How to Use TweetDeck

When you follow thousands of people, Twitter can get a bit unwieldy. TweetDeck can help you sort through the noise and make sure you don't miss any important information. Read on to learn how to use TweetDeck to follow conversations and manage information on Twitter.

• Twitter, a social networking tool, allows you to send communications to other microbloggers, and receive messages from thousands of people. This communication is in a 140 character text. When you follow many people, the number of tweets you receive can be overwhelming and the information you want to read can be easily missed.

(screenshot by Susan MacDowell)

• In order to use TweetDeck, you'll need to download the TweetDeck application. TweetDeck works on both the Mac and Windows platforms.

• TweetDeck automatically includes columns for All Friends, Replies, and Direct Messages. You can also add groups to organize the people you follow. The first group you'll probably want to set up is an A list of people whose tweets you always want to see immediately.

1. Open TweetDeck.
2. Click on the group icon that is shown at the top of the TweetDeck Screen. This will create a new column.
3. Select a name for the group. For example, you might just call it group A, or priority.
4. Click the boxes next to the names of all the people who follow who should be included in that group.
5. Click save, and you're group has been set up.
6. You can leave it in the position TweetDeck has placed it in, or use the arrows at the bottom of the column to move it.
7. Members can be added or deleted from the group by using the group menu screen that you used to set the group up. You can also add someone to a group by clicking on their avatar, and selecting "other actions."

• At the bottom of each column, there's an option to filter the tweets.

1. If you are interested in locating news about a specific topic, you can filter tweets to show all tweets contain that a specific phrase.
2. If you're looking to be helpful, you can filter the column looking for all tweets containing a "?" or "how to".
3. You can also filter by user name or time frame.
4. The filter function also allows you to exclude terms.

• Introduction
• Step 1: Download TweetDeck
• Step 2: Set Up TweetDeck Groups
• Step 3: Filter Your Tweets With TweetDeck