6 features that make Hootsuite a must have

 This is another awesome tool that will help you in finding the best strategies for your business or the businesses of your clients! There are several platforms that do this to varying degrees out there, and most of them cost considerably more than the paid version of Hootsuite. Don't be fooled by the low price tag. Hootsuite does the job.  If you add links to your posts through Hootsuite's URL shortener, Ow.Ly, it will track the clicks that you get, and include information like who did the clicking and when, amongst other information of your choice. This info can be compiled in a report that you can customize and print or e-mail to your clients, or keep for yourself. The Report Builder is user friendly, and even allows you to insert logos and contact information. That's just what you get for free, for reasonable costs; you have access to Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Influence Reports, and Proposal Reports that allow you to monitor the progress of your campaigns across Twitter, Facebook, and website profiles. Hootsuite allows you to create posts, and set them to go out at any time you choose.  If you want to send out a reminder to check out the holiday deals, for instance, that you offer, you can send a post now, and also schedule one to go out at 1pm everyday next week. The free version allows you to schedule these one at a time, and the paid version lets you mass schedule (pick several times and dates, at one time for the same post). Maybe you are hosting a party and you want to have a countdown, or you want your friends’ opinion but you'll be busy when you know they will be checking their social networks. The uses are countless. Hootsuite also has an auto scheduler that allows you to create a post and then let the system find the best time for the post to go out based on data from each of your accounts. This is an awesome bonus when you aren't sure when your friends and followers are watching! Hootsuite creates a tab for each profile that you manage. Clicking on the tab will bring you to a screen that has columns or "Streams" that you have customized to show the information that you need. For each profile you can add Streams that are unique to the network. Take Facebook, for instance, you can add streams that show your most recent news, status updates, photos and videos from your feed, wall posts, events, and even the messages that you have scheduled to go out. You can even follow and unfollow people in your timeline. This is great because only you know what information you most need, so this lets you make the platform most useful to your individual uses. You can also change these streams at any time, and have them be completely different for each of the accounts that you have in the dashboard. You can even save searches as tabs and see all current updates about whatever topic you like, which is great for getting news about an event of all tweets with a certain hash tag; which is particularly useful if you have a hash tag campaign running.View the list »
Hootsuite is a powerful social media management tool

Social Media newsletter

OK Detroit, so you know that Posterous is out of here at the end of April. Many of you may be wondering where to go from here; well that's easy, the answer is Hootsuite! Hootsuite offers a plethora of awesome features that are essential to managing your social media networks, or those of your clients (if social networking is your business), in a painless and user friendly way.

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In the free version you can manage up to five(5) social media profiles, whereas, in the paid version($5.99/mo) the number of profiles in unlimited. Thus, if you are just managing just your own accounts, the free version will probably be sufficient. If you are managing for clients and want the ease of one location where you can cover all bases, then the $5.99/mo is worth it! Some of the social networks that can be managed are Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, FourSquare, WordPress, and MySpace, just to name a few. This is awesome because unlike some other platforms, that means you can manage blogs right in the same place, which comes in handy if you are creating and managing some or all of your clients' content on such blogs. There is also a neat feature that allows you to plug your Wordpress blog into the social networking sites!

Now, because there are so many different features and options, you're going to need to take a look at the ones that are needed to get started and then you can go and make a personal Hootsuite experience your own. Before this article is over you'll be monitoring your Facebook newsfeeds and Twitter timelines like a champ and posting great content on Wordpress to boot; so sit back and learn the 6 main features that make Hootsuite your best, social media management, friend!

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  •  Hootsuite creates a tab for each profile that you manage. Clicking on the tab will bring you to a screen that has columns or "Streams" that you have customized to show the information that you need. For each profile you can add Streams that are unique to the network. Take Facebook, for instance, you can add streams that show your most recent news, status updates, photos and videos from your feed, wall posts, events, and even the messages that you have scheduled to go out. You can even follow and unfollow people in your timeline. This is great because only you know what information you most need, so this lets you make the platform most useful to your individual uses. You can also change these streams at any time, and have them be completely different for each of the accounts that you have in the dashboard. You can even save searches as tabs and see all current updates about whatever topic you like, which is great for getting news about an event of all tweets with a certain hash tag; which is particularly useful if you have a hash tag campaign running.
  •  Hootsuite allows you to create posts, and set them to go out at any time you choose.  If you want to send out a reminder to check out the holiday deals, for instance, that you offer, you can send a post now, and also schedule one to go out at 1pm everyday next week. The free version allows you to schedule these one at a time, and the paid version lets you mass schedule (pick several times and dates, at one time for the same post). Maybe you are hosting a party and you want to have a countdown, or you want your friends’ opinion but you'll be busy when you know they will be checking their social networks. The uses are countless. Hootsuite also has an auto scheduler that allows you to create a post and then let the system find the best time for the post to go out based on data from each of your accounts. This is an awesome bonus when you aren't sure when your friends and followers are watching!
  •  This is another awesome tool that will help you in finding the best strategies for your business or the businesses of your clients! There are several platforms that do this to varying degrees out there, and most of them cost considerably more than the paid version of Hootsuite. Don't be fooled by the low price tag. Hootsuite does the job.  If you add links to your posts through Hootsuite's URL shortener, Ow.Ly, it will track the clicks that you get, and include information like who did the clicking and when, amongst other information of your choice. This info can be compiled in a report that you can customize and print or e-mail to your clients, or keep for yourself. The Report Builder is user friendly, and even allows you to insert logos and contact information. That's just what you get for free, for reasonable costs; you have access to Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Influence Reports, and Proposal Reports that allow you to monitor the progress of your campaigns across Twitter, Facebook, and website profiles.
  •  Another cool feature of Hootsuite is the Contacts page. You can go there to find any lists that you have created in Twitter, and the lists of your followers and those you follow and manage them. You can add people to lists or take them off, and change their position in the lists. You can view profiles through posts and interact with your friends and followers right in the tabs. You can send messages, @reply or comments, and favorite tweets just as you canon the native apps. The ability to interact with your contacts right from the tab makes the user experience seamless and hassle free, there are not many extra clicks that you have to make to get where you want to go; and mostly everything is where you'd look to find it. From profiles you can copy posts and translate posts into different languages as well. You can even see who is mentioning them and what types of posts they favorite. 
  •  The ability to have team members is for the paid version. With $5.99/mo, you can have one (1) team member,that can log in, and see the same accounts and information as you. Without this, each unique set of log-in credentials for the various social networks can only be managed by a single Hootsuite user under their log-in information. The ability to have a team member means that you can share tasks and reports, and create assignments for your team. If you are a business that needs the ability to add more than one team member, the cost is $15/mo for each additional member. This is useful is you have several people working on the same projects and by paying for the service, you open up other features as well. Hootsuite continues to add apps that expand functionality!
  •  You can download apps within the platform that allow you to follow other streams like YouTube and Tumblr, and if there is an app that you want that is not in the list, you can request it. Hootsuite is also great because there are desktop, mobile, and web add-on versions! That means you can manage your profiles from anywhere!Are you sold yet? The features that Hootsuite offers could be written about for days, but where is the fun in that? Now that you have a general idea of how to get started with Hootsuite, go on over and check it out! It's free, remember! Make sure you come back and share your discoveries in the comments!Don't forget to subscribe above for more social media info like this!
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, Detroit Social Media Examiner

Kimberly Carthage, Co-founder of KR Social Media Consulting, is a native of Detroit who loves technology. As a woman who has spent the better part of her life falling in love with gizmos and gadgets, she loves to share her opinion when given the chance. Her social media prowess has helped...

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