Gauging Social Networking Success with Twitter

It’s no secret that social media is taking marketing by storm. There’s very few people left in the cyber world that don’t use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc., and the ones that don’t use these social media sites probably still know something about them. Companies are using these social media sites as a way to establish an approachable brand where consumers can get to know the company on a more personal level. Social media strategies have become the norm; consumers now expect companies to utilize these tools.

Twitter allows users to create short, 140 character messages. Using these in a business setting, the short messages can give insights to the company culture, what the company is working on, new products or improvements, and whatever else the company feels is necessary. If used correctly, Twitter can become a very successful tool in a marketing campaign. Using Twitter engages your followers; it creates a two-way conversation that is very attractive to consumers

AllofE recently launched a social media marketing campaign, and here are some applications we’re using to gauge our Twitter success.

1. The first application we recommend is CoTweet. The best thing about CoTweet is that it allows multiple users to contribute to one Twitter account. It also allows you to monitor keywords and trends, sends email notifications when tweets are sent to your Twitter account, assigns tweets to your colleagues for follow up, creates conversation threading and rich profiles that track things like conversation history, recent tweets and Twitter profile information, tracks clicks through bit.ly, allows you to schedule Tweets ahead of time, and keeps a record of your Twitter history. CoTweet is one of the most useful Twitter applications that we’ve found, is incredibly easy to use, and can come in really useful for any business that has a multiple-person social media team.

2. Bit.ly allows you to shorten links to make posting links on Twitter easier, since only 140 character updates are allowed. With a bit.ly account, you can track the number of clicks on your links, the top referrers of your links, and click locations. It works in conjoint with CoTweet to measure and track clicks.

3. Hootsuite is a lot like CoTweet with its ability to link multiple users to one Twitter account, etc., except that it tracks statistics in a more colorful, and easier to read graphical format. Here is a video about HootSuite stat tracking and the information HootSuite generates:

4. You don’t have to create an account for Twitalyzer, which is one great aspect of the service. It tracks in influence of your Twitter account based on followers, number of Tweets per day, Lists, URLs, Hashtags used, and a multitude of other categories. All you have to do is enter a Twitter username and click ‘Twitalyze,’ and Twitalyzer will do the rest.


Whether it’s your personal Twitter account, your school’s account, or your business’ account, the goal of Twitter is to get your name out there and to give your followers a little insight into who you are. Check out some of our favorite Twitter applications to see how well your Twitter is faring, and let us know your favorites, too!


Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/allofe