Unfollowing Twitter users that you once followed is not as easy as it should be, especially if you follow thousands. Unfortunately, the Twitter terms of service do not allow for bulk unfollow buttons.   It used to be that Twitter Karma was the reigning champion of sites to visit to choose Twitter Followers to unFollow.  But, the Twitter TOS killed the value of that site. I quickly looked a few new sites like

1. http://iunfollow.com/
2. http://www.justunfollow.com
3. http://untweeps.com

However, I settled on http://manageflitter.com as the best free service to unfollow unwanted Twitter friends.

Unfollowers Created Here

ManageFlitter has great benefits.

1. It will handle my follower count which is over 6,000. Many tools can’t or they display 30 on a page.
2. I can unfollow those with no avatar
3. I can unfollow those with no tweets
4. I can unfollow those who do not follow me. (that one seems a bit silly)

My favorite is to let it show me the folks that have not tweeted recently. I can methodically pick through the list leaving all of my good friends who never tweet and removing people I don’t know who also never tweet.

Once the results are up on the page, all those people you want to unfollow can be sorted by;

1. Follow Date
2. Followers (count)
3. Following (count)
4. Listed (how many lists are they on)
5. Tweets
6. Username
7. Last Tweet (that’s my favorite one)

When you see someone hasn’t tweeted in months or years it is a good bet they have a new account or left Twitter.

One of the side effects of removing followers is that it seems to benefit the ratios that the services like Klout and similar services look at.

So, if you need to unfollow some twitter followers this is the best free tool that I have found.

Do you have a favorite way to unfollow on Twitter?

Let us all know in the comments.

I was curious how many of my Twitter followers were from Canada. Searching Google the top ranked result was http://www.mapmyfollowers.com/. But it was slow to load and didn’t provide numbers for each country.

I later found http://tweepsmap.com. Not only does it show a world map of my followers around the globe, it also provides a some statistics.

The List View, which you see in the image below, presents a percentage of followers for each country.  Clicking on Map View removes the list and reveals the entire map of my Twitter followers across the globe.

You can also have the map or the list show you State/Province or City percentage of followers.

As with other common mapping providers you can zoom and and out for the perfect view.

Click to see a larger of of TweepsMap

What is your favorite tool to show your twitter followers on a world map of the earth? (You have followers that are not on earth?) Haha

When to tweet http://www.whentotweet.com/ shows you the best time to tweet based on when your followers tweet.

Here is the home page.

Home page of When to Tweet

After you enter your Twitter name the screen adds a paragraph below the text box asking you to Refresh so that you can visit the Results page.  It would be awesome if this happened automatically.

Click the Result link to see the best time to tweet

The result page shows a nice graph and clearly tells you the time to tweet across the top of the page.

This is great if you are in a Central European Zone.  Don’t assume that this information is in your time zone.

I needed to subtract 6 hours to adjust for my timezone.

Graph showing when is the best time to Tweet.

This is a very handy tool to help you reach the largest audience, just beware of the time zone issue.

Do you know of other sites that help you choose when to Tweet?

TweetOClock says that it is shutting down.  My submission to the site failed to process and gave no results.

If you are in the Eastern Time Zone, just before mid-day seems ideal because three hours back the west coast folks are arriving at their desks and over in Europe they haven’t left for home quite yet.

How do you choose when is the best time to Tweet?

When you are planning a trip to a new city you might want to review your Twitter followers to see a list of your Twitter friends in that city.  Here is the tool for you. TweetSearch allows you to search the Bio information of your friends and followers on Twitter.

Here is the Home page for TweepSearch.com

I entered a search for my name and New York.

Here is what the screen looks like.

Now I can scroll through the list, which includes avatars, and be reminded of my New York tweeps that have typed New York in the Bio field of their Twitter profile.

The results can be sorted by last update, screen name, followers and friends and indicates whether they are following.  It also shows their follower/following counts, the number of updates, their full bio and even includes a link to their Twitter page.  This is yet another cool Twitter app, currently in Beta, created by @dacort.  Keep up the good work Damon!

Drop a comment below if you have seen other tools that allow you to search for Twitter friends.

Twitter Lists continue to add interest to the Twitter experience.  Recently I found myself on a couple of people’s lists with the same name. The list was named Conversationalist. I thought, hmmm.  Am I really that conversational with that person?

Some time later I discovered that there is an application, named Conversationalist, that has been put to the task of making the lists.  All you have to do is sign up (Login via Twitter)  and it takes over, quite literally.

The ConversationaLIST - Click to visit

The ConversationLIST adds someone to the list if you @ someone. If you stop @ them, then they fall off the list. As they say on their site;

once someone follows your list, it means that they automatically see the tweets from the people that you’re sending @replies to, retweeting, or mentioning, so your tweets don’t appear in a vacuum. Your followers see what the people who influence you are saying on Twitter.

Is ConversationLIST helping you track the conversations that interest you?

TweetChat

The users of Twitter invented the # hashtag nomenclature.

The TweetChat tool provides a Chat Room where only tweets about a given hashtag are seen.  This keeps your main twitter stream out of view.

TweetChat - Click to visit

Any Tweet created in the chat room will have the #hashtag added to it automatically.  For example, type in “chocolate bacon” and you will see the conversations on Twitter that include “chocolate bacon”.

Secret Tweet

Have you ever wanted to tweet something with-out anyone knowing it was you?

Here is the place to do it.

Reading Secret Tweets

Reading Secret Tweets can be depressing or even frustrating if you see a tweet that you really wish you could contact that person and say something to them.

Secret Tweets - Click to visit

This could be a voyeurs paradise. Be careful out there.

Once you cross the abyss to managing more than one Twitter account, questions arise.  One concern may be the number of Twitterers that are following both accounts.  You may not want to hit most followers with the same tweets coming from two different accounts. The following two Twitter Apps help you see the level of account overlap between  Twitter accounts.

Both sites have appealing designs that include a Twitter bird and Twitter colors.

For the sake of clarity the examples use my two accounts, fairminder and BlogWranglers.

TWTRFRND

The website offers the following text by way of an introduction or explanation;

“A new follower? Should you follow back? Find out if you have common followings with them, and which people you follow that follow them…”

This site shows the people that @fairminder and @Blogwranglers both follow
This site shows the people @fairminder follows that follow @BlogWranglers

(This last capability is where TWTRFRND and Who Follows Whom are not the same)

Common = The 35 people that both @fairminder and @Blogwranglers follow
Indicators  = The 25 people @fairminder follows that follow @blogwranglers

A few observations

1. The explanation on this website was more clear in explaining what I am looking at
2. The two column layout was great, until it came to presenting the avatars and it switched to one column
3. Introducing Common and Indicator, two new vocabulary words to the Lexicon of Twitter, did not add clarity for me. I am still thinking about what an Indicator means.
4. The sentence descriptions above each group of avatars is invaluable

Twitter Friends - Click to visit

Who Follows Whom?

The website offers the following text by way of an introduction or explanation;

Pick up to 5 tweeters to see who they follow and are followed by in common

1. This site shows the people that @fairminder and @BlogWranglers both follow
2. This site shows the people that follow both @fairminder and BlogWranglers
3. They are both followed by  35 Twitter users in common
4. They are both following 31  Twitter users in common

A few observations;

1. This site offers to compare up to five accounts, not just two
2. The explanation of what you are seeing is less clear
3. Provides less mouse-over information about each account
4. Includes advertising and it is attractive

Who Follows Whom - Click to visit

Summary

These tools are not identical, except they will both show a list of people that both accounts follow.  I find TWTRFRND a little clearer to understand.  Who Follows Whom has the advantage of comparing up to five accounts.

What are other potential uses for these tools?

Do you know of other tools that provide a similar services?

Please leave a comment below.

Ever want to know quickly if someone is following you?  I sometimes do.  Here is a quick, single use Twitter App to answer that question.

Does Follow

Does He Follow Me? - Click to visit

There are lots of other ways to get this information. You could;

1. Review your Follower List
2. Try to DM them. If it fails, they are not following you
3. What other ways are there?  Please add to the list in the comments below. I will add them to this list along with your Twitter handle, and a link.

Two Twitter tools help you find out who followed you first on Twitter and the first 10 people that you followed.

Your Twitter account is absolutely useless when you open it.  The sooner you follow others and they follow you, the sooner Twitter starts to make sense.  After a few years you may ask yourself, “How did I get here?” (to quote David Byrne of the Talking Heads).  We can help answer that question with a couple of nifty applications.

Who Did You Follow First?

Read the caveats on this one. It will show you the first TEN twitter accounts that you followed, but only the ones that you still follow today. But, hey that is still pretty cool.

The First Tweeps that You Followed - Click to visit

Who Followed You First?

The first person that followed you, right there on a silver platter for you. I wish that it showed ten results. The tweet this now option usually needs rewriting, so take a close look before you click.

Your First Follower - Click to Visit

Summary

Now what? You just killed 15 minutes gathering useless information.  Well, you could thank those early Twitter partners for helping you along to where you are today.  Re-tweet them. List them on a #followfriday.  DM them a message of thanks. Heck you could even call them and use this useless trivia as an excuse to say Hello.

Are you still in touch with whoever followed your first?

Are you still following the folks you first followed?