TweetDeck is a great management tool for your Twitter account, but could it be better? Definitely. This scheduling tool has so much potential to be an amazing social media scheduling tool in general, not just one for Twitter.
In this article, we'll go over a few key things Twitter should keep in mind when updating TweetDeck. But first, what exactly is TweetDeck?
What Is TweetDeck?
TweetDeck is a social media scheduling tool you can use for managing multiple Twitter accounts. It was originally an independent app created by Iain Dodsworth in 2008, but was later acquired by Twitter in 2011.
With TweetDeck, you can schedule tweets to be published at a certain time and date in the future so that you don't have to worry about keeping up with your Twitter account in real-time throughout the week. Though this tool may not be for the average user, it's extremely useful for businesses, entrepreneurs, and social media managers.
Since acquiring the scheduling platform, Twitter hasn't done much with it. But the company says it plans to overhaul TweetDeck.
While it's a useful tool, here are a few things Twitter could and should improve on TweetDeck...
1. Adding a Native Emoji Feature
Although this is a small ask, it would be nice to see TweetDeck incorporate the use of emojis directly into its platform. Although you can use a Chrome extension or the Win + . keyboard shortcut in Chrome to add emojis, it'd be nice to be able to do it directly through TweetDeck.
Surely it can't take that much effort to give us this ability and it would make scheduling tweets with emojis a lot easier!
2. Inserting GIFs and Polls
Another thing you're not able to do is insert GIFs or make polls directly through TweetDeck.
Although you can post GIFs through links from popular GIF websites, there's no option to search for an appropriate GIF within TweetDeck. Since you can do this when using the Twitter app, it would be nice to see this feature added to TweetDeck as well.
When you post the GIF links in scheduled tweets, sometimes you can't see the GIF pop up on Twitter unless you expand the tweet. This adds to the frustration of scheduling tweets with GIFs through the platform.
You also can't schedule a poll through TweetDeck. Since polls are highly engaging tweets that allow you to interact with and have fun with your followers, it's annoying that you can't schedule these. You have to make a poll in real-time if you want to take advantage of this Twitter feature.
3. Searching Twitter More Effectively Within TweetDeck
You can search Twitter through TweetDeck by opening up a Search column, but this feature could stand to be improved.
On Twitter, you can filter searches by Top, Latest, and more to find exactly what you're looking for. TweetDeck doesn't have these search filters and the search filters they do have are clunky to use.
4. A More Streamlined User Interface
The current UI for TweetDeck is certainly not a bad one, but it could be better and a bit more customizable. You can only add or delete columns and reorder them, but you have no control over their size.
It would be nice to have customizable blocks that you could resize however you needed. This way, if you wanted to keep the Search column on your home page but not have it fully expanded all the time, you could. Then when you needed it, you could easily expand it, find what you need, and make it small again.
5. Easier Use for Multiple Accounts
For people who are managing one Twitter account through TweetDeck, this isn't an issue. But if you are running multiple Twitter accounts, like a personal account and a business account, TweetDeck doesn't let you manage them together as easily as you could.
When you link a new Twitter account to TweetDeck, it makes your other account an admin for the account you're adding. While this may not be as much of an issue if you own all of the accounts you're trying to add to TweetDeck, it can be annoying if you manage social media accounts for multiple businesses.
When you have multiple accounts linked in TweetDeck, there are a few other issues we'd like to see fixed.
The UI and feeds for multiple accounts could be made more user-friendly so that it's easier to curate what you want to see on your main admin account. When you first link multiple accounts, the added feeds can be unwieldy and difficult to sort through.
Making this process more intuitive and easier to manage could go a long way to improving the experience of managing multiple accounts through the platform.
6. Editing Scheduled Posts with Media
Currently, when you schedule a post in TweetDeck that has a picture or a video attached to it, you can't edit it after you schedule it. If you need to change the time it's scheduled or edit the text inside, you can't. You have to delete the scheduled tweet and re-do it with whatever changes you need to make.
It seems like a simple enough fix, so hopefully it's something included in the update.
7. Integration With Other Social Media Platforms
Because TweetDeck overall is a pretty cool scheduling tool, it would be awesome to see it incorporate other social media sites into its functionality. It's really simple and easy to use for tweet scheduling, so it would be great to also be able to schedule posts for Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms as well.
Since the name TweetDeck implies that it's solely a tweet scheduling tool, it could be confusing to incorporate other social media platforms as well. But they could easily rename the tool or incorporate different "Decks" within the TweetDeck website.
Then, you could flip back and forth between different social media platform tabs within TweetDeck to schedule posts on Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.
However, some companies prevent third-party apps from accessing scheduling functionality on their platforms, so this could be a hurdle faced by TweetDeck in implementing cross-platform support.
What Do You Want to See From TweetDeck?
TweetDeck is already an incredibly simple scheduling tool to work with. But with a few tweaks, it could become even more powerful. It's an underrated tool that a lot of people don't know about, so hopefully Twitter gives it the refresh it deserves.
There are quite a few things Twitter could stand to update on their own platform too, like having an undo button for tweets. This could be on the cards, along with a much-needed TweetDeck update.