HootSuite blog – Social Media Dashboard

Stream Notes

This Owl looks somewhat stern -- pic contrib'ed by @AnneWeiskopf

Something amiss in your streams? Well, you’re not the only one.

Twitter’s API is currently experiencing a critical issue that is causing problems in some third-party clients, including HootSuite.

As such, you may notice that your Home or Mention streams on HootSuite.com are not updating correctly. This is a symptom of the issue with Twitter’s API.

Geek note: API stands for Application Programming Interface which allows sites like Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin to share data with HootSuite.

HootSuite for iPhone and HootSuite for Android are also affected by this bug. Some users are experiencing crashes when viewing certain streams. Again, this is due to a problem with Twitter’s API.

Twitter is aware of the issue and are working on resolving this as soon as possible. Meanwhile at HootSuite HQ, we thank you for your patience.

Bonus:

Track Twitter’s status with these resources:

Twitter Status | @Twitterapi | API Status

Android, Support, iPhone, mobile android, api, iPhone, streams, Twitter

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

With the fresh release of HootSuite (code-named Barn Owl), we’ve also revamped the ways we offer knowledge and help. Now there are three ways to feedback, connect or get help – here’s the breakdown:

HootSuite Feedback: A Place for Ideas

Most comments from HootSuite users are about feature requests, road map (and how lovable owls are). This is why we’ve created HootSuite Feedback — a special place for fans of our beloved social media dashboard. Submit feature requests, talk with fellow users, and speculate about the future.

More than just a forum, HootSuite Feedback is a place where you can vote on features, suggestions, and miscellaneous discussions. Similar to Digg, there is a button beside each topic that our fans can “vote up”. If we see an idea that is particularly popular, don’t be surprised if we include it in future versions.

So grab a coffee, start sharing ideas — and remember: we’re listening.

HootSuite Help: Lending a Hand

We’ve streamlined HootSuite Help services to better serve you. We’ve re-created our help pages to resolve your issues quicker. HootSuite Help’s emphasis is on indexing easy-to-find answers to most of your questions.

As a result, we encourage you to help yourself. HootSuite is a free service and we are gaining more users. Hence, it is not always easy to answer every email in a timely fashion. Before creating a service request, be sure to check our newly created base of knowledge to see if there’s a solution to your problems.

Still, we acknowledge not every issue is documented, so please send us a Support Request if there is no article addressing your problem. Our Help Team is always happy to help you!

HootSuite Engage: Let’s Hang

HootSuite keeps adding more social networks to the social media dashboard and we hang out there too. Find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and MySpace. With our presence on these channels, we often love to chat and connect. Hence, HootSuite Engage – our new initiative to well… engage with you. Post on our walls, share your thoughts, and  get to know us. Wherever you may be, we want you to know you got a friend with HootSuite.

With that said, all feedback, suggestions, and feature requests posted on social networks will now be directed to HootSuite Feedback. Likewise, support questions will be directed to HootSuite Help.

Thoughts on Support: We’re in This Together

Owly HootSuite poses at Socialable book launch - photo Jeremy Lim

HootSuite is nothing without a great product and a passionate group of users. With this in mind, we work hard to continually improve the product while also making sure we help people get started, learn more tricks, and figure out problems. Like other companies, the questions we hear the most are ones we try to pro-actively answer.

To make this convenient for you, we’ve assembled a library of how-tos and FAQs which will solve 90% of inquires we hear through all support channels. The rest may require further help, but now there’s a full-functional support request system to better help you.

Additionally, there is a cadre of consultants, evangelists and savvy users who write tips, tricks and tutorials on their blogs. We’ll do our best to share those with others as well as producing White Papers and Case Studies to help artists, businesses and organizations learn how to Hoot more effectively.

We want everyone to enjoy their HootSuite experience — and  we work diligently to make this happen — thanks for coming along.

Support, customer service barn owl, connect, feedback, help, Support

Ow.ly update — Now with fewer bots and less spam

The busy times keep rolling with some powerful improvements to click-tracking with Ow.ly – our URL shortening, social sharing and tracking tool.

Problem Bots Thwarted

Twitter is constantly crawled by bots and spiders hungry for new links to follow. We’ve tried to filter these bots out in the past, but they can be sneaky little guys, and some were slipping through our filters. Due to these web-crawlers, some HootSuite users may have noticed inflated click stats over the past few months.

Stats Adjusted

But no longer! With our recent updates to ow.ly, we’re able to filter bots and spiders with greater accuracy. The end result? More precise analytics and stats for our users, so you can measure your influence and reach with a greater degree of confidence.

Because of these important updates, you may see a drop in your reported clickthrough stats. This is normal — what you’re seeing is the fake clicks being swept away from your reports.

Links Protected

While we were at it, we’ve added some important security features to help combat phishing scams and malware.

Every ow.ly URL is now checked against Google’s Safe Browsing database of known malware and phishing URLs. If you click on a malicious ow.ly link, you’ll now see a warning page letting you know that the site may be hazardous to your computer’s health.

Question Period

Note: We always look forward to hearing from you but this blog post is not the channel for support requests – instead, kindly enter your questions, concerns and ideas at HootSuite Support on Get Satisfaction for response plus follow @hootsuite_help for a stream of knowledge.

Learn more about ow.ly’s features and benefits at: Introducing! Ow.ly Social Bar 2.0. Because Sharing is Caring.

Recap

Ow.ly is now safer, faster, and features more reliable statistics. Enjoy the updates! And find help if needed.

Support clicks, improvements, links, ow.ly, social bar, stats, twiter, url, URLs

Add some punch to your social media experience by integrating WordPress with HootSuite. It’s simple and hassle-free. Like an uppercut, HootSuite makes blogging that much more powerful.

Watch the tutorial video above and see why owls are the Bruce Lee of the bird world.

Initial support is for blogs hosted on WordPress.com, but support for self-hosted WordPress blogs is on the horizon.

UPDATE: We’ve had a number of users report that when they try to add their WordPress.com account into HootSuite it pulls back the wrong blog name and avatar. The cause for this has been identified and WordPress has resolved the issue for us. In case anyone is concerned, there was no way for users to post messages to the wrong blog, it was only an issue with the returned display name and avatar. Everything should be working fine now.

If you have further questions about WordPress integration with HootSuite, please visit us at http://feedback.hootsuite.com

Support, customer service, social media blogging, social networks, tutorial, video, wordpress

Hey Hootsuite users,

We know that some of you on Safari have been having login issues. We’ve found the cookie related
source of the issue and we have a permanent solution for you:

go to Preferences -> Security -> Show Cookies. Then they can just filter on “hootsuite” using the search box in the top right and then only delete those cookies associated with HootSuite. (Thanks to Andy Couch)

If this does not work:

1. Shut down Safari
2. Delete the ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist file
3. Restart Safari

*note that this will delete all cookies for all sites.

Still need help? Post to feedback.hootsuite.com

Support