This article was published on December 31, 2010

How to tidy up Twitter with Filters and Columns


How to tidy up Twitter with Filters and Columns

Depending on how many people you’re following on Twitter, the amount of tweets coming in can be overwhelming to say the least. And, if you are among us Twitterholics that follow hundreds/thousands of people on Twitter, you will be doing yourself a big favour by utilizing columns and filters.

Slipstream Chrome Extension

slipstreamSlipstream is a browser extension for Chrome that gives users control over what type of tweets show up in the stream. It’s a way to reduce the noise on Twitter by filtering out the information you’d rather not see or even something you find particularly annoying. After installing the extension on the Chrome browser, an option to “hide”will appear within each tweet.

Let’s say you see a tweet that mentions LOL Cats and you feel you’ve had your fill and want to remove all LOL Cat content from the stream. All you do is simply hit “hide”on the tweet and then choose whether you want “all” LOL Cats tweets to be hidden or just from a specific user. And don’t worry, if you have a change of heart and want the Cats back, Slipstream will allow you to delete the filter later.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is another solid choice for managing a large horde of followers due to its use of columns and filters. Unlike Slipstream, TweetDeck is an app not a browser extension and it’s available in both desktop and mobile form.

This app has been vital in my personal Twitter process and I’ve found it highly effective in managing the 1400 people I follow. To ensure the tweets from my closest peeps aren’t missed in my massive stream of 1400, I’ve added a group of friends to a private list I created within Twitter. By doing this, a stream of the private list can be added to its own column within TweetDeck. Columns are a fantastic feature to have and by utilizing them, users can make certain they don’t lose those established friendships on Twitter.

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As we’d mentioned, both filters and columns can be added to TweetDeck to clean up your stream. Similar to Slipstream, any word or term can be filtered out (in settings) by individual users or by removing the unwanted term from the entire stream. There’s also an additional option to filter the information coming into TweetDeck from your other accounts such as Facebook.

Columns

Columns and filters aren’t exclusive to Slipstream and TweetDeck and can be found within a lot of different Twitter clients and browser add-ons out there. They might not be features you’re using now but trust me, as your follower count grows these techniques and features are extremely helpful in reducing the chaos of the stream, a “nicer” alternative to a mass unfollowing.

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