Once you start using Twitter you will find that it becomes very easy to loose track of time. When I first started using Twitter, I would sit down and log in, and before I knew it, I had spent over 2 hours reading and responding to tweets. Well my wife and kids got a little upset that I was spending so much time on the computer, without really accomplishing anything, other than reading.

So that got me looking for some tools that would allow me to better manage my time spent on Twitter. After much research, trial and testing, I finally found a tool that allows me to do a number of things that really cuts down the time I spend on Twitter.

That tool is Hootsuite. Here is what Hootsuite has to offer:

• Stat Tracking – Using ow.ly links from Hootsuite, they will track the number of clicks to your links
• Twitter Lists – You can import your twitter lists
• You can manage multiple Twitter accounts
• Schedule tweets – A huge time saver
• You can embed your columns on your sites – very cool feature
• Monitor Your Brand
• You can connect to your other networks like Facebook and LinkedIn
• Take it mobile on your iPhone

There is a lot of stuff that Hootsuite does, and you may or may not need all the features. I do not use all the features, but I do partake in most of them. Here is exactly how I have my Hootsuite dashboard set up, so that I don’t spend a ton of time sending, reading and replying to Tweets.

I have my dashboard set up to display 4 columns.

1. My first column is my Twitter feed, all the tweets that I have personally sent.
2. Second column are all the tweets that mention me (@scott_hughes691)
3. Third column is any pending tweets, these would be tweets that I have scheduled to tweet sometime later the same day.
4. My fourth column is a list of Twitter users I follow closely. Some are people while others are blogs. These will be those twitter accounts that I find most interesting and will retweet the most from.

Mine is set up so that I am the most efficient on Twitter. I can log in, schedule a few tweets, respond to any @replies I need too, and see what my favorite Twitter users are up to. Doing all this from one screen is really helpful and time saving. I hope this helps you manage your Twitter time a little easier. Oh I should probably mention Hootsuite is a free tool, no need to pay for anything.

Leave me a comment and tell me what you think of Hootsuite or if you have used a different tool for managing your time on Twitter.

Today I decided to collaborate my collection of sites and blogs that have taught me loads about twitter. These

folkswere instrumental in teaching me what I know about twitter, and I continue to learn from them every day.

You may choose not to read all the posts listed below, I do encourage you however to take just a few minutes of your day and read each of them. They will teach you loads about using twitter.

1. 7 Deadly Sins of Twitter – While twitter is a very happy place to be most of the time, there are certain things that should never be done on twitter. The Twittip blog ran by Darren Rowse (@problogger) has posted a nice list of things you should never do on Twitter.
2. 100 Great Twitter Tips – This post from SocialBlog.com shares with you 100 tips for finding people, researching topics, study breaks, discussion and collaboration, building relationships, career, organization, assignments and much more.
3. Top 10 Twitter Tips for Beginners – If you are relatively new to twitter, these 10 tips will help you get started using twitter as it was meant to be used.
4. Twitter Tips for Businesses – Guy Kawasaki has created a video that gives the best tips for businesses that want to use twitter to grow their presence in social media as well as grow their customer base.
5. Top 5 Twitter Tools – Here are a few must-have tools to get you on your way to attracting more qualified followers who define your target market. The best part is they are all free!
6. Being Retweetable and Commanding Attention – This is an older post I wrote for this blog. It gives some good examples of what to tweet and how often to tweet them.

After reading these posts which one did you find most useful or which one did you connect with the best? Join in the conversation by leaving a comment below. If you found this post useful, just hit the retweet button at the top and share it with your followers.

When you start using twitter as just a communication tool you find that it is pretty easy to keep up with everything. But once you decided to use it to build your business and also as a marketing tool, you will find that keeping up with all your followers, adding additional followers and trying to keep everyone interested becomes very difficult.

The great thing is there are tons of tools and applications that have been developed to help make using twitter to build your brand or your business so much easier. Today we talk about the different tools that I have found to be really useful in keeping my twitter business together.

• Hootsuite – This is a really cool tool that allows you to organize your tweets and your followers. You can also use it to schedule tweets for when you are away from your computer. You can create groups of followers to closely monitor their tweets. It will track your url clicks, and show you your stats on all the clicks to your links. Hootsuite will also allow you to monitor different twitter accounts, if you happen to have more than 1. The best part is it’s 100% free!
• Tweepular.com – Tweepular allows you to check the mutuality of your followers. Meaning you can find out who isn’t following you back, or people who are following you but you are not following back. It will also allow you to unfollow people in bulk. It  is a good idea to unfollow anyone who isn’t following you back, unless you find their tweets interesting and useful.
• Twitpic – It’s a good idea to get personal with your followers and a good way to accomplish this is to share pictures with them. Using twitpic will allow you to instantly share photos with your followers, it will create a link in your tweet that leads them to the photo.
• Vidly.com – Vidly is basically the same as twitpic except it allows you to share videos. Videos are better than photos, and allows you to really get connected with your followers. Take some short videos that share tips or information in your niche or industry and share them using Vidly. Your followers will love this and most likely share it with their followers, bringing more traffic to you.
• Twitterholic.com – Twitterholic is a great place to check your twitter stats. From how many tweets you’ve done per day, how fast your twitter list is growing, how well you rank in your area, how you rank as it compares to other twitter users, and a lot more.

I use these twitter tools almost daily to help keep track of my twitter profile, stats and scheduling tweets. If you want to learn how to use twitter properly and start earning $5,000 per month or more using Twitter then check out this Free Twitter Training Webinar. Now go and sign up for those tools listed above then register for the free training webinar and watch as you learn to use twitter to earn an income.