Keep your Friends Close & Statistics Closer ~ HootSuite’s “Barn Owl” Release

Statistics for Social Media Marketing

The good news continues from HootSuite HQ with the release of “Barn Owl” – the new iteration of our beloved (and award-winning) social media dashboard. This release includes tools which will delight marketing departments, customer support teams and anyone who seeks to understand their audience plus track what’s working.

In all, HootSuite’s new release delivers on requests from hardcore fans including complete relationship management, enhanced statistics reporting, and a “save as draft” functionality as well as a few tune-ups to stay at the forefront of performance and convenience.

Here’s a recap of the new tools and their benefits:

Know and Grow your Audience

barn-cleanupSure you’re friendly, but keeping track of all your pals and contacts can get overwhelming. Get to know your audience better with the new Friends and Followers chart. Besides the usual profile info, you’ll see their activity level and “Klout” score, and you can quickly reciprocate the friendliness across networks.

Track what’s Working

barn-print-csvMarketing pros take note: HootSuite helps you gather intelligence by tracking which messages generate clicks – including breakdowns by time and by region. Easily share your success with chart printing plus CSV exports for custom reports and PDF printing. Oh did we mention custom URL parameters? If you know what they are, you’re definitely excited.

Embrace Procrastination

barn-draftsEver have an update in mind but missing one critical part? Perhaps a link or an image? Just “Save as a Draft” on any of your accounts and finish and publish to your networks at your leisure (or whenever you get around to it).


Get Tw’Listed

barn-heartTwitter Lists are the new Groups – Play friendly with the Twitter-verse by converting your existing groups and lists and the accompanying glory. We’ve made the transition easy – just click the boxes to migrate to public or private lists – it’ll be worth it.


And that ain’t all

barn-toolsMore tweaks and tune-ups include: improved Linkedin commenting, custom URL variables for campaign tracking and more tweaks under the hood.


Ready Already

The best part is: To enjoy the new features, you don’t have to do anything ~ just keeping Hooting!

Fresh Help

We’ve also evolved the ways to get help. Choose from the Feedback channel for feature requests, props and thoughts. Or use the Help Desk for FAQs, how-tos and troubleshooting tips (even submit a ticket if you really need to).  Of course, you can always find the Owls on Twitter @hootsuite_help along with Facebook, Flickr, and MySpace.

Webinar

Curious? Have questions? Want to see a demo? The HootSuite team are inviting media and users to attend a brief Webinar on Tuesday at 11am PST for a tour of the new release. Tune-in for the Webinar.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Author: Dave Olson

Dave Olson has written 108 posts for the HootSource blog..

VP Community at HootSuite finding Owls everywhere and bringing them into our social programs. Also enjoy hotsprings, personal expression, art n crafts and literature.

No related posts.

72 comments
  Livefyre
Newest | Oldest
Jermyn Shannon-El
Jermyn Shannon-El

I love hootsuite. I would love to see integration features with Box.net to share files and folders with Twitter followers. As well, the ability to save profiles of people who Retweet your post would be inviting. But I can't see where you can create List in Hootsuite???

zuls
zuls

thanks for the addition, I'm loving it! :)

Julie Hood
Julie Hood

Thanks for all the hard work -- I can tell these changes took a lot of effort from your team!

Quick questions -- are the statistics tracking across all my posts (including LinkedIn and Facebook) or just Twitter? I've searched and can't seem to find the answer. Thanks!

Dave Olson
Dave Olson

Thanks for your kind words - Stats are Just Twitter for the time being at least.

Clyde Lerner
Clyde Lerner

Great new features. I'd say you guys are soooo close to perfect client.

A couple of features on new "people" tab:

1) Under "search" there should be an option to search in the list of followers/following section, so you can see quick bio. You can then click on to see tweets. During this search, I'm focused on "stats" not "tweets."

2) Would be great to click on column headings to sort "name" "following" "followers" or "K". This would be so helpful. What sort are there in?

3) It would be great to see last tweet under each name (maybe an option). If they mention "Trump" or "Teeth Whitening," they get unfollowed by me.

Thanks again for great product!

Cheers,

Clyde

Dave Olson
Dave Olson

Thanks for the great feedback and ideas. May i ask you to submit to the Feedback channel? Doing so allows others to vote for your suggestions and helps us plan our release roadmap. http://feedback.hootsuite.com ~ thanks again

Saskia
Saskia

Sound notification when I get new tweets is not working since you added the new "people" feature. Thanks for checking it.

Nathan
Nathan

carrie_at_umass :

GREAT new features. I’ll say ‘hoot!’ instead of ‘woot!’ from now on. HootSuite is the best Twitter client available. Rock on.

h00t!!! I <3 it. :)

CyberPlayGround
CyberPlayGround

I'd like a droid app too. User Experience needs improvement. New features are not explained clearly. Use Less words, try using 144 characters to get your point across.

Dave Olson
Dave Olson

Also follow @hootdroid for forthcoming news about Android

Dave Olson
Dave Olson

Thanks for your feedback - which features in particular did you find confusing? The blog post is more about explaining benefits and the Help Desk gives more details about using the tools and features - take a look and see if you find what you seek at http://help.hootsuite.com

ACF
ACF

Any chance you'll be providing a Droid app?

anneliesz
anneliesz

These are some really wonderful ways to stay on top of tweeting. I am particularly interested in the followers with "klout" and drafts additions. Keep up the good work!

the Ramen Noodle
the Ramen Noodle

Sadly, it looks like you still present Ow.ly as the only integrated URL-shortener, which the core fans have protested. And notifications are still all-or-nothing.

Al Bsharah
Al Bsharah

Great updates, as usual.

Still waiting for Hootsuite to remember where I last read (Web AND iPhone). Very basic feature that every other app out there employs. I don't use Hootsuite to read, which kills me, because of this one missing feature.

Asking for sync capabilities between Web and iPhone as well...

Thanks again!

AL

Molly
Molly

Nice work! What are the URL parameters??

Mark Frisk
Mark Frisk

Some of these upgrades sound good, but is it true you're making it mandatory that your users convert their groups to lists?

May I ask why you're doing this?

I like groups, and I like lists. I think they should remain separate. If I added up my groups and my lists (many of which are private), I'd have way more than 20.

Also, in the "Convert Groups to Lists" pop-up that appears on login, you write that Lists can hold up to "200 users." Twitter's limit is 500 users in a list.

Are HootSuite lists limited to 200, or is that just a typo?

Hermas
Hermas

Your virtual makeover will make a very handy tool even handier. Looking forward to the Webinar.

Kevin Joyner
Kevin Joyner

Nice. Now our social media guys won't have an excuse for forgetting to tag their URLs :-)

Pierre Rattini
Pierre Rattini

I am a big fan and excited about these awesome new additions and improvements. More feedback after I play with them and see how they work.

Paula
Paula

Your new "Barn Owl" sounds great!

Now my question I have Hootsuite account already install...I suppose that will enter as an update to my account or I have to close it and start again from Scratch!?????

I would appreciate a little more of info in that sense... Thanks :-)

Brandon Setter
Brandon Setter

WOW! SO that's what you guys were working on last night! Nice work! So useful!

Now you need to give some love to your iPhone app... it's missing out on all the fun not having facebook linkedin or wordpress, column sync, push notifications, this new people feature.... please send some love to your iPhone app.. =)

Marc
Marc

Still no support for native retweets?

Lindsey O.
Lindsey O.

Awesome!

Will there be an update for the iphone app as well? - facebook integration etc?

Looking forward to the updates!

carrie_at_umass
carrie_at_umass

GREAT new features. I'll say 'hoot!' instead of 'woot!' from now on. HootSuite is the best Twitter client available. Rock on.

Ian Huckabee
Ian Huckabee

Thanks, HootSuite! You've taken my Twitter management to a new level. I've tried several other top micro-blog management systems but this is by far the best. And now all this! I feel my company mascot should be an owl.

Rodney Warren
Rodney Warren

Wow Hootsuite has really pulled it together and brought things to a ho' notha level, thanks team. Rodney Warren Elite Force Marketing.

Ernmander
Ernmander

These look like some awesome updates. A fabulous dashboard.

Larz
Larz

Unless his update fixed it's lack of identifying new tweets, or it still starts at the newest unread instead of oldest unread... I will continue to look at this a half a client with amazing features otherwise.

Oscar
Oscar

Awesome, I'm glad you guys keep making improvements. It would be nice if you had included some screenshots or a quick description on how to get to this new stuff. The friends and followers chart wasn't the easiest thing to find. But now that I found it, it looks great.

Terri Brooks
Terri Brooks

This is awesome! I LOVE HootSuite and recommend it daily to my clients. What a time-saver and now with even more features it is definitely my favorite platform for managing my social media sites and those of my clients.

Thanks for a great program!

Terri

PS. Just re-blogged your post at http://tastingtheinternet.com/social-media-blog :-)

Gelgen
Gelgen

Before I gush and suggest more stuff : some images on this page are missing.

As for the upgrade, very interesting. The drafting idea is cool, but I don't get the part "Also handy for customer support desks and storing frequently used messages." Once the draft is published, I can't find a trace of them in HootSuite : is there a repository? Hsould we put these mesasges in our Favorites?

Jason
Jason

Still no way to change color theme?? I would use HootSuite, but on a large high-contrast display it's too much bright white space for me. Surely I'm not the only person bothered by this, and it probably seems like a small thing, but to me it's enough to keep me from using it.

Nathan
Nathan

These are some awesome updates! Great job Hootsuite team!!!!

I love the new "people" tab, now I can manage who I am following and who if following me. Looking forward to learning the other new features added.

Trackbacks

  1. HootSuite Announces New Features, Including Klout Integration. Is This (Almost) The Perfect Twitter Client? says:
    February 16, 2010 at 5:40 am

    [...] for as long as I can remember.Earlier today HootSuite was down momentarily while they added some new features to the platform. This included a welcome People tab, which allows you to quickly manage your new [...]

  2. Hootsuite update: stats, drafts, exports en meer says:
    February 16, 2010 at 6:42 am

    [...] de nieuwe “Barn Owl” release van Hootsuite’s Social Media Dashboard laat HS de concurrentie ’status [...]

  3. I’m checking out the firefox add on. Th « clintonsmith says:
    February 16, 2010 at 7:40 am

    [...] 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment I’m checking out the firefox add on. This is sweet. http://blog.hootsuite.com/hootsuite-barn-owl-release/ [...]

  4. HootSuite incluye gestión de followings/followers y otras mejoras says:
    February 16, 2010 at 8:00 am

    [...] Tenéis más info de las últimas mejoras de HootSuite en el blog de HootSuite. [...]

  5. Web Marketing Therapy » Blog Archive » Tools to Make Your Social Media Marketing Smarter Via HootSuite says:
    February 19, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    [...] “Thank You!” to our amigos at HootSuite for keeping us updated on their cool new tools to make our Social Media Marketing smarter. [...]

  6. HootSuite Keeping Busy During Olympics Games | VX says:
    February 23, 2010 at 1:07 pm

    [...] keeping busy, doing the rounds at the Olympics, and somehow managing to drop new releases (last week) and celebrate 1.9 million USD in [...]

  7. Athens Social Media - HootSuite Updates! says:
    February 23, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    [...] released some updates last week, and Athens Social Media wanted to keep you updated, too! Check out the new [...]