Twitter gurus have become a dime a dozen.  They hawk their advice to anyone within earshot telling you about the latest Twitter tool.  It's easy to get overwhelmed and think you have to know about every tool and start taking speed just to keep up with the avalanche of tweets and information coming at you.  Well, hopefully this guide can give you a good idea of what you do and do not need for your particular Twitter experience.

I'd like to think of the types of Twitter users out there in three different levels.  Each level has specific goals and needs.  Just as you don't need a bazooka to kill a fly, a fly swatter isn't going to do much for an avalanche.  Different tools are suitable for different people.  This will hopefully help you understand the big picture in terms of what you need to do.

I've seperated Twitter users into three categories - beginner (green circle), intermediate (blue square), and advanced (black diamond)  This isn't to say that everyone needs to compete and make it to the 'advanced' level.  You might be perfectly happy and satsified with being at the green circle level.  And that's okay, Twitter isn't meant to be an epic battle of who can Tweet the most, or who can get the most followers.

Beginner Twitter Users

Qualifications

A Beginner Twitter user is someone who -

• has between 0 ~ 400ish followers.
• spends roughly an hour a week on Twitter total.
• tweets about 1-2x/day on average.
• has posted a face pic and has written a good bio

Goals

A beginner Twitter user is someone who wants to

• have fun with Twitter
• read the latest news about topics that interest them
• keep people informed about what they are doing (lifestreaming)

Tools

Someone who is just starting out does not need most of the fancy tools out there.  You may hear some words like Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop get thrown around but these can be enormous time wasters and productivity killers for people who aren't Twitter fanatics.  In reality, the Twitter homepage at Twitter.com has all the functionality you need.  You can keep track of things there, save your searches, and look at what is trending.  The only thing that you can't do (currently) is retweet.  A retweet is when you take someone's tweet and send it back out under your name.  This is a very useful way to promote your friends or useful links.  I've built a quick little video that walks you through how to do a retweet on Twitter.com:

Intermediate Twitter Users

Qualifications

A intermediate Twitter user is someone who -

• has between 500 ~ 2000 followers.
• spends roughly 10 to 20 minutes a day on Twitter
• tweets about 5-6x/day on average
• may have more than one account to manage.
• has created a decent background for their Twitter profile
• uses url shortners like j.mp or su.pr to track clicks

Goals

An intermediate Twitter user is someone who wants to

• build a PLN (Personal Learning Network) or tribe
• do professional networking
• party without leaving their apartment/house

Tools

Someone who is at the intermediate level should probably step up to some slightly more complicated tools.  Once you start following more than 500 people it can start to get hard to handle.  You will need some tools to manage everyone.  If you have multiple accounts, you will also find it very cumbersome to keep logging out and logging back in to Twitter.com to manage each account.  There are basically two ways of handling your tweets, one for iPhone users, and another for those other people (just kidding!).

iPhone users will want to have a tool that they can take with them on their iPhones.  The best solution I've found is Tweetdeck. Why Tweetdeck?  Well, basically because you can synchronize your columns between the desktop application version of Tweetdeck and the iPhone version of the app.  So you can take your settings with you on the go.  Don't overuse Tweetdeck though, it can be a time sink if you let it.  Be sure to dedicated only a short amount of time to it.  Tweetdeck for the desktop is built for addicts, so make sure to limit your use.  Don't leave tweetdeck open while doing other things unless it's something unimportant or doesn't require a lot of attention.

For those sans iPhone, the best web app is probably hootsuite.  I love this web app.  It has everything you need, and not a lot that you don't.  It also has a lot of nice features like a 'hootlet' that you can use to drop links into to send out via hootsuite.  It also has stats built in.  What I find is really cool is that after an hour of inactivity it goes to sleep and it actually shows an owl sleeping.

Advanced Twitter Users

Qualifications

An advanced Twitter user is someone who -

• has 2000 or more followers
• spends roughly an hour or more a day on Twitter
• tweets 6 or more times a day
• is responsible for multiple accounts
• is probably making money with Twitter (either being paid to tweet or promoting their own products)
• has a customized Twitter profile background
• tracks clicks with su.pr and j.mp and determines the prime time to post links.
• uses twitter at peak times to maximize the impact of their tweets

Goals

An advanced Twitter user is someone who wants to

• make money on Twitter
• find a good job
• manage a corporate brand or personal brand

Tools

Someone who is at the advanced level has a ton of followers.  It's difficult to track this many people efficiently.  If you are managing your personal brand or if you want to track a particular topic you should save searches so that you can see in real-time what people are tweeting about for that particular topic.

Seesmic Desktop has become a great desktop application to track searches and add groups.  It also has hands down the best integration with facebook and multiple accounts.  If you reply to a tweet it automatically detects which account you are using and posts the tweets using that account.

How about you?  Is there anything you can add to these categories?  Any corrections you might want to suggest?  I'm going to be using these categories in the training kit I'm working on, so I'd like your feedback.  Let me know in the comments below.

If you are interested in getting the most out of Twitter, I invite you to check out our Twitter Tutorial Kit.