I love my tech tools so I am always trying out this, that and the other to see how different web based tools work for small businesses.

Many seem great to start with, but then the novelty wears off and before long I have forgotten my login details and never go back.

But there has been one web tool that has become an integral part of the way I do business.  And that tool is Tungle.

Working from home, most of my 1-2-1 client consultations and sessions are over the phone or via skype.  And setting up times to speak has always been a game of email ping-pong. Quite often if a client has taken more than 3 or 4 days to get back to me, the times I have suggested have already been confirmed with someone else.

I had dabbled with a few online diaries but most were too clunky.  And for many of my clients who just weren’t as tech savvy as I was (hence why they work with me!), some of these systems would actually work against the process, rather than improve it.

But then I stumbled on Tungle.  I can’t remember where I saw it first.  But having used it now for the past two months, it has not been integrated in to my business processes.

The other person doesn’t need to sign up for the service.  It is a simple click and drag application.  Plus it works really well on my iPhone as an app!

At the moment it is still a free service – although I am sure there will be a subscription tier coming in at some point – so it’s worth checking out if you schedule lots of meetings and still like control of your own diary.

Here is the link:  http://www.tungle.me

There is one negative I have to point out though.  The Tungle confirmation emails have occasionally got caught up in client’s spam filters.  So it is worth confirming the time yourself, too (I only needed to get caught out once when a client hadn’t expected my call, even though I had confirmed it via Tungle.  As it got stuck in her spam filters, she hadn’t realised I was able to confirm a time and thought I had ignored her suggestions!)

Let me know what you think.

(Quick note – I have no affiliation or business interest in this tool.  Just wanted to share something with you that works for me)

SocialToo, a useful management tool for your social media accounts, has just announced on its blog that Twitter has requested they take away the auto-unfollowing feature.

Up until now, SocialToo subscribers could set their Twitter account to automatically unfollow people when they unfollowed you.   Sounds like an efficient way of managing an account, doesn’t it?

On the SocialToo blog they say they added this feature because “when I auto-follow, some times later on those people unfollow you again”.  The point being that as Twitter has set out a ratio to ensure you are only follow people in proportion to the number of people who follow you back, it allows you, the Twitter user, to keep adding more followers who keep following you, and dump the ones who don’t.

Doesn’t that mean that you are only in Twitter for the follower numbers? 

My take on follower numbers is that they are nothing more than Emporer’s Clothing if you are using Twitter to help promote your brand online.

Yes, the number of followers is a useful indicator of how “popular” you may be and give you one measurement of how “popular” you may become over time, but just because someone follows you, doesn’t mean that they read or act on your tweets.

Tools like auto-unfollow are incredibly useful for those of you who just want to focus on numbers but for most of you reading this, I assume you like to use Twitter like I do – follow people who interest you, engage with you and you learn from.  And not follow people just because they are following you or you want them to follow you back.

Noise is not helpful in your day-to-day lives.  But conversation and engagement is.

Which is why I think it is very interesting that Twitter itself has taken a stand against auto-unfollows and asked third party applications, like SocialToo, to remove it.

What do you think?

There is an awful lot of advice out there (me included!) that talk about automating Twitter; talk about being able to schedule your tweets using devices such as TweetLater; talk about automatically updating your Facebook postings with Twitter.  All of which save you time to be able to spend so that your marketing is working more effectively for you.

But doesn’t this automation actually go against what Twitter is all about?  Twitter to be used as a conversation tool?

During the proactive times of my business, I schedule my tweets on a Monday morning, using a system like Tweetlater.

One of these scheduled tweets  a couple of weeks ago, included this recommendation as a tip and somebody came back to me with a tweet “Yes, but this automation is all very well, but isn’t Twitter about conversation and not automation?”

Great point!  Being totally automated on Twitter is extreme and I wouldn’t recommend it.

But by automating some of your tweets throughout the day and week, these can actually help generate your conversation.

You can’t be on Twitter 24 hours a day; you’ll go mad!  And you would probably drive your business to the ground.

But by having certain tweets giving out tips and information when you are not actually live on Twitter can actually help people respond back to you and start a conversation.  When you do log back in to Twitter, you can respond back and have that two-way conversation.

So is Twitter about automation or about conversation?

It is about both.  You need to automate some aspects of Twitter to be able to remain sane, to be able to develop it and drive it forward as a marketing tool for your business.  But if you automate too much it becomes lose the power because Twitter is about conversation, it is about replying and about building relationships.

Your thoughts and opinions: How much do you automate on Twitter? Or do you use Twitter for real-time tweets only?  Leave your comments in the comments box below.

When you go looking for something on the web, the first place you probably go to is good old Google.  Whether you want to find an answer to a burning question, a local website designer or the best cleaning product for that red wine stain on your carpet, Google tends to be the first point of call.

But have you ever used Twitter search?

Whether you use twitter or not, there is no doubt that Twitter is being used by millions of people across the world today tweeting about everything from what they had for lunch today to what their latest business tip are.

Those 140 character text-like webpages are being published by their thousands, every second of every day, giving anyone who wants to know the very latest thoughts, links and ideas of every conceivable topic you could think of.

But what does that mean to you?  How does all this information have an impact on you and your business?

What all this information means is an up to the second account of what is being said about, gossipped about, moaned about and raved about the very topic of what you are basing your business on. 

Let me give you an example:  A nutritional therapist specialises in helping people eat more healthily so they can lose weight and feel slimmer.  This person wants to put together a group coaching programme to help ladies get in to shape before their summer holidays [yup, you know what I mean don't you, ladies - that thought of getting in to a bikini can send shudders down your spine, can't it!!]. But before the programme gets put together and launched, the nutritional therapist needs to do a bit of market research to make sure the right content is included and there are potential clients who would buy this programme.

One easy and simple way of finding out what people are talking about right here and now is to go to http://search.twitter.com/ and type in a key word or key phrase relating to what you want to find more about. 

For this particular nutritional therapist, they could try a range of phrases such as “fat day” or “lose weight + holiday” [you can see the results for this phrase here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=lose+weight+%2B+holiday ]

So, don’t just rely on Google for the latest search results – especially as Google only shows what has been indexed by Google, rather than what is actually published on the internet – check out what people are tweeting about.

Do you use Outlook to manage your emails?  If so then you may be interested in knowing about a little tool called Xobni. 

It’s free to download and was created to manage your outbox far more effectively through speedy searches and giving you the ability to track email conversations on one page.

But what really floats my boat about Xobni is it’s interaction with Facebook and LinkedIn.  With each new email, the person’s profile shows up on the right hand side of your screen and you have the ability to click directly through to their facebook and linkedin account. 

Why is this pretty cool for your business?  Rather than spending your time randomly connecting with people in each of these sites, why not connect with people you already know?  It’s a great way of building your online network quickly and easily.

Why go out searching for new friends when you probably have plenty to connect with right on your very doorstep!  You can find out more about this cool tool at www.xobni.com