TweetDeck is one of my favorite twitter applications because of its ease of use and a short learning curve.

TweetDeck is a free desktop software to help you organize your social media experience. By converging all your social media accounts into a series of columns it is very simple to absorb it all. Twitter, LinkedIn, Buzz, Face book, Foursquare and MySpace can all be managed through the program. The desktop software works on Windows and Mac OSX.

Using TweetDeck is done from your desktop, iphone, ipad or Android and you don’t have to be online to send out your tweets, how cool is that!

Here’s a tutorial that will show you how to download the software, add Twitter account and schedule your tweets using TweetDeck.

Step 1: Installing TweetDeck

Open your web browser and browse to www.tweetdeck.com.  Click on the Desktop link.

Now click on the “Download Now” button.

A small pop up window will appear and ask if you want to Open, Save or Cancel. Click Open and allow the program access to your PC. After it finishes installing, TweetDeck will start automatically.

Step 2: Adding Your Twitter Account to TweetDeck

When you run TweetDeck the first time, it will show a getting started window. For now, just click the Get Started button. It at the bottom right hand corner.

TweetDeck will prompt you to either sign in to TweetDeck or add a social media account manually. Click on Add Twitter.

The next prompt will ask for your Twitter user name and password. Fill in the information the same way you would log in to the actual Twitter website. TweetDeck uses your login information to retrieve your timelines, mentions, direct messages and trending topics.

Step 3: Composing Tweets with TweetDeck

Type your Tweet into the gray text entry area at the top of the page. As you type the counter will track how many characters remain in this Tweet. Click Send once your Tweet is complete.

TweetDeck offers some powerful tools for personalizing your Tweets. These icons are found at the top and bottom of the gray area where you type in your tweets.

Add or Change Location – Clicking this icon will allow you to pick your physical location from a Google map. A link to this map will be  attached to the Tweet you are typing.

Attach Photos and Videos – Tweets with media come alive. Use this icon to add photos and videos to your Tweets.

Record Video from your Webcam – If your computer has a Webcam attached to it, this icon will allow you to use it to capture a video and then add it directly to the tweet.

TweetShrink this Update – This service will analyse your Tweet and shorten the total characters used to create it. It will abbreviate and use Twitter slang to reduce your update. Make sure you review the update after TweetShrinking it.

Translate this Update – If your Tweet needs to reach an international audience this icon will analyse your Tweet and translate to a variety of languages.

Recent Hashtags – TweetDeck tracks the hashtags you include in your updates and allows you to reuse them.

Schedule this Update – If you would like your Tweet to be posted when you are not able to use a computer the schedule feature will hold your update until the scheduled time and then post it for you.

Adding your Facebook, Linkedin and other social media networking sites is the same process, so download TweetDeck today and get started. You’ll see how easy it is to use and how convenient it is having all your social media networking sites in one place.

Great for everyone not just nurses or small business owner, here’s the link to get started now- TweetDeck.

Tina

P.S. Hope this helped, if so be sure to share with your friends by hitting one of the “Share and Enjoy” buttons below.