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The top six social media tips to know before you leave the office.

In 2009, Twitter jumped from amateur status to pro. There are 93 million Twitter users sending out more than 27 million tweets (messages sent via Twitter) each day. The volume and depth of potential brand damage that can emanate from this one website are staggering – and as Twitter grows, so do the reputational liabilities that can arise. For instance, users are increasingly using smart phones to share their thoughts and experiences in real time. Google’s new real-time search features now broadcast these messages, which were once confined to the Twitter community, to the hundreds of millions of people searching the Web every day.

If you are still managing your company’s Twitter account from the service’s website, it’s time to re-evaluate your approach. Although the site has made great efforts in the past few months to improve its features, it still lags behind many of the free services available on the Web. From applications to manage multiple Twitter accounts, to sites that allow you to create and send quick polls, hundreds of third-party services have been developed to enhance your Twitter presence.

This week’s Six @ Six offers six of our favorite free Twitter tools that will help businesses large or small to streamline the process of maintaining an account, tracking discussion of your brand, growing your following, and increasing your influence. Do you have a favorite tool we missed? Let me know on Twitter @DallasLawrence.

1. Hootsuite

Managing your company’s Twitter account can quickly become a time consuming task. With somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 tweets sent per minute during peak usage, it’s easy to fall behind the conversation. Hootsuite offers companies a easy-to-use, browser-based management solution that can be accessed anywhere and supports multiple accounts. The dashboard also condenses features such as character saving URL shortening; analytics and tracking for your tweets; scheduling tweets for later so you can stay active in the conversation even when you are away; and integration with other social media platforms such as Facebook. Hootsuite is a one-stop shop for all your Twitter needs that will make managing all your company feeds a less daunting task.

2. Twitterbacks

Because first impressions matter, companies should take advantage of the fact that Twitter allows users to customize their channel with a personalized background and color scheme. TOMS shoes, AT&T, and the RED Campaign have all utilized these options to strengthen their Twitter presence and promote social media engagements on other sites. If design capabilities in-house are limited, you can use Twitterbacks to download and customize a background. The site features hundreds of images to choose from and edit in Photoshop to meet your needs. The most effective backgrounds include colors that match the company’s identity, logos, contact information and profiles on other social media engagements.

3. Twitpic

Although many mobile applications offer built-in photo support for Twitter, you might have photos from activities taken with a standard point-and-shoot camera. Twitpic allows you to login with your existing Twitter account, upload your photos, and turn the images into files that can be shared on Twitter. The site also allows you to geo-tag your photos, display them in public or private galleries, tag photos with keywords, track the number of times your photo was viewed, and allows viewers to leave comments. Sharing photos is a fantastic way to add a personal touch to your feed. It can also be a great way to generate buzz by posting pictures revealing new products or providing other engaging content with your Twitter followers.

4. StrawPoll

Twitter is great way to gain instant feedback about a new product, idea, or experience. Creating a poll with StrawPoll is a fun way to gather, track, and share the results. With only a few steps, StrawPoll creates and tweets out the poll for you. Although the science might not match that of the Gallup Poll, this tool will help you engage with your followers and gauge public opinion.

5. Twinbox

Twinbox brings Twitter to your Microsoft Outlook inbox. The service turns all of your Twitter management tasks into Outlook functions. You can update your feed directly from Outlook, receive new updates from followers, archive tweets, assign messages to custom folders and categories, manage multiple accounts, and upload pictures. For those executives and thought leaders hesitant to learn how to use a new tool such as Twitter, Twinbox is a helpful first step toward engagement - because if you can send an email, you can tweet.

6. TwitterLocal

Perhaps your company has been hit by a crisis and you need to track feedback for only the location impacted. TwitterLocal makes this task easy by creating a public feed of all tweets within a specified location. After downloading the application, you can watch feeds from multiple locations and set the radius you want TwitterLocal to check for content. In addition to tracking conversations related to a specific event, you can also use TwitterLocal to identify influential users in a region who might be valuable brand ambassadors.

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Dallas Lawrence is Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications, the nation’s top crisis communications firm. He blogs on emerging digital media trends and best practices for social media engagement on BulletProof. Connect with him @dallaslawrence.