Today’s blog post was contributed by my guest, Ann Smarty, who I have gotten to know through her managing the LinkedIn Subgroup “The Guest Blogger.” Her post is about my preferred Twitter tool which I am also passionate about and use in my own social media consulting and implementation, Hootsuite, which just today released new Social CRM features allowing you to filter tweets by Klout score or keyword. Ann is also currently Director of Media for BlueGlass.
Business power Tweeters can rejoice – the tool you need is finally here. Any business who has a social media policy and uses Twitter or Facebook extensively to reach out to customers now can fully manage their social activities through this site.
Hootsuite is an evolution of Twitter management that started out as “Brightkit” in 2008. While Brightkit began with potential, the creators found that the name was not in line with their services. Subsequently, the company updated their service features, changed the name to Hootsuite, and developed a winning product that is more than suitable for business and personal social media activities.
Hootsuite offers numerous features that result in maximum benefits to business mini-bloggers. Here is a look at a few of the best ones:
Manage Multiple Social Networks
Hootsuite allows a user to integrate multiple social networking sites into one manageable location. The first and main network is Twitter, giving you the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts. And alongside Twitter, Hootsuite helps you manage accounts with Facebook, LinkedIn, and the ability to update a host of other social networks through Ping.fm.
Create and Manage Team Workflow
Hootsuite allows accounts to add as many users as they want. New users can be added from around the country and be given editorial permissions to update certain feeds and share tweeting responsibilities.
Create Twitter Lists
If you follow any number of Twitter accounts, managing and reading all the feeds can be nearly impossible. Hootsuite allows you to create lists of Twitter followers so you can more easily read their updates.
Customize URLs and Upload Files
Your tweets or other updates with links or files are a breeze with Hootsuite tools. It uses its own URL shortening function that allows you to customize URL parameters. If you want to share a file with your tweets or other updates like a photo, Hootsuite instantly converts the file into a shortened ow.ly link embedded into your update.
Schedule Tweets
Scheduling tweets is a feature that many businesses have demanded, but few have provided. Hootsuite allows a business to pre-write a number of tweet updates and schedule them for later posting onto Twitter. This allows you to provide new and fresh Twitter content any time of day.
New iPhone and Droid App
Hootsuite works with the iPhone and Droid mobile devices. Now your Hootsuite team can perform their social media duties anywhere.
Tracking Statistics
Hootsuite tracking provides you with comprehensive data about how many clicks your tweets are getting, where they are located geographically,
So what does all this mean for your business? The Hootsuite social management tool gives you many benefits:
Manage your brand
- – Through Hootsuite, you can find out what people are saying about your company. Track backlinks and retweets, and follow how your tweets are circulating.
Increased Productivity
- – Hootsuite gives your business added productivity with easy team workflow, tweet scheduling, stat tracking, all in one place.
Better Social Policy Communication
- – Your business can more easily manage how it executes its social media policy through unified interaction with all social media team members.
Indeed, HootSuite makes tweeting for businesses more productive, intuitive, and effective.
@nealschaffer
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Charles,
I agree with you 100%. If there’s value for businesses, Hootsuite should reap it. Yet the free version is still sufficient for 95% of their users. Bravo!
I think there’s a need for a third-party client that makes Twitter easy to use, yet also a powerhouse business tool. Stuff like sentiment, influence, analytics, etc, are all key at gauging how you’re viewed, as well as how others can share your brand.
Hootsuite’s just taken a huge step toward this (in my view, anyhoo) and if an application can mix the coolness of Twitter with the solid info a business needs, it could become a great revenue-maker for the host developer. -Charles
Hi Rebecca, Although I cannot offer you any guarantees, I am using the paid version of HootSuite on my iPhone and it does allow for Facebook and FourSquare accounts in addition to Twitter. Hope the information helps!
Hi everyone! Before I pay for the full version, can anyone tell me if the iPhone app allows for more than 3 social media networks? Hootsuite's bumph says just unlimited on Twitter accounts. I'm looking for more Facebook accounts. Thanks!
Thanks for helping us out Lori! Glad to see that HootSuite truly does work with Twitter Lists now. I had an issue in the past with using HootSuite to communicate with my Facebook Fan Page, and the only way to do that was through Ping.Fm…and it never worked! They have since fixed that and I am truly impressed with how quickly they have become such a feature-rich product!
I found this solution: To create a new Twitter List within HootSuite, click “AddStream”. Stay on Twitter, which is the default social network. From here, click the tab on the far right that says, “Twitter Lists”…… That brought my twitter lists into hootsuite
I have the same issue. In fact, I landed on this page trying to search if there was a solution to this.
I believe that there is some history here. Before Twitter even had “Lists,” both Tweetdeck and Hootsuite gave you the ability to create your own. Both platforms are now trying to offer Twitter Lists as standard. Because of this legacy, I suspect that there still may be some API issues, but other than that, I think HootSuite is still solid and, indeed, has evolved pretty rapidly.
It seems that the Hootsuite Lists don't sync with the Twitter Lists, at least when I ask to add someone to one of my Lists it says that it does not exist within Hootsuite even though I am logged into that account and they do indeed exist in my Twitter account. Other than that Hootsuite has rapidly evolved and is a neat tool to use. Walter Adamson @g2m http://xeesm.com/walter
Glad to hear it Margie!
I'm sure that HootSuite will reward its loyal fans and not be too aggressive on the pricing ;-)
I believe so, Lee! I never really started using it in the first place because I never thought the User Interface was intuitive enough…
Just signed up. Pretty awesome tool!
Oh I am sure we will. We are too invested in it now to switch to another tool. Unless of course, the pricing is out of whack :-)
Nice, thanks Neal. Time to drop TweetDeck?
Glad you found it of value!
Hey Arnie,
Glad to hear that Vertical Measures have been a Hootsuite user! When Hootsuite starts charging for a paid account will you still use them? I will!
– Neal
Thanks Jorgen! Yup, the new CRM tools look cool, don't they?!?
Awesome information on this product. Definitely something I am looking into right now. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Ann,
We standardized on Hootsuite here at Vertical Measures a long time ago. Glad we did. Waiting for a dedicated iPad app.
Nice one Ann, I use Hootsuite for multiple Twitter accts and Facebook Pages – it's really useful. Must check out the new CRM tools!