One problem with the Twitter web application is that you can’t keep an eye on your replies and Direct Messages and main Tweetstream on the screen. If you want to throw in some of your favorite keyword searches, you will only add fuel to the fire. Oh, and what happened a couple hours ago? You only see the last 20 tweets or get to click through multiple pages to catch up. Then there is the problem with twitter being over capacity. Make your life easier with an application to manage your Tweetstream.

Tweetdeck is displays the Tweetstream, your replies and your direct messages all on the one screen. Add columns to monitor keyword searches. The message columns displays hundreds of tweets, so you can scroll to see the history and catch up quickly if you happen to take a break for dinner.

Seesmic is one of my favorite applications. It does much of the same that Tweedeck does. When I first installed a desktop application Tweetdeck did not support multiple accounts and Seesmic did. Now they both do.

I’ll cover the specifics of these applications in their own articles. Of course, most of the websites have the latest and greatest feature lists too.

My favorite use of twitter is to monitor keywords. For example, I watch for the word “composting” to join in composting conversations. People ask questions and I get a chance to answer them. That is a great way to engage in the conversation. The followers will come as you progress and they will be quality followers. One key is to talk about what you are interested in — watch and engage in the conversation around those topics.

Oh, and I don’t do twitter all day. In a normal day, I’ll check it 2-4 times. This usually takes A LOT less than 10 minutes each time and I have multiple twitter accounts that are active:

1. I logon with Seesmic, Seesmic is a great tool to watch multiple streams for multiple accounts.
2. Check for @mentions and respond.
3. Then I look at 3-5 streams of keywords and only glance through the last 100-200 tweets for each keyword.
4. If something catches my interest I’ll join the conversation.

For advertising (or promoting), I tried an experiment on Black Friday. I tweeted specials for most of the day with affiliate links. This was from an account that was clearly intended for this purpose. I didn’t offend anyone and actually made about 70 dollars that day. I may make more of an effort next year on the big sales days and plan for them instead of winging it like this year.

Bottom line, it is for networking…it is for advertising…it is for seeing what people are saying about your products or business. It is basically what you make it to be.