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as determined by Forbes. If social media power influencers are ahead of the curve in terms of use of social media tools, certainly there is something that we can all learn from the tools that they use, right?

I then went on to analyze a sampling of approximately 150,000 tweets sent out by these 50 users and created the infographic below to showcase which are the top 25 Twitter dashboards being used by social media influencers today. Below is the infographic, with a short description of each Twitter client below.

1. HootSuite
Hootsuite repeats last year’s top position as indisputable champion of Twitter clients. HootSuite is a web-based social media dashboard designed to manage a great deal more than just Twitter alone, which is probably one reason it’s so popular. You can schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ all from one dashboard.

If you’re a heavy social media user, this is a great place to get updates and give updates to every platform from one simple location. But in addition to that, it has custom analytics and reports that allow you to track brand awareness, followers and the growth of your networks. You get social stats and posting in one place. If you haven’t tried HootSuite yet, if you sign up using this link by August 1st, 2013 you will receive 50% Off HootSuite Pro and HootSuite University for 60 Days.

2. Twitter.com
Despite the emergence of a multitude of Twitter clients, sometimes nothing beats the good old-fashioned web entry from the source. You can still use Twitter from Twitter.com, which has seen many improvements over the years. It has a new clean interface, a simple and elegant layout and all the functions you need for searching and discovering. Some people still find the web based approach the easiest, especially if they only have one account to manage.

3. Tweetdeck, officially purchased by Twitter, is a social media dashboard that allows you to manage your Twitter account (no longer supports Facebook) from one app. You can create lists, check and reply to messages and DMs and more all from one location. Originally it was only available as an Adobe Air application but now you can use it on several different operating systems (browser based) as well as on mobile devices. Although Tweetdeck’s popularity has waned in comparison to the growth of HootSuite, it is still used – and preferred – by many social media influencers.

4. Twitter for iOS (iOS 5 or later) and Twitter for Android (Android 2.1 or later) are the official mobile apps that can be downloaded to your favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Android device. The popularity of Twitter’s official mobile apps hints at how many are tweeting from mobile devices. While the official Twitter mobile apps have all of the standard functionality you would expect, they don’t always contain as much as competitor apps like TweetCaster or Twitterlator (described further below).

5. Originally known as Tweet Later, SocialOomph is a service, both free and paid, that offers productivity solutions for social media users. This is a very powerful took for scheduling your posts to go live later. It has the ability to manage many accounts which makes it popular with social media managers. It also has blog integration.

6. Tweetbot for iOS is a very popular Twitter tool for the iPhone. Dubbed “the Twitter client with a personality”, it gives you many useful features right at your fingertips in a simplified and non-bulky tool. It offers support for multiple services like Read it Later, Instapaper, Cloudapp URL Shortening and other goodies like multiple timelines, smart gestures, native push notifications and more.

7. Triberr is a tool for sharing blog posts across networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (originally it was Twitter-only.) While there are good and bad to any automation tool, there are many benefits to Triberr, especially when used correctly. Triberr is not for sharing Twitter updates but rather for sharing the blog posts of others and getting people to share yours. You can join in tribes with people within your niche and build a solid network using Twitter as the platform for sharing.

8. At no surprise, we’re seeing another app that I regularly use and highly recommend, Buffer, make it to the top 25 Twitter clients list. Buffer is very simple, user-friendly and effective at allowing you to schedule your tweets. All you need to do is sit down when you have some time, plan ahead for all of your tweets and pre-load them into Buffer. Then you can go out and do what you do and Buffer will send the tweets out for you. This is especially helpful if you do all your reading at one time but want to spread the tweets out instead of spamming your followers.

9. The Tweet Button is a small widget that can be embedded into websites (such as online magazines and news sites) which gives viewers the chance to share articles on the site to their followers. This is pretty much a standard feature today when you consider the importance of social signals. If your website doesn’t have a Tweet Button then you are seriously missing out on a great deal of social shares and resulting traffic.

10. SharedBy is a Social Marketing and Analytics platform that helps you optimize your social media engagement.

Formerly known as Visibli, this is a winner if you love analytics. It offers real time stats on each shared link. The data it sends creates above-average user profiles to truly help you understand who you are engaging with. There is a free starter version and a paid version that comes with a free 14-day trial so you can check it out. The paid version has Bitly Integration, top categories, top formats and more. If you share a lot of content in social media and want to get credit for your curation, this is a tool that you’ll want to try out.

11. Twitterfeed is a utility that allows bloggers to “feed” their blog posts or other RSS content to Twitter, Facebook and other platforms. This gives you a greater reach and allows you to get real time data. This is full automation so keep in mind it has its ups and downs.

12. SproutSocial is another social media management tool for Twitter and Facebook, but this one offers contact management, competitive insight, lead generation and more unique functionality. It also has a really great archive feature and is popular with social media managers and people who need to keep track of multiple accounts. You get analytics with this tool as well. On top of all that, SproutSocial just two weeks ago announced support for Google Plus.

13.  TweetChat creates Twitter-based online-chat rooms, based on the hashtags feature of Twitter. You can then follow the conversation without other Twitter noise getting in the way. Often people complain that Twitter is too “busy” for them and that they cannot keep up with conversations. TweetChats are a good solution to this. It’s all based around hashtags though and this is not a client that works for scheduling posts or other functions. The popularity of this Twitter client hints at the popularity that Twitter chats have for social media power influencers.

14. Paper.li is like a newspaper of your Twitter feed. It’s not really a tweeting platform but it does have a great purpose. Paper.li lets you be a publisher and “Publish Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or any web content into your own online newspaper.” It will even tag users for you and you can set up the hashtags you want to use. It’s not useful for scheduling specific tweets, but it does offer niche publishing, content marketing and web monitoring. You can track certain hashtags and keywords in your industry and see what people are talking about and responding to.

15. UberSocial for BlackBerry is another option for BB users who want Twitter on the go. UberSocial for BlackBerry (formerly UberTwitter) is a powerful, customizable and easy to use app for BlackBerry users. The new UberBar allows full customization to all Twitter functionality, something that UberTwitter did not have before. You can also customize themes to suit your personality. It’s clean, streamlined and easy to use, making tweeting from your BB effortless.

16. The web service dlvr.it allows bloggers to publish, distribute and syndicate their content across more than one social media platform, including Twitter. Many users consider it a TwitterFeed replacement in that it gives you more robust filtering and analytical capabilities. However, this is a platform for automation only so don’t forget to log into Twitter and send replies and respond to messages.

17. Instagram is a very popular social app for image sharing and is also currently the most popular mobile social network in much of the world. Originally only for the iPhone, it now has Android capability as well and its popularity has skyrocketed. While Instagram is centered around photo sharing, it also allows you to post your grams to Twitter and Facebook so many people use it as a tool to update their Twitter statuses, as witnessed by its appearance in this list!

18. Echofon is a client that this available for iPhone, Mac, Windows, and Firefox. It will allow you to sync your unread tweets between your computer, iPhone and other devices. This is a really popular Twitter client for the iPhone but now it’s growing more popular since it supports browser and PC logins.

19. Twitterlator is “the iPhone Twitter client for the rest of us” and contains many great features. It uploads photos automatically and is loaded with cool features. It has a great interface with three built in themes, you can create and share your own themes, and fully landscape or portrait mode. It has built in web browsing, email links, and a host of integrated services. With Twitterlator you get TweetShrink, What the Trend, 5 different URL shortening services and many other build in services all in one place. It’s everything you need for Twitter in your iPhone.

20. Pluggio calls itself an all in one Twitter management suite. It also works for Facebook now. It’s much like Hootsuite and MarketMeSuite and it’s also free. There is no tool that can completely do it all for you. In fact, Twitter’s API prevents this to dissuade people from completely automating the system. That being said, Pluggio is one of the best when it comes to offering features and working within the API. This is a favorite for users who want more control with their automation. It’s browser-based and top features include automated tweets, auto follow back with a thank you and friend suggestions so you can meet new people.

21. MarketMeSuite is a social media tool and software created for social media marketing and management that is used by over 30,000 SMBs. It has come a long way since its early days and now has both free and paid versions, with many great functions that rival HootSuite and TweetDeck (its biggest competitors). It will sync with your Twitter lists, allows for easy conversation replying, has a scheduling function and you can set up reply campaigns. It has a lot of functionality rolled into one convenient tool. There is a slight learning curve if you’re new to MMS but, as an experienced user, I can testify that it’s very useful for managing many functions in one place.

22. Spread.us is like a mailing list, for Twitter. Tweet your curated content on behalf of colleagues, friends and fans. This tool allows you to tweet your curated content on behalf of others, track performance and social reach and expand to a larger market. You can use it for press releases, promotional content, product announcements and more. This is not really a great tool for just telling people what you had for breakfast. It’s meant for companies, brands and even Internet marketers.

23. Foursquare is an app that allows you and your friends to check in places that you go, tell people you are there and even rate and review the locations you frequently travel. You can also snap pictures with your smartphone while you’re there. Foursquare has functionality to post to Twitter, although I recommended long ago to stop automatically tweeting from Foursquare to Twitter.

24. TweetCaster is the #1 Android Twitter app with the most innovative features. You get banner free usage and it allows you to get the most from Twitter while using it from your phone. Check messages, reply to @s and share status updates from anywhere with your phone and TweetCaster. It has all of the standard features you would find on a Twitter app but with some extras that make it worth the download such as smart lists, search party, Facebook integration (post to both sites at the same time), advanced retweets, long tweets and more.

25. Tweeting Machine helps you manage your Twitter campaigns quickly and easily. You can try it for free for only 24 hours if you want to see what it’s all about as the regular fee is $19.99/month. This tool has a lot of automation so be careful with how you use it but it allows auto follow backs, scheduling tweets and more.

As per my recommendations last year, I still find that the top Twitter clients in 2013 for any business to consider when managing from their desktop come down to:

• HootSuite
• Twitter.com
• TweetDeck
• SocialOomph
• Buffer
• SproutSocial
• Pluggio
• MarketMeSuite

Any business in 2013 that is tweeting undoubtedly requires a cross platform social media dashboard, so those seven clients in bold above are what you should be investigating if you are looking for a new client to use.