Track deals on Twitter: The ultimate guide

This post comes from Ann Smarty at partner blog Wise Bread.

Twitter is huge. Someone is very likely to be tweeting a great deal right now, and unless you know how to "hear" that tweet, you will miss it.

Luckily, there are quite a few tools to help make sense of that clutter. The key is to choose the tool that will fit your needs. Here are the best tools for finding and tracking deals on Twitter.

Tracking tweeted deals. Of the multiple tools that exist to make tweeting and searching Twitter easier and more advanced, my personal favorite is Seesmic Desktop. (You will need Adobe AIR for it to run.)

• Follow MSN Money on Twitter

After installing Seesmic, you will need to configure it to alert you about new search results. Go to "Settings > Notifications" and put a tick next to "Notify about new search results."

Now, search Twitter using it. You need to search for something related to the product you plan to buy -- e.g., [laptop deals] or [Dell coupon].

The search will be automatically saved and Seesmic will alert you to the newest results each time someone tweets the search term you are using.

TweetBeep is another way to track Twitter searches. This is a Web application that (after registration) allows you to set up e-mail alerts for latest Tweets related to your search query.

You will be able to create an alert for:

• Any key term (exact match or any match).
• A set of words excluding any term.
• A hashtag.
• A Twitter user name.
• An attitude.
• A place, etc.

You can also set e-mail alert frequency and language.

Coupon aggregator deals. Most coupon aggregators are on Twitter, giving their subscribers another option to follow their updates. You don't have to follow all of them. Here are just a few I prefer:

• Buxr (source): User-added deals and freebies.
• Amazon (source): Official deals from Amazon.
• Dealnews (source): More tech-related deals and coupons.

Twitter sentiment search. A great way to find really cool deals on Twitter is to use "sentiment search." Many tweets have smiling icons in them and Twitter search allows you to filter those tweets. Include :) or :( in the search.

Twitter-based tools. There are also quite a few Twitter-based (Digg-style) Web apps that aggregate tweeted deals and coupons:

• Coupon Tweet:
  • Deals can be voted down (you should specify the reason: "not a coupon," "expired," "duplicate," "offensive comments").
  • Tweets are aggregated by category and a merchant name.
• TweetMe Savings:
  • Tweets can be voted up, buried, or shared via Twitter or Facebook.
  • Tweets are tagged based on the topic.
• Twitsavings.com:
  • See popular tweets over the past hour, 12 hours, day, week or month.
  • Amusing interface.
• CheapTweet:
  • Users can up-vote deals by clicking “It’s cheap!”
  • Tweets from official accounts are labeled as "official."

“Official accounts” are Twitter accounts that CheapTweet has verified are run directly by reputable merchants. If you see the Official Account badge, you'll know that clicking on that deal will take you directly to the merchant instead of going through middlemen or third-party sites.

Fun money-saving Twitter bots:

• BuyLater:
  • Alerts you to any Amazon item price or availability change.
  • Requires FireFox add-on.
•  TinyMassive: Compare product prices.

• AskCH: Find out (and compare) the cost of drugs.

More awesome resources about saving with Twitter:

• Twitter customer service: Sometimes you can just ask for a coupon directly from company's customer service rep on Twitter. This post lists plenty of stores that are on Twitter to help you.
• “Using Twitter to save money: 10 people I've found worth following for savings”: This post lists really useful Twitter accounts worth following.

Any more fun ways to save with Twitter? Please share them in the comments.

Related reading from Ann Smarty and Wise Bread:

• 50 best deals and coupon sites
• Build your own shopping search engine in 5 minutes
• 20 reasons why you need to start guest blogging