How to Use Facebook and LinkedIn with HootSuite
With the newest update, you can now use HootSuite to update your Facebook and/or LinkedIn status. HootSuite is the only Twitter client that will let you schedule your status updates in advance. In this walk-through, we will show you how to add Facebook and LinkedIn functionality to HootSuite.
To add your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, click on Settings near the bottom of your screen. If you’re familiar with Settings, you’ll notice a brand new tab: Social Networks. Once you click that tab, the next step towards adding Facebook or LinkedIn is clicking a button with a green “+” button that says Add Social Network.
Once you click Add Social Network, the above window pops up. The default social network HootSuite selects is Twitter, but on the right side of the window, you will see a menu that also lists Facebook, LinkedIn, and PingFM. (PingFM has been supported by HootSuite for some time already; PingFM lets you update numerous social networks at once.)
An option to Automatically create a new tab for this profile is checked by default. With this box checked, each network will automatically inherit its own tab with a column devoted to your Home Feed. De-select this checkbox if you do not want to automatically create a tab.
Just as the above example shows, if you select Facebook or LinkedIn, you will first have to give authorization for either site to connect with HootSuite.
Once you sync your social profiles with HootSuite, each editor’s profiles will be grouped by social network. You will also notice a number in brackets right beside where it says Facebook Profiles, LinkedIn Profiles, etc. This number signifies how many profiles are associated with each social network.
Beside the message box, underneath where it says Select Social Network(s), you will notice a change to your avatars: the lower left hand corner has an icon of the social network it is associated with. This is so there will be no confusion on whether you’re updating your status from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, PingFM or all of them at once.
Once you’re finished adding your social networks and profiles, you can add more columns devoted to Facebook and LinkedIn to your tabs. To do this, click the button that says Streams, then select the button that says Add Column. A Window will pop up with the default menu being Profile Feed. Select the social network you want. For now, the two columns you can choose for Facebook and LinkedIn are Home Feed and Pending Status Updates. Be sure to select which account you want to pull the feed from. When you have done this, there will be a green checkmark on the avatar.
As we alluded to before, you can schedule your status updates on Facebook and LinkedIn. It works just the same as scheduling tweets for Twitter.
With HootSuite, you can remix columns. You can set your LinkedIn Pending Status Updates right beside your Facebook Home Stream. If you want to know which column is associated with which social network, you will notice an appropriate network icon on the top left hand corner of the column. This ensures a social networking experience custom made for you.
One cool feature of how Facebook integrates with HootSuite is the ability to make inline comments. If you click comments, a text box appears under the status. Here you can see we’re big fans of Susan Boyle, so we’re very enthusiastic about the Vancouver Sun’s story about Ms. Boyle setting a pre-order record on Amazon. Once we click Submit Comment, our comment is sent to the Facebook-o-sphere. You can also “like” (thumbs up) a Facebook status through HootSuite. How cool is that?
Is there a way to hook hootsuite up to your company/fan page on Facebook?
When will you have support for Facebook pages? Since Hootsuite is billed as a business-friendly client through the use of multiple user access to the same Twitter accounts, you have to have Facebook page access to complete the offering on the Facebook side.
Also, can you or will you provide visibility on Linkedin Group activity?
Thanks for the great additions!
Excellent additions to an already great service.
how to I manage our companies site (=fan site)?
I don’t yet understand. All this cross over confuses me, I need a quicker article to read.
I already update Linked In and Facebook with Hootsuite by adding hashtags (#in and #fb) to my tweets.
Does all this HootSuite business mean that *every* tweet gets posted to Facebook? I can’t afford that happening, so I daren’t experiment with these new HootSuite features
Are we limited to 140 character updates for Facebook?
When I update my FB status from HootSuite, the counter box goes red once I’m over 140
Are you able to bring in a Facebook Fan page into Hootsuite
While I appreciate that you’re making changes in order to improve service, there are a few things that could be done to make it even better. Mainly, allow users to set a default – having to continually select a social network profile to post from, or choose an account to view stats from, is really annoying. Especially as I only have one SN account connected to HootSuite, as well as only a single profile/author attached to my HS account.
Great Changes! Hootsuite has really helped our site, since we post time sensitive restaurant and fast food coupons.
We also have a Facebook Fan Page. Any plans to inetgrate posting to Fan Pages?
With so many companies having a Twitter and Facebook Fan Page presence, this would be a game changer for HootSuite.
Again, very happy and would be ecstatic if you added the Fan Page update feature.
This is wonderful upgrade. REALLY need to be able to post to Facebook Fan Page! Is there a work around? Perhaps link post from my individual Facebook page to my magazine’s Facebook Fan page?
– Patti
I’ll echo the calls for Fan Page integration. I’m not likely to use Hootsuite for my personal profiles, but would be great at work with some tweaking.
Any idea as to when we might see Page integration roll out?
I LOVE Hootsuite! And especially the new ability to integrate Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, lists and more. Thanks so much for such an amazing app! I do hope that you’ll add the ability to integrate Fan pages soon. Thanks again …
Sandi
Great additions, yes, but do let us know about updating brand/fan pages, and if it’s possible to attach things (links, photos etc.) to updates (as you can in Facebook), as well as go beyond the 140 character limit.
Would love to be able to manage Fan Pages/Groups I am Admin for on Facebook. Loving the software otherwise. Thanks!
I agree with the rest. It is good features. If you can add that you can update Fanpages, Hootsuite would be my preffered tool to adminster my social networks. I have this feature in Tweetdeck, so there I use this to update fanpages.
Facebook fanpages please
This is all great, but I can’t use it unless I can update the individual company profiles on Facebook, not my personal profile.
Linking with Facebook fan sites AND group sites would be helpful. I want to post to our Facebook group (aka write on its wall).
I would like to be able to post to fan pages as well. Will this functionality be offered soon? Love Hootsuite, makes life easier with all of the new functions, with the facebook fan page option added you will have everything!
Fan Pages will be coming this week!
Thanks Hootsuite Help! Clearly we are all desperate to be able to schedule updates to multiple FB pages and will be making the most of this feature. Can’t wait to see it in action as the other features are so smooth an user friendly!
@Hootsuite Help
yippee!
I will restate the obvious: When can we sync hootsuit to fan pages?! That is the only function I am really looking for on a site like this one – there are other site that can provide similar service with scheduled updates, statistics, and multiple accounts.
Thanks!
Guess what? Fan pages are coming sooner than you think!
@Hootsuite Help
ah so! subscribing to this comment feed then
I love this feature…retweet
how to I manage our companies linkedIn site in Hootsuite. I can only use my personal profile. I would like to use the Hootsuite for business purpase only.
Can’t wait – Fan pages will be an early Xmas gift!
It’s here! I just added my Facebook Fan page to my HootSuite dashboard! It works seamlessly.
Hootsuite Help: Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have made my marketing efforts so much easier and more effective.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Click on “settings” at the bottom of what page to add Facebook to hootsuite?
@Ron Adams
See bottom left corner of the top image. If you have further difficulties, excellent customer support awaits you at http://feedback.hootsuite.com
Thank you very much. This was a great help.
I’m trying to connect my FB page to my Hootsuite account but it’s saying I’m not the admin….I am….I’m the only admin…help? I tried to access the feedback URL you noted above but get 404 error….
Hi Lori,
Try http://feedback.hootsuite.com or http://getsatisfaction.com/hootsuite, or click the feedback button on http://www.hootsuite.com
Thanks!
Support team
Loving the service; however a couple questions. When hooting a link to my Facebook fan page how do I get a thumbnail image to appear next to the link?
Second is about automating daily updates from a link..?
I want to have daily links from a web page updated to my Fan Page with out having to input a link for everyday in Pending.
Please and thank you.
A.
Anthony, there are owls excited to answer your questions. They nest at http://feedback.hootsuite.com
posting to Facebook AND Twitter – too large a message and twitter will not be published. Anyway to handle this aspect? Automatically dividing long updates so that Twitter can handle it?
Excellent additions to an already great service.
Excellent additions in to an great service.Thank you very much.
Love being able to add FB pages, now when can we get the same for LinkedIn Groups?
I would love for you to add the Facebook Fan Page functionality!
You can post to Facebook Pages > We’ve produced two blog posts on how to integrate Facebook with HootSuite. The first post is an exhaustive general Facebook tutorial: http://ow.ly/12JoU. The second is about general steps on adding Page integration to HootSuite: http://ow.ly/12Jpn.
For more assistance, just add an entry at the community support channel at http://support.hootsuite.com