TweetDeck Getting Started Tips

If you don’t know what TweetDeck is, then you probably don’t need it. Though, for the slim possibility that you do need it and don’t know about it, TweetDeck is a Twitter Manager… in short. You can tweet from multiple accounts, keep track of searches and messages, have lists for each account, and more. It’s all of Twitter in a single screen with support for multiple accounts. TweetDeck is both available online as a website and as a desktop application for OSX and Windows operating systems. They also have a Chrome App, which is basicly just their online version.

Knowing that TweetDeck can manage multiple accounts and do all of the listed above, you still have a lot to learn. Personally, I use TweetDeck to monitor how my various sites are being talked about and how the visitors are liking or disliking the changes. At times I will send out a tweet or schedule a tweet, but I’m not that large of a talker though, so this is very rare. Even if you don’t tweet a lot or have a huge Twitter following, having TweetDeck can help you track trends and see what your audience is thinking and talking about that day. Or if you are in news and article writing, tracking news is a large part of it. TweetDeck can help you get the news as it’s happening, just as if you were there.

Below are some getting started tips and tricks. A few of them I didn’t even think of until recently, and I’ve been using TweetDeck nearly every day. If you don’t already have TweetDeck, go to TweetDeck.com and create an account.

Composing new Tweets

1. Click on the Blue Button with a Notepad and Pen on the Top Left of TweetDeck.
2. Select which accounts you want the tweet to be sent out as. Selected accounts will have a green checkmark on the bottom right and the avatar will be opaque.
3. Enter your tweet like normal in the text area, located right below the account selection.
4. Before clicking on “Tweet” check out the various options below such as Adding Images, Scheduling the Tweet, and changing the tweet to a Direct Message.
5. Scheduled Tweets are normal Tweets, but you can set them to be sent to the public at a specific time. This is great for holiday promotions or Hourly Contests. You can setup all the questions and promotions and have them sent out at the exact time to the minute. There is even a column you can add to view all pending scheduled tweets.

All Account Columns

Having a column such as Mentions for each account can take up a lot of space. TweetDeck has “All Accounts” columns, which merges all of the content into a single column. Currently they have a Mentions and Messages columns which include all the accounts into a single column. Having all of your Tweets appear in a single column isn’t built in by default, but there is a work around I figured out recently.

1. Add a new Column by clicking on the plus (+) button which is below all of the existing columns on the sidebar.
2. Select the “Lists” column for the column type.
3. Create List and set it to Private. It doesn’t matter which account you set it for. I usually set it to my personal account or default account. Fill in the Name and Description with whatever you want, such as “Account Tweets” or something more creative.
4. On the next screen after saving, you can enter Twitter Usernames to include in the list. Enter each username you have attached to TweetDeck and include them into the list.
5. Your new Column will have all the tweets you have sent from all of the listed accounts. This is great to make sure Scheduled Tweets get sent properly and that you tweeted from the correct accounts. Along with making sure no one hacked your account and started spamming your feed with malicious links.

Hide Content From All Columns

If there is something that you know you will never want to see in your columns, such as a specific word or a user, you can mute them. The whole tweet will be removed from your columns. One example that @antderosa said from TweetDeck Tips with Circas Antderosa is to prevent spoilers for TV Shows, such as Breaking Bad. Now, that’s a little off base from work purposes, but you will think of something to mute. Right now, I don’t have anything being muted, since I feel like it’s too destructive. If I want to filter something, I will do so in specific search columns, which we will get to later.

1. Click on the Cog or Gear on the bottom of the sidebar navigation menu.
2. In the Expanded View, go into Settings
3. On the Settings Popup, change the tab to Mute and enter the restrictions you want in place. This will not delete tweets, just make them not appear. This includes Direct Messages, your own tweets and everything else that you see on your screen.

Adding new Accounts and Changing Default Account

1. Open up settings by clicking on the cog on the bottom of the left sidebar navigation panel.
2. In the expanded popout, click on Settings to open the inline popup of the settings.
3. Click on Accounts and you can add Twitter Accounts, Remove them, or change which one is the default. The default account is the one which will be selected by default when writing a tweet or doing any activity.

Search Columns and Filtering

Search Columns in my opinion are the most important, unless you are not using TweetDeck for user research. Search lets you see live what is happening in the world, or in your city, communities, and more. Along with Twitter’s search operators, you can filter out the content, users and engagement to get exactly what you are looking for. For Twitters search operators you can visit their support page about Using Twitter Advance Search.

Now, making a step by step list for each thing will be far too difficult, I’ll list some of the ways you can filter content using the Search Columns.

Content Filters

• Showing: All Tweets / Tweets with Images / Tweets with Videos / Tweets with Media / Tweets with Links
• Excluding: Exclude tweets containing specific words. This can also be left blank and have the words excluded by using Twitter search operators.
• Written In: Change which language tweets appear in. You can have all languages or a specific language. I have yet to find a way to select more than one language, so you will have to create multiple columns if you only want a select few languages.
• Retweets: Either you can include or not include retweets. Usually it’s best to exclude them if the timeline is going fast or you will get a lot of duplicates.

Users

• By: Either limit by All Users / A Specific User / Me (one of your attached accounts) / Verified Users / Members of a list.
• Mentioning: Limit tweets that mention anything or nothing, a specific user or a user that you have attached to your TweetDeck account.

Engagement

Limit the visible tweets by how popular they are or how much engagement is on that specific tweet. You can filter them by the number of retweets, favorites and replies.

Organizing Your Columns

Thanks to Laura Davis and the Q&A from Twitters TweetDeck Blog, I learned a new quick way to organize columns. Here are the three methods to move columns around, quickly and then not so quickly.

1. On the sidebar, drag the icons of the columns up and down to rearrange them.
2. Your screen will perform a horizontal scroll to bring that column into view, and flash a border around it.

The not so quick method to move columns, which I’ve been using for far too long.

1. Click on expand arrow for the column you wish to move. (The down arrow that is aligned to the right on each column)
2. On the bottom of the expanded view, there are two arrow buttons. Click them to move the column over by 1 column.

And another method that is a bit faster than the previous method but more visual than the first method.

1. Click on the three lines or the “handle” of the column’s title. It’s right under the column number that appears on each column on the very top left.
2. Drag from that handle into the position where you now want the column to be.

If you have your own tips or tricks, tell us below. I could use some new tricks to help me make the most out of TweetDeck, from daily personal use to monitoring news and user reactions.