brand is on the social web. 1,000 is the average brand, so higher or lower indicates something about your brand.  It can also send you a monthly email updating your score.

Klout – Klout allows you to track the impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph. They collect data about the content you create, how people interact with that content and the size and composition of your network. Then they analyze the data to find indicators of influence and then provide you with innovative tools to interact with and interpret the data. Very cool application!  This is quickly becoming a widely used tool by companies to determine key influencers.

Listorious – Listorious makes it easy to find the best lists of Twitter users on any given topic, and for list creator to publicize their lists.  You can also follow lists directly from the application.  This is a great way to find lists in a particular area of interest.

ListWatcher – A great application that works by just following @ListWatcher.  It sends you a DM when any of the following happens:

• Someone adds you to a list
• Someone deletes you from a list
• A list with you is made private or deleted
• A list containing you is renamed

This is a great application so you know what lists you are on.  My only complaint is that it doesn’t filter out the Conversationlist activity, which changes every day, so that makes for a lot of useless DM’s.

Monitter – Similar to Tweetdeck, it’s a twitter monitor, it lets you “monitter” the twitter world for a set of keywords and watch what people are saying.

Muuter – A GREAT tool that allows you to temporarily unfollow someone if they’re tweeting a lot. If they’re at an event, and are tweeting too much, just mute them!

My First Follow – This application will tell you who you first followed on Twitter. I’m not sure what this shows you, but people do seem to use it!

MyCleenr – MyCleenr is a unique way to sort your friends by their last tweets. It allows you to get rid off all the inactive and useless accounts that you are following!

Mr. Tweet – Does 3 things:

1. Suggest good people and followers you are missing out on
2. Recommend you to enthusiastic users relevant to you
3. Regularly update useful stats of your Twitter usage

I prefer to find people to follow myself, so I don’t use this application.

My Tweeple – Shows you who you’re following who is not following you back, and vise versa. It’s similar to Friendorfollow, but the display is more cumbersome.

Nearby Tweets – A geography–centric social tool for networking and a business tool for building customer relationships and monitoring real–time buzz. Creates a geographic layer on top of Twitter.

Newsgetter – Allows you to search for certain terms, and save your searches to return to later.

Objectivemarketer – A centralized campaign manager. Deliver a message to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.   Then track and analyze responses to messages.  Schedule posts, including recurring posts.  Create automatic posts from an RSS  feed.

Peoplebrowsr – Similar to Tweetdeck, but web based. I love Tweetdeck too much to consider anything else!

Peepnote – A contact manager for Twitter.  Tag and filter the people  you follow, add notes to remember who they are, and export custom lists to Twitter.

Pluggio – This is a web-based Twitter app that has  many of the features of other Twitter clients.   The one feature I used regularly is that you can set up certain keywords to get notified when they are used, and follow those people.  You can put even put parameters about the people to be notified about, such as their follower/following ratio, number of tweets, etc.

Qwitter – Emails you when someone stops following you. I use Socialtoo for this purpose.

retweetrank – Retweet rank is a representative of the number of times a user have been retweeted by others recently. The application tells you our Retweet rank, and percentile. I like this service a lot, as I think that how much a person retweets, is a strong indicator of the value they are bringing to Twitter.

Retweet Radar – Finds trends in the mountains of information ‘retweet’ed on Twitter. Shows you top retweeted people and links. Cool program.

Rate My Talk – Rate My Talk (@talkr on Twitter) is a service that allows conference attendees to provide immediate feedback on a conference via Twitter or through our web site. This data is collected and provided on the site in order to provide accurate feedback on valuable (or not) presentations. Seems like a great service… I’ll definitely check it out if I’m ever a speaker!

ReFollow – A GREAT app that lets you unfollow people who don’t tweet, follow people who tweet about you, etc.  A great way to clean up who you’re following.

Repeets – Counts how many retweets a tweet gets, and tweets about the most retweeted ones (wow, that’s a mouthful). Follow @repeets to get updates.

ReTweetability – The ReTweetability Index measures and ranks Twitter users based on the infectious power of their tweets. This number accounts for number of followers and Tweets overall, so it is a true indicator of infectiousness. Users with a high ReTweetability Index have a greater percentage of their content spread by a greater percentage of their followers, implying that when they do tweet, it’s worth reading. I really like this application, as I do believe that a person’s “retweetability” is a strong indicator of their perceived Twitter value.

ReTweetist – Tracks posts that are retweeted to see what the most valued topics are.

ScoutLabs – A paid tracking/monitoring web-based application that tracks social media and finds signals in the noise. The application  costs $250/month. “Scout Labs helps your team find signals in the noise — what to pay attention to, what customers are ranting and raving about, what’s new and emerging.”

Secretweet – SecretTweet was created to allow Twitter users to share secrets anonymously. Basically, you go to their website, and tweet your secret and they tweet it out to their 10,000 followers. People can even comment on it. Some of the tweets are hysterical/scary!

Shorttext – Shorttext allows you very quickly to write a longer tweet or note, and create a URL for it. When I have more to say than 140 characters (especially if I’m copying an email I’ve received or something similar), you paste it in Shorttext, and it instantly gives you a URL for the copy. It’s not just a program for Twitter, but is very useful as a companion application for Twitter.

Searchtastic – Search tweets from months ago (Twitter keeps only 7 days of tweets).  Download the results to Excel.

Seesmic Desktop – Desktop application similar to Tweetdeck, but with multiple account management. I find the application very confusing to use.

Smub – Shortens urls on a handheld and tweets them automatically. (also can be used for Facebook, Delicious, etc.)

SocialOomph (formerly known as Tweet Later)- You can do numerous things with this site. First, you can use it to set up alerts to track keywords you are interested in. You can also schedule tweets at certain scheduled times. And, you can auto follow or auto DM. I use the scheduled tweets feature.  Also newly added, is the ability to block auto-DM’s.

Splitweet – Similar to Tweetdeck, but it allows you to manage multiple accounts. I do need multiple account support, but I am too in love with Tweetdeck, so am waiting for them to come out with this functionality (coming soon).

SocialMention – A free tracking/monitoring application that has a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information. It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc. You can also receive daily alerts, or put a widget on your website.

Socialtoo – This program allows you to do multiple things:

• Received an email telling you who followed you and who unfollowed you the day before, and what you tweeted before that happened
• Autofollow people
• Opt out of auto DM’s (they used to offer an auto-DM service, but no longer do)
• Conduct surveys

The only part of the program I use is the first one… Socialtoo emails me every day with who followed me and unfollowed me yesterday. I usually scan quickly to see if there were tweets that are particularly popular or unpopular, so I can notice a trend. I also look to see who unfollowed me, so I know that they are no longer following.

Tagalus – Allows you to find out the “definition” of a particular hashtag.

Tagdef – Definition of Twitter tags, similar to Tagalus. You can also tweet @tagdef and say “Define #xxx” and it will define it for you.

TBUZZ – Makes it easy to tweet the page you’re on, or follow the buzz around it. Using a toolbar button, you can automatically tweet the shortened link and even copy and paste text easily.

Techrigy – This is a paid tracking/monitoring application that marketers can get a full view of their marketing landscape by listening to their consumers online. It enables organizations to:

• Understand consumers’ reactions to all marketing campaigns irrespective of channel
• Monitor brand reputation
• Identify Influencers
• Undertake proper competitive analysis and market research
• Support loyalty initiatives and programs
• Engage directly with customers online

Tinychat – Create your own chatroom and invite people through one simple link. Not just for Twitter use, but it is a useful tool for Twitter users. It’s pretty basic (no sound alerts, etc), but it does the trick.

TopFollowFriday – Shows you who is endorsing who and who is being endorsed on #followfriday. The results don’t look accurate to me.

Topify – This is one of my favorite applications! What this application does, is makes your email work much better for you with Twitter. When you receive an email about a new follower, instead of being without any information about the followee, it will include their bio and basic stats. And, directly from the email you can follow the person! It also allows you to reply to a DM directly from email.

Twalala – Twalala allows you to control what you see and don’t see in your twitterstream. You can filter tweets out of your stream by keywords and phrases or mute individuals who get a bit too chatty. Twitter with a mute button! Great concept, except you have to use their interface for it to work. It would be great, if the selections here, would be active no matter what Twitter client you used.

TwapperKeeper – Create a permanent archive of a hashtag, keyword or person.  Great app, given how quickly Twitter makes tweets unavailable.

Twazzup – I really like this application. It’s basically Twitter Search, but groups the results together in a more meaningful way. It shows you real time tweets, real time photos, most popular links, and top trendmakers. Very useful.

TweetpML – One of my favorite applications for Lists.  TweepML is a simple format to make it easy for people to share a list of Twitter users.  You can follow the list right from the application, and you can even automatically follow all members of the list, or just certain members.

Tweepsearch – Similar to Twellow, this program searches bios for a particular keyword. But, it can also search the bios of your followers only, which can be very useful.

Tweet Backup – Gives you the ability to export all your posts and friends (will be able to restore in a few weeks as well). After a recent issue with my account (my following count doubled overnight), I signed up for this, just for peace of mind.

Tweetake – Another way to backup your tweets.  The site was down when I was writing this, so I don’t have more to say!

Tweetbeep – Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything, with hourly updates. You can even keep track of who’s tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL (like tinyurl.com). Great for online reputation management, catching all your @replies, finding job/networking opportunities, keeping up on your favorite hobby, and more!

Tweetburner – The program was down when I went to review it, but it looks like it’s a URL shortening and tracking program. It tracks how many clicks your tweet gets, and allows you to analyze which headlines work best, and at what time of day your tweets get the most clicks.

Tweetchat – This program aggregates all tweets for a certain hashtag into a chat room. The benefit of using this vs. Twitter Search for hashtags, is that when you write your tweet, you don’t have to add the hashtag, as it is added automatically — a HUGE timesaver and is so much easier. Also, you can tweet directly from Tweetchat, so there is no need to flip back to twitter to enter a tweet. I use this whenever I’m on a webinar or at an event… amazing!

TweetConvo – TweetConvo is a great application to view twitter conversations. Rather than going through of a tweet’s @replies to get a grasp of the conversation you just enter the tweet’s URL, and it shows you the conversation for that tweet.

Tweetdeck – I can’t say enough about this program. Basically, Tweetdeck shows your Twitter feed in columns of information based on your preferences, rather than one long stream. For example, I use the following columns: All tweets, bostonmarketer, direct messages, friends, thought leaders, companies, twitter stuff, and jobs. This allows me to keep a better eye on things that interest me. You can also see your Facebook friends’ updates right in the application. You can click to see anyone’s profile, and from there add them to a particular column. It has a URL shortener build in, which is invaluable. I find this useful for my job search as I keep columns of job search twitter id’s.

TweetGrid – Create a Twitter Search Dashboard. Looks similar to Tweetdeck, but you can also tweet from multiple accounts. I liked most everything about this program, except that the avatars are very small, so I found it difficult to use.

Tweetmanager – Does a variety of things:

• follow and track Twitter users automatically based on certain keywords
• send a message to 1,000 users or less
• autoreply to @replies (can be used like an out of office message)
• auto-post tweets at predetermined times
• auto-tweet when you update your blog

I’m not currently using this application, but think it has some amazing features.

Tweetmeme -This app aggregates all the popular links on twitter to determine which links are popular. It even puts the links into categories so you can view it by categories you’re intereseted in or just subscribe to the RSS for each. Popular items get tweeted automatically by the Tweetmeme Twitter account.

TweetMic [m] – Great app that allows you to make high-quality audio recordings and publish them directly to Twitter. There is no limit to the length of audio recording you can make! VERY easy app that allows you to create variety in your Twitter stream.

TweetMiner – Allows you to load RSS feeds into this Twitter Client, tag them to be tweeted, and schedule the time to tweet them. VERY cool application that could be very useful. However, there is no way to import your current RSS subscriptions, so you need to add each one individually.

Tweetmondo – Shows you other Twitter users close to you. Cool visual results.

Tweet O’Clock – Type in a Twitter username to find out when it’s best to tweet them.

TweetReach – Tells you how far a URL, hashtag or tweet reached on Twitter. Shows # tweets, # people, tweet types, impressions and contributors tweeters. Great for analyzing an event.

TweetReports – Monitor your brand and online reputation –  track customer sentiment, receive real-time search results, analytics, reports, or research SEO keywords to attract a larger audience. This is a paid service, from $9-299/mo for individuals to enterprise accounts.

Tweetspinner – Does a number of things, many of which are GREAT for businesses… overall, great app!

• Create and schedule smart tweets – create tweet templates, and Tweetspinner will rotate what it tweets for you
• Schedule rotation of profiles and designs
• Smart friends and followers – keyword following (find users who tweet certain words and automatically follow them), purge non reciprocal folllowers, mimic following (follow the followers of another user), location filtering (awesome! but you need to upgrade to use)

Tweetstalk – A program that allows you to follow someone without having them know you are following them. Maybe it’s because I’m not a stalker, but I can’t imagine why this would be useful!

Tweetstats -This program graphs your Twitter stats for you, including tweets per hour, tweets per month, tweet timeline, reply statistics and more. Interesting to look at occasionally.

Tweetree – Tweetree puts your Twitter stream in a tree so you can see the posts people are replying to in context. It also pulls in lots of external content like twitpic photos, youtube videos and more, so that you can see them right in your stream without having to click through every link your friends post.

Tweetsmarter – Adds special characters (like a star or an umbrella) or a retweet link to your post.

TweetStack [m] – Best described as Tweetdeck for mobile phones. Stacks are similar to columns in TweetDeck, and can even be imported directly from TweetDeck. You can also search, and use multiple account logins.

TweetValue – Tells you the monetary value of your Twitter account. Just for fun!

Tweetvisor – A web-based Twitter interface, that enables people to better manage multiple Twitter accounts, returns real-time updates about favorite topics, news and tweets, and supports groups, threaded conversations, tagging friends and inline video replies. Similar to Peoplebrowsr

Tweetworks – Does a lot, but the 2 most basic are: Twitter groups (similar to Group Tweet) and threaded discussions, which allow you to see tweets strung together in a conversation. I am a member of one group. But, because I use Tweetdeck, I don’t use the threaded conversation feature much.

Twellow – A search program that also searches bios, names and locations. It also has a graphical interface that enables localized searching. VERY useful, if you are trying to find someone, or target particular people.

Twhirl – Desktop program similar to Tweetdeck, but it allows you to manage multiple accounts. I do need multiple account support, but I am waiting for Tweetdeck to come out with this functionality.

Twibes – Application that allows you to join groups on Twitter

Twickie – Twickie is a free service that fetches Twitter replies for you (and gives you an easy way to view AND export them).

Twidget – A widget for OS X that allows you to update your Twitter status.

Twilert – An application that emails you regular updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service or any other keyword. Great program, but (as expected!), I use Tweetdeck for this.

Twimailer – Rather than receiving the plain emails from Twitter notifying you of a new follower (include just their name), Twimailer sends you their statistics and their last few tweets. Very cool! To me, the major limitation is that you still have to click through to their profile to follow them. Topify solves that issue, which is why I use that application instead.

Twinfluence – Another Twitter grading tool that measures the combined influence of twitterers and their followers.

Twintro – “Twitter Introductions” – Helps you discover the most interesting Twitter users. You follow @twintro, and every day, Twintro retweets a different user’s tweets to you. If you like that user, follow them!

TwitBizCard – Set up your business card on their website, and then add #twtbizcard to a @reply to send your contact information to someone. Very easy!

TwitLonger – Twitlonger is a way to let you post to Twitter when 140 characters just isn’t enough. You can write what you need and a link to what you said will automatically be posted to your Twitter account. It’s similar to TwtLong. It’s like TwitPic for text.

TwtLong – Twitlonger is a way to let you post to Twitter when 140 characters just isn’t enough. You can write what you need and a link to what you said will automatically be posted to your Twitter account. It’s similar to TwitLonger.

Twit Truth – I LOVE this app! Shows you great analytics on your twitter account, for top Twitter users, and anyone else you want to look up. It shows you the stats below, and also characterizes your tweeting with a descriptor (i.e. I’m an “Engager”), average tweets per day, average response time and breaks down your tweets by type.

Twitalyzer – Analyzes your Twitter performance based on 5 factors: impact, engagement, generosity, velocity and clout.That’s great for analyzing your performance over time.  In addition, Twitalyzer shows clickthrough rate, gives you recommendations to improve your scores, shows a sentiment analysis of your account, and many more features!  There’s also a Premium application that you can pay for.

Twitcam -Allows you to stream live on Twitter VERY easily. Just logon (no OAuth yet unfortunately) and start broadcasting. It tweets a message immediately on Twitter letting your followers know, so they can come watch you, and use text chat to talk to you or eachother. And, it archives your video for viewing later on (cool!)

Twithear – Lets you add your voice on twitter. Call a phone number or use your computer to record a message.

Twithority – Similar to Twitter Search, but it allows you to see the results by user “authority” (the more followers, the more “authority”).

Twitoria – Twitoria finds your friends that haven’t tweeted in a long time so you can give them the boot! Great application, but I just don’t have the time nor see the need to go through and clean out my followers (especially if they’re not tweeting).

TWItoSHIRT – Get a T-shirt made with your tweets!

TwitPic – Allows you to easily post a photo on Twitter. Just browse to the photo, and it creates a link. It’s built directly into Tweetdeck, so it’s easy to use from there!

Twitscoop – Through an automated algorithm, 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, using the following rule: the hotter, the bigger. This is also integrated with Tweetdeck, so is easy to check.

Twittas – As they say, “A new useless app every week.” Includes, when you’ll hit 1 million tweets, what your first tweet was, your first follower was, etc.

Twittelator Pro [m] – A paid Twitter application for the iPhone (cost is $3.99). Great application that has list support, auto-hashtags, multi-accounts, etc.  This is the application I’ve seen that has the most customization available.  It’s only downside is it’s long load time.

TwitterSheep – See a tag cloud from the ‘bios’ of your twitter flock.

Twitter Snipe – Helsp you find people to follow based on certain criteria. Paid application $77.

TwitterSnooze – Allows you to temporarily stop seeing someone’s tweets (i.e. if they are at a conference you just need a break). The downside is that it actually unfollows and then refollows that person. Note: This application has been out of service for a while now, but I keep hoping it will come back!

Twitrans – Translates your tweets into any language.

TwitStamp – TwitStamp allows you to use your current Twitter status anywhere – in the form of an image so you can post it on blogs, forums, websites, etc.

Twitter Buttons – Create a button for your website that says “Follow Me”!

Twitter Grader – Tells you what your Twitter grade is — it’s based on the #of followers, #you follow, etc. You can also find out who the Twitter elite are in a certain area.

Twitter Karma – An application that fetches your friends and followers from Twitter when you click the “Whack!” button, then displays them for you, letting you paginate through them. By default, the list contains all your friends and followers and is sorted by last update, showing those who most recently updated first. You can sort and filter the list. Similar to Friendorfollow, but with better interface.

Twitter Local – Allows you to filter tweets by location. I’m not currently using this, but can definitely see a use for it, particularly if you travel a lot.

Twitter Safe – Backs up your followers, following and replies. I’m not using this… maybe I’m just too trusting that I will not lose everything.

Twitter Search (formerly Summize) – A mandatory for Twitter users. Type in any search term (including AND, OR, quotes) and see what’s happening on Twitter for that search. Also shows you trending topics. Clicking on “Advanced” lets you get more detailed in your search, including tweets from one person to another, date, attitude and place.

Twitter Toolbar – This short cut/quicklinks toolbar brings Twitter closer to you, so you can: visit Twitter, update your Twitter status directly, search Google, Twitter Search, Twellow, Twictionary, optimize your Twitter experience and research the world of Twitter.

Twittercounter – Give you TONS of stats about your profile, including a graph of your follower numbers, growth, rank, etc.

Twitterfall – Allows you to search on a particular term, and have the resuts fall in a real update. Cook when twets are moving quicly!

Twitterfeed – Automatically posts your blog RSS feed and post to Twitter for you. You can also use this with services other than Twitter.

Twitterfriends – With TwitterFriends you can …

• find out the hidden network of Twitter contacts that are really relevant for you.
• visualize the network of your relevant contacts and their contacts
• see who of your Twitter friends are online this very moment
• read some stats about your Twitter account
• take a look at the most conversational Twitterers or those who are posting the most links

Wow, there’s a lot of great information here, but I found it to be too much!

TwitterHawk – Very interesting program, but a bit controversial. This program will automatically send pre-written tweets (that you have written) to people who tweet certain keywords. For example, if you have a coffee shop, the program can send tweets to everyone who mentions coffee. Controversial because it may seem like spam.

Twitterholic – Allows you to see rankings by #followers, #friends, #updates and date joined. You can also see these stats for a particular user over time. Good program, I just don’t have a need for it.

TwitterFox – A Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ tweets on Twitter. This extension adds a tiny icon on the status bar which notifies you when your friends update their tweets. Also it has a small text input field to update your tweets.

Twitterific [also m] – Similar to Twhirl in that it allows you to manage multiple accounts, but it doesn’t have multiple columns of information. (MAC only)

Twittez – Twittez is a simple Twitter application that lets you get your answers from fellow Twitters, all you have to do is tweet with “does anyone know?” with your question and they try to find your answer.

Twitpay – Allows you to send and receive money from someone else on Twitter. Very cool program, I just haven’t needed it yet.

Twitseeker – Finds people on Twitter based on what they’re talking about. Cool! I searched for Marketing, and it came up with a list of 20 people who have been tweeting about Marketing. Very useful, especially for my job search.

Twitter [m] (formerly Tweetie) [m] – iPhone application that handles multiple accounts, search, retweet, DM. Very user friendly and clear.  Recently Tweetie launched a new version called Tweetie2. While there is much more functionality, including lists, it has major problems with caching (you need to reload tweets you’ve already seen again), so I’m not using it anymore. Too bad, it used to be an amazing application.

TwittLink – They monitor almost every post on Twitter and extract all tweeted links. Using a statistical approach they figure out which subjects (based on extracted links) are most discussed on twitter. They use semantic analysis to group links that talk about the same subject. Similar to Twitscoop.

Twollo – This program finds people for you to follow based on your interests. Twollo will find them and automatically follow them for you.

Twtpoll – A very simple, easy to use program that helps you set up a poll. Type in your question and answers, and go!

TwtBizCard – Send a business card to someone by just adding #twtbizcard to any tweet! It’s great to use when meeting people at a Tweetup.

Twtcard – Send a greeting card, a surprise message, or an invitation on Twitter or via email.

Twtvite – Simple event manager twitter application… like Evite for people on Twitter. The application also gives you code to embed the invitation into your website.

UnTweeps – List and unfollow Tweeps you are following who have not updated their status in 7, 30, 60 or 90 days. Useful application to clean out spam and inactive people.

VacationTweets – It’s an out-of-office for Twitter!  You can either set it up to reply to your @replies or DM’s.

ViralHeat – A paid social media monitoring/tracking and analytics application (starts at $9.99/mo for individuals and goes up to $139/mo for large corporations. Provides location based tracking, real-time monitoring and daily alerts. Looks like a great application.

We Follow – A user powered Twitter directory that categorizes people into groups, such as social media, marketing, celebrity, politics, etc.

What the Hashtag? – A wiki that tracks hashtags on Twitter. Great idea, as I so often see hashtags that I don’t know what they are being used for.

Who Should I Follow – Similar to Mr. Tweet, this program recommends people you should follow based on popularity and location. What I like about this program is that you can control those 2 features, if they are more or less important to you. The one problem I see is that it recommends people I’m already following.

Visible Tweets – A great application for events, to display the tweets relevant to that event based on a hashtag or a search. You can choose to display the tweets in letter by letter, tag cloud, or rotation.

YackTrack – I think this is a tracking/monitoring application, but there’s really no good explanation on their site, so I have no idea!

Applications no longer in service – TweetVolume

Even more applications – Here are even more applications that I haven’t detailed above, or looked into: BeTwittered, TweepML, TweetMyBlog, Tweetwhatyoueat, Twtpwr

Mobile applications not for iPhone – I use Twitter on an iPhone, but I thought I’d list a few of the applications I’ve heard of for non-iPhone mobile phones: Blackbird (and more to come… suggestions?)

Security note – I am not claiming any responsibility for the security of these programs. Please do your own due diligence to be sure you’re comfortable, especially when providing your Twitter password.

Anything to add or change? Please leave a comment below!