Send your question to ghada [at] girlstoys [dot] co [dot] nz

Todays’ question is:

I have joined up to Twitter and am really starting to enjoy the interaction with people all around the world. Problem is, I have started following so many people and have such an information overload that I’m not sure how to keep track of everything! What is your best suggestion for managing my Twitter account?

I have been asked this question time and time again and I always answer with 2 simple words DOWNLOAD SEESMIC! To me this is the ultimate Twitter management tool. Not only is it easy on my Macbook’s memory, but the team at Seesmic are continually improving the app keeping Twitter enjoyable for anyone with just a handful of followers to a few thousand.

The latest addition to Seesmic is the integration of Facebook. What this means is that you can add Facebook status updates direct from Seesmic. All you have to do is setup your Facebook account details at the same time that you setup your Twitter details. You can check status updates for Twitter and Facebook all in one place – neat, eh? But it gets better, you can also update to Facebook from Seesmic, and I don’t mean sending ALL your Twitter updates to Seesmic – cause let’s face it, that’s annoying. What you want to do is send only a selection of your Twitter updates to FAcebook, and with Selective Twitter Status* you can do just that. It is an app that will install directly to your Facebook account – all you have to do is enter your Twitter username and whammo bammo its done! Then, whenever you make a Twitter update that you want to appear in Facebook as well, you tag it with #fb at the end. See what I mean, easy and helpful!

Other great features of Seesmic include:

• Saved searches: Use the search bar in the top right hand corner to search for terms of interest (great for both business and personal use) so that you have an ongoing stream of tweets in one column whenever someone mentions the search term. This can be a great way to monitor your brand (save a search with your company name) or a topic of interest (if you have a love for all things Mac, like me! Save the search term “mac” or “apple” or “iPhone” and engage with people who show up in the stream created from this search).
• Integrated picture and link sharing (soon will also have video support)
• Ability to create userlists stacked in colums alongside tweets from all the people you follow and all your @replies. People in the same time zone, friends and family, business contacts, whatever you want. The userlist columns can be docked, so save a few and open them up when needed. Creating userlists is the best way to minimize the information overload and keep track of who is talking directly with you.

Seesmic is very easy to setup. But if you are at a lost or get stuck, you can always follow these very helpful videos from John Haydon. He has 3 separate videos to take you through the setup and how to get more out of Seesmic’s various features. I’ve embedded the first video below to take you through the setup. To view the others, just go to John’s Viddler account.

BTW, I am not a paid employee of Seesmic’s. When I like something, I like talking about it. Simple.
Hope you have learnt something from this first installment and don’t forget to keep sending your questions in. If you thought this was helpful, why not tweet about it

* Props go to @andreawong_nz for the heads up on Selective Twitter Status

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