Monitoring Twitter with Seesmic Desktop

As Twitter becomes less of a fad and more of a mainstream marketing channel, more and more companies are needing a solution to monitor their brand and interact with customers in one simple solution. Fortunately for all of us, there are plenty of developers out there who are working to provide just that. The latest Twitter tool that we’ll review is Seesmic, a desktop application that will monitor multiple twitter accounts.

I have been a long time fan of Tweetdeck to take care of my Twitter updates, and the multiple account functionality is good. However, Seesmic picked up where Tweetdeck left pieces falling on the floor. Not only can you tweet from multiple accounts, but you can also monitor your Twitter streams of all those account in different columns, a functionality that Tweetdeck is sadly missing. (Click image to enlarge)

Now I can easily monitor both my personal twitter account and multiple corporate accounts in one handy screen. All those columns have drag and drop functionality so you can organized your feeds as you see fit. Seesmic also integrates with Facebook so you can update both your Twitter and Facebook status simultaneously.

Another great tip for monitoring your brand through a desktop application like Seesmic or Tweetdeck, is that you can set up continuous keyword searches for your brand or competitors to see what’s being said out there in the Twitterverse. This is great for finding new followers as well as making sure your customers are happy by addressing any concerns they may have. (Click Image to Enlarge)

See, now there you go. Right on the top of the search result for “Anvil Media” is someone who is helping to promote one of our articles, and we aren’t following them! Simply click on their avitar, select “Follow User” and Seesmic gives you a drop-down menu of all the Twitter accounts you’re managing so you can select the correct profile to start following that person from. Pretty easy huh?

Again, your searches can live in their own columns which you can organize however you like, or chose to hide if you don’t want to see them all the time.

Seesmic also allows you to group your users into lists (high school friends, work connections, industry experts, etc.) so that you can focus your efforts on the appropriate group at the appropriate time. Break all your groups into separate columns to keep your life and Tweets organized!

That should be enough to get you or your company started with Seesmic. Seesmic is a great tool if you’re managing multiple accounts and things don’t get too crazy. If you’re a large corporation who needs multiple staff members running Twitter, try to get in the private beta for CoTweet.

Happy Tweeting!