This is a guest blog post by Leo Widrich, co-founder of Buffer , a Twitter publishing application. He writes Twitter Tips every week on his blog.

Twitter is upping its game considerably. A recent $800m investment followed by several acquisitions of various apps were the first signs.

What I found to be even more impressive is the speed at which new features have recently been unveiled. An activity stream together with the new @username tab brings a lot of interactivity to Twitter.com.

All this makes Twitter very attractive, but putting Twitter to work for you and establishing a firm reputation for whichever niche you're in isn't always easy. Making the most of Twitter in a time-saving, yet genuine manner, is the most important thing to consider. Here are 5 great Twitter tools to help you maximize your time on Twitter.

1. Discover When Is the Best Time to Tweet

Tool: TweetWhen

A key ingredient to better tweeting is knowing when are your best times to tweet. A tool I love to use for its simplicity and detailed analysis is called TweetWhen . Within seconds, the app will crunch the numbers of your past 1,000 tweets and provide you with some great insights. Not only will you learn about the best times of day to tweet, but you will also discover the best days of the week you should be tweeting.

Bonus! What I like best here is that the tool comes with a great slideshow you can check out whilst your data is crunched, helping you to learn more about optimal tweeting times.

2. Read Only the Most Relevant Tweets

Tool: StrawberryJ.am

Another big problem I have encountered with my Twitter stream is that tweets often fly by so fast and my stream is so cluttered that it's hard to get to the really good stuff. This is where StrawberryJ.am comes in. It takes all the tweets from your stream and orders them by most mentioned. This means, at first glance, you will be able to see all tweets that are really relevant without wasting time cutting through the clutter manually.

Bonus! StrawberryJ.am enables you to get an enhanced view of tweets for lists or hashtags, too.

3. Figure Out How to Increase Clicks by 200%

Tool: Buffer

Learning about the best times to tweet is only helpful of course if you start tweeting at these times. So what I then do is go to my Buffer account and set it up with these optimal times. Now, whenever I find an interesting article, I add it to my Buffer, and the tool takes care of the rest. You can do this very easily with one click from any website you are reading via browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox, or Safari).

Bonus! The app automatically tracks your tweets and shows you their number of clicks, retweets, and reach received. On average, Buffered tweets achieve 200% more clicks.

4. Find the Right People to Connect With

Tool: inboxQ

A fantastic app I have discovered recently is called inboxQ . The app provides you with an easy-to-use browser extension and allows you to answer any questions relevant to your niche on Twitter. In my case, I have a filter for questions containing “Twitter Tips,” “Twitter Tools,” or “help with Twitter.” I can then easily identify and answer questions and can also connect with people in my niche.

Bonus! InboxQ also allows you to save questions as “to do's” for later, and you can even browse through any questions you have answered previously.

5. Determine if Your Twitter Strategy is Working

Tool: TwentyFeet

Finally, after all things are said and done, you should want to find out whether you have actually made an impact through your tweets. Is your account growing? Do more people listen to what you have to say? Go ahead and find out with TwentyFeet . You can think about the app as a sort of Google Analytics for Twitter. The tool provides interesting graphs with stats you can use to evaluate your Twitter account, such as following, retweets, and mentions.

Bonus! Check out the benchmarking reports. Whenever you hit significant new highs or lows, you will receive a notification so you can immediately improve on the lows and learn from what caused the highs.

Making good use of these five Twitter applications has helped me greatly to push my Twitter account to new heights and capitalize more on my efforts. Most importantly, they enable me to save time so I can still jump in for casual conversations with my followers.

Consider adopting some of these tools for yourself and watch your Twitter productivity soar!

Photo Credit: Blue Diamond Photography