Twitter is no doubt a popular tool, and many people do use it quite a lot. I would think that i potentially land some where in the middle, i do use it daily, however for short times. Just check any messages and respond to a message or two. Maybe update once or twice, each visit. Overall i may be on twitter for 5-10 minutes a day.
This could be a lot more though and it can get really hard to not visit the site every 5 or 10 minutes to check what is happening. I have had to take a number of measures to try and keep my usage to a reasonable limit. Maybe the surprising part is that i really only make use of three things in my twitter use.
1. The Twitter Website (www.twitter.com) – While many people do make use of a seemingly endless range of tools to send tweets, track tweets and otherwise manage twitter, i have personally found that the Twitter website is actually the most straight forward. I have tried programs such as Tweetdeck, however find that due to the limits of the API and such it can be difficult to truly arrange everything to see everything you want to.
2. Tweetburner (www.tweetburner.com) – Due to the potential length that links can get to on occasion i have found that using a link shortening service is quite beneficial. Tweetburner has been my choice primarily due to the tracking capability, to see how many people are clicking through on the links.
3. Tweet Later (www.socialoomph.com) – The time that can be spent in getting your links together and sharing your content, can take time. In fact if you do it on a one off basis every time you want to share something i imagine that it could easily take three or four times as long to get the same amount done.
Making use of automation tools like SocialOomph can greatly increase your effectiveness in using twitter. However it should also be used wisely. For example if you make use of the auto tweet feature and schedule the same tweet every 15 minutes, chances are good this will not provide much if any benefit. Where as if you use it more conservatively and schedule tweets that change from a post you have been to quotes and just comments,you will build more of a interest, and not be annoying people with the same link over and over again.
In reality i find that these are almost the only three sites i need to use for twitter. At least to use twitter the way that i am looking to use it. There are odd other tools that i use from time to time however almost all of these are purely one off tools i may use just once or twice.