Top 3 Twitter growth and measurement tools

I was recently experimenting various ways to increase traffic to this blog. I have had a Twitter account for a while. Now and then, I summarized recent posts and inserted a tiny URL link to the blog. This drove a bit of traffic. However I quickly realized I needed a larger number of followers. Assuming a 1% click-though rate, I figured I would need at least 1,000 followers to get 10 hits a day.


Tool # 1 - Tweepme

In short, TweepMe is the 100% opt-in group of Twitter users who all chose to follow each other on Twitter. When a new member joins, every other member automatically follows the new member, and the new member follows them back. The process is gradual and happens over the course of weeks or months depending on the number of TweepMe members.


It's not free. I paid about $10 to join. I thought of it as an experiment. At first glance, it was slow. I was expecting to have 5,000 followers in the first 24 hours but then realized it would take months to get to that number. I think I have close to 1,500 followers rights now and it is growing fast. Traffic to the blog increased but not as much as I was expecting. I still think that for $10, it is all worth it.




Tool # 2 - TwitterCounter


Another good tool I recently discovered. Since this blog is mostly about measurement, I wanted to give an insight into this powerful tool. TwitterCounter is more sophisticated than most tools I have seen so far. It gives a comprehensive historical view of these 3 variables: number of followers, friends and updated. There is also a feature that looks at trend overtime and gives predictions. It's free and fun to use.


Tool # 3 - TweetGrid


TweetGrid is a Twitter search engine. I find the interface easy to use. I typed-in a number of keywords related to digital marcom (SEO, measurement, analytics etc ... ) and narrowed it down to a number of A-users which I started to follow. Hopefully they will follow me in return and drive traffic to the blog.


For more Twitter tools, check out this article from Mashable. I can't see the value of all of them but I leave to you to provide feedack to the ones you like best!