For all its benefits, Twitter as a platform remains remarkably limited in its functionality.

Twitter's search feature is inaccurate and clumsy, while analytics and measurement options remain basic.

Thankfully there are many handy tools, many of them free, that help individuals and businesses get more out of the micro-blogging service. Here are five of our favourites.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a free social media dashboard that allows for the easy management of accounts across multiple social media platforms. Features include the ability schedule posts in advance, post to more than one social media network simultaneously, as well as some basic analysis and reporting functionality.

Hootsuite Enterprise offers more advanced features and analytics for businesses.
hootsuite.com

Tweetreach

Tweetreach is a free website that allows users to measure the reach of a tweet, hashtag or username. Simply enter a search term and Tweetreach will display, in easy to read graphs, information such as the number of accounts reached, retweets, impressions and top users.

For more in-depth analysis Tweetreach offer a series of priced plans.
tweetreach.com

Commun.it

Commun.it allows marketers to develop relationships on Twitter. By identifying key influencers, past conversations and people who engage with certain content, Commun.it recommends which accounts are best to engage with.
commun.it

Tweriod

Tweriod is a free tool that recommends the best time to tweet. By analysing the tweets of users and their followers, Tweriod calculates the best time and day of the week to tweet to ensure maximum exposure.
tweriod.com

Trendsmap

Trendsmap is a free service that tracks real time Twitter trends and overlays them on Google Maps. This means users enter a geographical location, such as Melbourne, and are shown a visual representation of what's trending in the area at the time. 

Trendsmap is a great way of measuring Twitter's pulse, and understanding what that latest Justin Bieber hashtag really means.
trendsmap.com

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