In the last several months Twitter has become more popular than ever. Twitter.com was the fastest growing Web brand in May 2009, according to data from Nielsen Online. Unique visitors to the site increased a whopping 1,228% year-over-year, from 1.2 million unique visitors in May 2008 to 18.2 million in 2009. More recently, events such as the Iranian elections and Michael Jackson’s death have brought Twitter to the forefront of the Internet revolution, making it one of the fastest ways to get real-time news from around the world.

Twitter, which began as a platform for friends and family to keep in touch, has evolved into a different product that the creators couldn’t have predicted.  Iranian protestors used it to communicate with one another by announcing protest locations and warning one another about police crackdowns. It may have saved hundreds of lives. In addition, businesses are turning to Twitter for marketing and branding.

If you are not on Twitter yet, now is the time to get on it and build your followers. The following is a list of Twitter tools which will help you use Twitter more effectively and allow you to quickly build your followers. If you need assistance with Twitter and would rather have a professional do the work for you, please visit our website and take a look at our premium Twitter services www.iclimber.com .

1.    Social Oopmh (http://www.socialoomph.com/) (Previously called TweetLater)

Social Oopmh, which was previously called TweetLater, is my top pick in Twitter Tools. There are many tools that do just one or two of the features this tool provides, but Social Oopmh has many features in one app.

The top features of Social Oopmh are:

-          Create and schedule tweets

-          Track keywords on Twitter

-          Send automatic welcome DM’s to new followers

-          Uses bit.ly for shortening URL’s which in turn tracks your clicks

-          Follow those who follow you automatically

-          Unfollow those who unfollow you

All of the above features plus a few more are offered in the free version of Social Oopmh. However, there is a fee-based version that has even more features.

2.    Tweet Spinner  (http://tweetspinner.com/)

The top features of Tweet Spinner are:

-          Create and schedule tweets

-          Schedule rotation of profiles and designs

-          Follower management

-          Location filtering

The free version of this tool allows you to perform some of the basic functions, while the fee-based version will give you much more functionality. The most useful part of this tool is the follower management. It allows you to follow users based on keywords they tweet about. You can also drop users that do not follow you and it will drop the oldest ones first.

Location filtering available on the fee-based edition allows you to limit following to only those users whose locations match any of the criteria you specify.

3.    Twitter Feed (http://twitterfeed.com/)

Twitter Feed allows you to use RSS feeds or ATOM feeds to post on your Twitter automatically. For example, you can automatically post Google news on a certain keyword to your Twitter account using Google RSS feeds. You can also specify how many posts you would like per 30 minutes or hourly basis.

4.    FlashTweet (http://www.flashtweet.com/)

Flashtweet lets you mass follow the followers of other users that you specify. You can simply pick someone that tweets about similar subjects to you and follow their followers.  However one limitation we have seen with this tool is that if you have over 2000 followers then the tool will not work. The creators of the tool told us this is because when you have too many followers, the tool will crash. Therefore, this tool is best for those just starting out that would like to quickly increase their followers.

This tool also allows you to mass unfollow your followers.

5.    TwittGeek (http://twittgeek.com/)

TwittGeek is a Twitter application that allows you to automatically follow up to 200 people based on keywords you specify! It is a simple app that you should not use more than once a day or Twitter may think you are spamming.  Too bad the app does not allow you to schedule the auto follows, so it would do it for you daily.

6.    TwitterMass (http://twittermass.com/)

This is mainly a fee-based application starting at $24/month that lets you do the following:

-          Follow by Keyword
Use this tool to follow people based on keyword or hashtag.

-          Local Follow by Keyword
Use this tool to follow people locally by keyword or hashtag.

-          Remove Unwanted Guests
Use this tool to unfollow anyone who is not following you back.

-          Clone Any Account
Use this tool to clone anyone’s followers.

-          Manual Follow
Use this tool to find the perfect candidates to add to your network.

-          Follow Friday
Use this tool to automatically tweet your top Follow Friday friends every week.

The free version of the tool shows you a nice statistic graph of your followers. Even if you don’t buy this tool, it is worth logging in to view your followers graph.

7.    Bit.ly  (http://bit.ly/)

Bit.ly is a URL shortening service that offers tracking and stats. By using this service to shorten your URL’s you can see how many clicks your link is getting and even see some other stats such as location and referrers.

8.    TwittLocal  (http://www.twitterlocal.net/)

TwittLocal allows you to find posts by location. For example, specify a city name and a radius distance and you get a list of all recent tweets based on your criteria. You could then follow those twitters if you like and hopefully they will follow you back, so you can build a local following, if that is something you are looking for.

9.    Twitbbacks (http://www.twitbacks.com/)

Twitbacks allows you to create a customized background for your Twitter account for free. If you are not savvy in graphic design or photoshop, then this is the app for you.

10.  Tweet Pro by Soxialize (http://www.soxialize.com/tweet-pro/)

Tweet Pro is an auto follow tool that is desktop based. It allows you to find followers based on keywords and follow up to 50 people at once. You can use the app for several twitter accounts. It is a fee-based app that costs $10 for first 30 days and $47 for each month after. The only benefit this provides over TwittGeek which we recommended earlier is that you can pick and choose which of the 50 people you actually want to follow, while TwittGeek will automatically follow everyone.