Despite what many “gurus” and heavily publicized ads may say, having your business on twitter DOES NOT drive more traffic to your site and DOES NOT increase sales.

If that’s the case, then why have a twitter account at all?

Let's look at it this way. Think of twitter as having a mailing address, or even a really bad store location. Just because you exist on paper, or have a “spot” out there doesn't mean people are going to come to you and buy things, right?

Of course not.

As with your brick-and-mortar business, there are many things you can do to optimize your location and to drive traffic to your location and eventually increase your sales.

The fact is, as the number of users increases, so does the number of third party sites, tools, and services that makes the twitter experience more dynamic. But more importantly, more useful. The task of going through all these tools can be a real challenge. We have invested some time searching, sorting and reviewing a number of Twitter tools.  We’ve compiled a list of Twitter tools that we believe will be helpful to you to optimize your Twitter experience. Bear in mind this list isn't complete nor perfect, but should get you going in the right direction.

Now let's go over some of my favorite tools you can use with Twitter to optimize your online presence:

Content Management

A  great tool for managing your content is a tool called TweetBeep. Think Google Alerts meets Twitter. This is a great service that notifies you whenever your business name (or any word you wish to specify) is mentioned. This can be a great way to stay on top of your customer support by viewing things customers just wont say to you directly, and to help control your reputation management.

A vital tool in email marketing can also be applied in micro blogging. GroupTweet is a powerful tool to use if you want to send public tweets simultaneously to a segmented group of people. For instance; sending notifications to your web development team or special updates to your call center staff.

Twitter for Bloggers

Now don’t think of bloggers only as trendy hipsters sitting in expensive Cafe’s sipping coffee as they tell the world all about their opinions. Blogs CAN be useful tools to your business and we recommend that every business out there has one.

Using Twitter with your blog can become a powerful combination. A tool such as Twitter Tools allows you to pull in your tweets to your blog and updates your Twitter account whenever you make a new blog post.

For you Wordpress users, there is Twitter for Wordpress which is a simple plug-in that also “pulls-in” your tweets using a sidebar widget. Very easy to use!

Search and Directories

Hands down, one of the BEST tools for finding Twitter conversations and conducting keyword research is a tool called Twitter Search. This is a must use for your business if you have, or plan to get a Twitter account.

A great Twitter directory called Twellow is a fantastic way to connect with others in your industry. There are also links to other social networking profiles such as Facebook and Linkedin.

Time Savers, To-Do’s, and Productivity

Tweet Later is A MUST HAVE for an effective Twitter account. This will use automation to send ‘thank you’ and welcome messages to you new followers. It will also “return follow” these new followers and allow you to schedule tweets to be delivered at a specified time in the future.

Desktop Software/Clients

Managing your Twitter account is not a task for the faint hearted, but for those of you who want to maximize your experience, there is an absolutely fantastic Twitter client called Tweetdeck that uses the Adobe Air application to integrate your desktop to give you an enormously wide range of features and controls. You can sort your tweets into replies, groups, keywords, topics, etc.

Status Updaters

A great time saver called Ping.fm which is a Twitter updater that offers tons of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace all at the same time.

Creative Uses, Interactivity

There is a lot of creative you can share such as pictures with the plug-in TwitPic.  Add icons and shapes to your tweets with Twitter Keys, and record a voice message to broadcast to your Twitter Peeps through TwitSay.

Twit Hire is a great job listing board where employers can promote their employment opportunities to social savvy job seekers and best of all its FREE!

URL Shorteners

Because we are limited to just 140 characters, twitter doesn't allow us to be long winded with our URL’s. Snip URL is one of the best at the game and makes it easy to share your links, and even view unique clicks! Other tools such as TinyUR.   TinyURL is one of the more popular URL shorteners available which will shorten URL’s with a single click, plus it's free.

Account Management and Notifiers

Its important to keep close touch with those who become new followers, but its just as important to follow up with those who leave.There are legitimate reasons why people take the effort to not follow you. Could be your tweeting too much, or your tweets aren't what they are interested in, or they just lost interest. Twitterless is a service that sends a direct message when you loose a follower.

These can be useful tools to see why people aren’t following you and you want to find out why. You can send a survey, or even a coupon to a product or service.

Stats, Metrics, and Tracking

Now, all your efforts really don’t mean much unless you are tracking your results! There are some great resources to help you with this task, such as Twitter Counter with it's simple to use site to capture stats that span a week. Use it to chart your progress acquiring followers.  It also has a chicklet counter that can be added to your website blog!

Another one to add to your MUST HAVE pile is TweetStats which offers a very nice breakdown of data, such as; who you sent your to and when you sent those tweets.

Tweetfluence is a great tool for measuring the reach of your account and for your entire network, also allows you to measure metrics such as your velocity and “social capital”.

Hopefully this gives you a leg-up with launching or optimizing your Twitter experience. By no means is this the only list off tools you should use with your Twitter account.  Minimally, this should get your pointed in the right direction.

For more information on social media marketing and to learn more about increasing traffic to your site go to macromarketingsolutions.com/news.