Chris Brogan recently wrote a blog post called “How I manage Facebook“ and it immediately gave me the idea to write the post that you’re reading now but I admit I hesitated for a few weeks because I kinda see this as a “trade secret” as to how I am able to manage and react to conversations on twitter in an almost real time fashion even when I am away from a computer…but I noticed something interesting today while I was speaking at a conference for people reasonably new to twitter that changed my mind. You see as I was explaining how to use twitter I could see a few of the prettier females in the room were really impressed.

So in an effort to impress pretty people everywhere I now present you The DEFINITIVE “how to” guide to use Twitter on the iPhone.

*disclaimer* there are many ways to do what I am about to explain so in all honestly I am using the word “definitive” the same way coffee shops say “world’s best coffee” but this is a great system and it works for me plenty well.

Next to this is a screen shot of my phone and you will notice that I have three separate iPhone Twitter Clients.

The the three are Summizer, Twitterific and Echofon (formerly Twitterfon). I use all three as they all offer me a quick way to accomplish different tasks quickly and easily.

My main twitter app is Echofon/Twitterfon.

This app pretty much works like they all do and the only reason I use it over others is because I find it easy to use. As you can see from the screen shot, it shows me 200 updates at a time from my friends list and also separates all my DM’s and @replies (mentions) so I can find this stuff quickly and with a single touch. It also lets me add/remove and even block people with just a few clicks and this is the app I use when I am just reading twitter and seeing what is going on in my main stream.

The second App in my tool box is Summizer.

Summizer isn’t a feed type app in the way Echofon is because Summizer is search tool with the ability to save searches. With Summizer I have set up close to 50 keywords and people I care most about and I use this as my catch up tool as well as my focused “quick glance” tool. Basically when I am on the subway or using one of those rooms with the stick figure gender character on the door I will fire up summizer and find out what is going on with my closest friends or see if people are talking about the company I work for or other companies I respect and monitor unofficially and without permission…and I also rely on it to keep me informed at a moments notice if I need to respond to anything falling in my set up searches.

Now it should be said that I could easily set up all sorts of searched in Echofon and basically accomplish the same results and purpose that I use Summizer for but I find it simpler to keep them separate so I can be more focused and responsive this way.

The last app I use to complete my DEFINITIVE (please see disclaimer above) how to is Twitterific. I used to use this app as my exclusive Twitter client and was happy with it but switched to Echofon one day because I just tried it and liked it (and I understand Tweetie is pretty amazing as well) but I still come back to Twitterific when I get an inspiration to tweet something quickly. You see as much as I love Echofon I find it can take half a minute to a minute to load up and Twitterific loads up crazy quick and lets me share with the world very fast the pearls of wisdom I share because I know people rely on me for my witty quips, observations and self promotion.

So just to review…this by no means replaces the ease and reliability of a desktop application like Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop but this does give you a head start in creating a mobile command center in the palm of your hand and while I claim this to be the best way to manage your twitter accounts on the go I will also say that this is just my opinion and I haven’t gone looking for a more polished way because this one works crazy well for me but if you have a different opinion I would love to hear all about it in the comments section of the blog or just go talk about it on twitter, because chances are I will hear about it from one if not all of my installed apps!