HootSuite blog – Social Media Dashboard

During the past few weeks, Twitter has been hit hard by phishing scams, malware, and spam. The culprit? Shortened URLs that disguise nasty, suspicious links.

Well, enough is enough. As the screenshot below shows, HootSuite (and owl.y) are making it harder for bad guys to use our service for their nefarious purposes.

When suspicious links are sent through ow.ly, we send a warning before anyone arrives at the identified dodgy sites. From there, you can click “Back to safety” to return to safe web browsing, or alternately, you can click “Ignore warning and proceed” — that is, if you don’t mind blowing up your computer (not recommended ). Instead, read up about phishing and badware at: antiphishing.org and StopBadware.org.

Phishers and scammers are resourceful and plentiful, and while HootSuite does everything we can to protect you and your computer, we recommend the following tips for keeping yourself safe:

• Don’t click links sent from someone you do not trust
• If someone you trust sends messages that seems out of character, be suspicious
• Be on alert if you hear news of phishing or malware attacks
• If someone offers something too good to be true, it probably is
• Never enter personal information on a suspicious looking site

Here at HootSuite, we wish you a safe Internet experience. Heed our warnings, avoid clicking anything dodgy, and — above all — be careful!

Support, features Identity theft, Malware, Phishing, Spam, Twitter

Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite, announced the finalization of $1.9 million USD of venture financing. The announcement comes on the heels of two significant releases including a HootSuite version for Apple iPhone and an update adding WordPress to the supported publishing platforms which already include Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm and of course, Twitter.

The financing came from a high profile syndicate including Hearst Interactive Media, Blumberg Capital and prominent angel investors Social Concepts, and Geoff Entress.

CEO Ryan Holmes says, “This funding keeps HootSuite on track towards becoming the ultimate social media dashboard. We look forward to reaching wider audiences, and helping all manner of on-line projects and personalities communicate better with their audiences.”

HootSuite was created by Invoke Media in November of 2008 as a Twitter solution for its social media department and quickly evolved to provide brand monitoring, file-sharing, and social network integration. After only one year on the market, HootSuite has built a reputation as an essential tool for new marketers and consumers. Our more than 300,000 users include Whitehouse.gov, Disney, Time, Martha Stewart Media and SXSW.

customer service, features, hootsuite news, update dashboard, development, financing, news, pr, ryan holmes, venture capital

Chop your WordPress blogging time in half

A new year means new features! First up? We’ve added support for WordPress blogs. As with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you can schedule and cross-post content to multiple WordPress accounts. There is also a Home Feed for blogs you are following, as well as the ability to reblog posts you think are noteworthy. WordPress is the first blog platform officially supported by HootSuite, and we are very excited about the addition of this brand new feature. Initial support is for blogs hosted on WordPress.com, but support for self-hosted WordPress blogs is on the horizon.

Trending Topics Demystified

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why is that topic trending?!” We have — which is why we now offer explanations for why particular topics trend. Our iPhone app users have already been enjoying this feature; now our web users can check it out too. From now on, you can demystify the trending topics with the simple click of a button. (Move your cursor into the Search field to see the trending topics, and then hit the question mark.)

Link & Media Previews

We’ve also added the ability to preview URLs, so you can easily see what media is being shared. Preview your URLs, as well as most popular shortened URLs, including image-sharing sites like twitpic and ow.ly, YouTube videos, and more. The media preview feature has the added benefit of making your web surfing experience safer, by allowing you to see what you’re clicking on before you do so.

Auto-load more tweets

By popular request, we’ve also eliminated the need to click “More” to view more tweets. HootSuite now automatically loads more tweets when you scroll down to the base of a column. This works for any column, from your DM inbox to your Facebook home feed.

Check out the apps and plug-in directory

Take HootSuite to the next level with value-packed applications and plug-ins. Options for iPhone, Firefox, Chrome, Prism, Fluid and more. Check it out here.

HootSuite continues to evolve as a social media dashboard, and we promise to continue innovating with exciting new features.

features, hootsuite news, social media, update images, previews, trends, updates, URLs, wordpress

“Integrating Facebook profiles with HootSuite has been amazing,” many of you have said, “But what about Facebook Pages?” Consider it done. Starting this week, you can integrate Facebook Pages with HootSuite.

To add your Pages to HootSuite, go to Settings, select Social Networks, then click Add Social Network. You will notice an option indented underneath Facebook that says Pages. Click on this option, and you’ll go through the same steps you previously used to authenticate private Facebook profiles.

When you’re done, updating your Facebook Pages using HootSuite will be a breeze. Just select the appropriate Page and away you go! Schedule updates in advance, or post simutaneously to the profiles and social networks of your choice — Ping.fm, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

Give it a try. We’re sure you’ll love it.

Still have questions? Visit us at http://feedback.hootsuite.com

features, social media facebook integration, facebook pages, fan pages

We’ve added new features, and we think you’ll like them. Some features were the result of your requests. Others were added because they’re just darn cool.

Twitter Lists

Many of you have been asking HootSuite to implement Twitter lists, and we’ve been listening. Not only can you import the lists you’ve already created, you can create your own lists using HootSuite. These lists can be be saved as a column. You can further modify your lists (and who’s on them) using your column preferences.

Facebook and LinkedIn

We’ve decided to push HootSuite functionality beyond Twitter. You can now integrate your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Whereas before you could update Facebook and LinkedIn through Ping.fm functionality, things are different now. Facebook and LinkedIn accounts are treated similarly to Twitter accounts: you can create columns from these social networks, read your friends’ status updates, and update multiple Facebook accounts. Facebook integration offers in-line commenting.

Scheduled Facebook and Linkedin Status Updates

If you are a regular HootSuite user, you’ve probably tried scheduling your tweets. We’ve extended this capability further: HootSuite users can now schedule their status updates on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Ping.fm. The ability to schedule Ping.fm updates is particularly noteworthy since through it you can update most popular social networks (such as MySpace, LiveJournal, etc.) Scheduling status updates now has near universal applicability.

For help with using HootSuite, please visit our customer service area at http://feedback.hootsuite.com

customer service, features, hootsuite news, update Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Online Communities, ping.fm, Social network, Twitter

HootSuite has a few nifty tricks up its sleeve for managing RSS feeds. Here are a few things you may or may not know about feeding RSS with HootSuite:

Pause a Feed

We’ve made it possible to pause your feeds with HootSuite — with a click of a button. In the RSS/Atom section of your settings, simply press the pause button. Press play if you want it to resume. We’d like to think that the hardest thing about this is wrapping your mind around how easy it is.

Private Analytics

When you feed your RSS content into HootSuite, rest easy knowing the analytics are private. Your competition can’t peek at your numbers. Unlike other Twitter RSS services that depend on third parties for their URL analytics, HootSuite integrates both RSS and analytics in one app. This means better security for you (and less intel for competitors).

Multiple Accounts

We’ve saved the best tip for last. With HootSuite, multiple Twitter profiles can have access to one RSS feed. You can choose which accounts have access, and when they have it. One RSS feed can be configured to send to all your accounts, a few of them, or just one.

Here at HootSuite, we have tested many helpful ways to integrate RSS feeds with Twitter. However, we’re only scratching the surface. What tips do you have?

Twitter for business, features analytics, atom feed, columns, multiple accounts, rss, tips

features, hootsuite news, social media, update commenting, HootSuite, image sharing, Twitter, viral images

At HootSuite, the professional Twitter client, we want to live up to our name, so we’re constantly listening to you and implementing improvements. Our newest update adds exciting new features, including file sharing and auto-complete. 

Picture Uploading

Many of our users have requested this feature, and we’ve obliged. Within HootSuite, you can now upload pictures by pressing the picture icon.

Once you’ve uploaded your image, HootSuite will return an ow.ly URL for you to tweet — making it trackable through our custom analytics. Every picture uploaded is hosted on ow.ly. By logging into ow.ly, you can also administer your galleries. This is yet another way we’ve pushed Twitter to amazing new heights.

File Uploading

Now you can share files on Twitter. HootSuite is the first major Twitter client to support this exciting feature. Similar to picture uploading, you must instead click the document icon. HootSuite supports many document formats: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Photoshop, and MP3 files. As with pictures, links to files are trackable with HootSuite’s custom analytics.

Intelligent Auto-Complete

Ever forgotten someone’s Twitter username? HootSuite’s new auto-complete feature helps you overcome this problem. Once you type a name, HootSuite remembers it. With your next reply, HootSuite automatically generates a list of the names you most frequently engage with. You can also remove someone from auto-complete by pressing the “x” button beside their name.

What will HootSuite do next? We’ve got lots of goodness planned, but we welcome all feature requests. What features would you like to see added to HootSuite in our next update?

features, update auto-complete, documents, features, file sharing, image, photo, picture, update

HootSuite can schedule your tweets -- and make life easier

Few of us have the time to be on Twitter all the time. In this post, we explain how to make the most of a well-known HootSuite feature: scheduled tweets.

Improving visibility
If you send more tweets, your Twitter handle and your content become more more visible. Scheduling your content to come out at regular intervals during the day translates to improved visibility, and has the additional benefit of being less interruptive. Many business and power users have told us that scheduling content in advance allows them to focus on other Twitter experiences such as retweeting, sourcing new content streams or having conversations.

Sending time-sensitive tweets
Some tweets need to go out at specific times: announcements, promotions, and customer service responses. This is especially true when your target audience lives in a different time zone than you. In Los Angeles, if you’re starting your workday, someone in London is finishing theirs. With scheduled tweets, you’re able to ensure your followers are reached at the appropriate time.

Controlling content flow
Nobody likes to be inundated with a torrent of tweets. Many Twitter users have a lot to say but do not want to come across as spammy. Instead of sending 20 tweets in the span of 5 minutes, why not send 20 tweets over the course of 10 hours? By staggering your tweets, your messages reach the world in a more cohesive, less obtrusive manner.

Optimizing for traffic
If you know that your links are more likely to be clicked at a particular time, HootSuite lets you schedule accordingly, to maximize the penetration of your content. Public relations people or media workers familiar with Jack Shafer’s news cycle theory will see the benefit of this feature immediately.

These are all good reason to schedule your tweets. But everyone has their own reason for using this HootSuite feature. What is yours?

Twitter, Twitter for business, features content, features, HootSuite, optimization, schedule tweets, strategy, traffic, Twitter, visibility

Also, a reminder: If you’re not one of the thousands that has already done so, you’re still invited to tweet for an optional early upgrade to Hootsuite 2.0. Soon, we’ll be opening Hootsuite 2.0 to everyone, with no upgrade tweet required. The choice is yours: tweet your love, and get all the features of HootSuite 2.0 today, or wait a little bit and get them later.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to check out HootSuite 2.0 and provide us with your thoughts and ideas. Here’s one of our favourites.

Moni
Team HootSuite

Twitter, customer service, features, hootsuite news, social media, update 2.0, columns, dos, groups, HootSuite, search, Twitter, upgrade