As HootSuite grows in popularity in North America, Latin America and Japan, we can’t forget about all the Owls around Europe. We’re listening closely to all the Tweets from across the Atlantic and even sent Owly on a trip – from Croatia to Paris – to check in on all the social media activities on the continent.
This News Roundup contains a collection of interesting articles from Europe that caught our eye starting with reactions to the 2 million milestone announcement in 6 different languages. Read more…
Whenever there’s a HootSuite release, new industry tip or an excited HootFan, we aim to be the among first to hear about it. Why? Because some of the handiest solutions and tips come from you – our Owls.
After reaching 2 million users, we took a step back to see what the web world was saying about HootSuite. What have we done right? What can do better? From mainstream news to the everyday blogger, we enjoy reading how you’re using HootSuite in your daily life.
In this News Roundup, we’re featuring articles which have burrowed into the HootSuite subconsciousness to see how the Owl works in real-world scenarios from starts-ups to meet-ups. Here’s what you had to say:
At HootSuite HQ, we continually work to keep the dashboard on the leading edge of social media tools. Indeed, constant innovation and refinement keeps the 1.85+ million fans of the dash happily Hooting to their friends and fans via all the social networks supported in the tool.
Last week’s Publisher release is the latest evolution of the dash with new scheduling and permissions features designed to aid the workflow for campaigns.
Today’s News Roundup is dedicated to the user feedback on this important development… including the return of the improved Pending Updates stream.
Many of you friendly owls out there look for ways to help spread the word about HootSuite to your friends. We’re always keen to read your tweets and comments, and to help you along, here’s a list of award and review sites where you can share your affection:
Oneforty
This directory of Twitter related apps exhibits all kinds of tools designed to help you enhance your Twitter experience. What’s more is that oneforty.com encourages people to write reviews, share apps tips and start conversations.
Desktop, mobile, Twitter clients, it’s all in there, organized in the toolkit — including the full suite of HootSuite apps. Take a look and add your review of your favorite Owl. There are already over 200 reviews for HootSuite web alone with more for our mobile apps and we look forward to seeing yours in the mix.
iTunes App Store
Apple iTunes store is the source for downloads of the HootSuite iPhone, iPad and iTouch apps (which, we might add, are all free). It’s also a great place to add your reviews of these HootSuite mobile apps.
Submit what you enjoy (and how we can improve), so others know what you think about the mobile apps that we’ve lovingly made to share with all iPhone, iPad and iTouch fans.
Alexa
Alexa.com, the web information company, keeps track of web traffic rankings and demographics of most all websites — including HootSuite.
Stop by HootSuite’s listing on Alexa to add your thoughts and find out interesting info about other HootSuite.com visitors.
Chrome Web Store
The newest place on the block is the Chrome Web Store which just launched on Tuesday December 7th — and HootSuite was one of the inaugural apps.
The dashboard runs great with the Chrome web browser so we’re thrilled to have an app available for you to install. Once you’ve installed it, take a moment to rate and review it so others know what you think.
You can also nominate HootSuite for the Crunchies’ “Best Social App” award in TechCrunch’s 4th annual Crunchies awards which recognize the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.
UPDATE: This just in… HootSuite has also been nominated for B2BTOTY Award! The Business to Business Twitterer of the Year Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the promotion and enhancement of business using Twitter. We’re thrilled to be nominated and now we need your help.
Help HootSuite win by clicking this link and casting your vote. We appreciate your support!
Hoot Channel
One of our favorite things from our fans are the great ideas and suggestions that you provide on how to make HootSuite even better. In fact, we get so many ideas and requests that we’ve dedicated a channel specifically for them — feedback.hootsuite.com.
While HootSuite is a total solution for managing your social network presence, Android users have been missing out on a major element: Facebook support. When the HootSuite team announced that their app would now be free for all to download on mobile platforms, it was promised that support for the world’s most popular social site would be coming to Android soon. That time is now, as the latest update to the app brings in the much-anticipated functionality. As they put it, “robots love Facebook too.”
Following-up on the public launch of their BlackBerry app, HootSuite has added Facebook functionality to their Android client, which was previously only used for accessing Twitter. The update includes all of the corporate-grade social networking you could need, like accessing multiple accounts, scheduling posts, leave comments, and import most of your settings from the web browser client.
I’ve said this before, but for power users there really are only 2 players in the Android Twitter world and those are TweetDeck and Hootsuite. And one added bonus to Hootsuite over Tweetdeck is the seamless transitioning between the browser version on your computer and the Android app. When you login, it imports all of your accounts and settings, giving this a huge +1 in my book.
Owls are everywhere — or they seem to be at least — with conversations and coverage about HootSuite coming in from all corners of the globe.
To explore the opinions and anecdotes, we head east for a trip … starting in France and Spain, before flying over Eastern Europe to Russia, then moving towards China for a stopover before a return to Japan for more news from the enthused fans in Nippon.
Back in the nest in Vancouver after the whirlwind world trip, we sorted out the souvenirs and packaged up a fresh news round-up of very owl-ized articles for your international (albeit auto-translated) enjoyment.
So, put your seats and trays in an upright position and fasten your seatbelts for take-off across the Atlantic and the Pacific:
HootSuite adds CRM tools and features to its iPhone application Foursquare – If you are using as a client HootSuite Twitter, the service also offers the ability to filter information according to the level of influence of those you follow. Thus, you can determine a score Klout minimum for a tweet appears on your space.
These coins may not be valid in your country but can be spent on owl-feed
The party continues is over: HootSuite payment - One day had to happen. HootSuite, one of the best tools to manage social networks, was becoming too good to be true. Or at least, to be true and free.
{snipped}
Not the end of the world. The average user can use HootSuite as normal, a little lost. Yes, HootSuite in free version is the level (so that by eye) of Tweetdeck or Seesmic. Professionally can continue to serve for accounts with low volume and did not need a team behind.
How many sotsiaalvõrgustikus-out from one place to follow? - Today, the majority of active Internet users in Estonia joined some social networking, in order to obtain information and communicate with friends there. The more accounts, but it no longer be visiting the various portals. Help in the Web services and applications that bring together social media accounts in one place together. Tutuvstan briefly own favorite – Hootsuite.
Hootsuite 10 benefits for the management of social media – Hootsuite is a website that will change your perspective on social media. Hootsuite is a web application that allows you to work with social media effectively. Hootsuite addictive application that will make you write an article for it without getting paid. I’ve never wrote a review of the software or online application. Hootsuite is but a tool, which you should at least consider, if you want to manage more than one account on the social networks.
This article mentions the new features in HootSuite and also includes 2 videos in Russian with a detailed overview:
New Features in HootSuite for communication in Twitter – HootSuite is an excellent service to work effectively in Twitter. Yesterday they presented new opportunities for all users.
HootSuite Twitter users according to impact category – Beijing July 15, according to the foreign media reports, the social media management platform Hootsuite announced yesterday a launch of several new features to help SMEs better understand what Twitter users’ concerns are. HootSuite (hootsuite.com) is clearly trying to make more satisfied business owners.
This article is in English, but it covers the Japanese version of our service and has some insights from the HootSuite CEO, Ryan Holmes:
This week I attended a Digital Garage sponsored Open Network Lab event where I had a chance to chat with HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes who was in Japan to spread the word about his powerful Twitter client. <…> Ryan revealed big plans for HootSuite in Japan. I was surprised to learn that he was able to meet with Softbank’s godfather Masayoshi Son.
A little outdated but still interesting article about our iPhone app was spotted in Kotohanooto blog:
Japanese localization HootSuite 1.1.2 for iPhone – A tool for managing multi-user dashboard and timelines and multiple simultaneous publishing, and sophisticated statistics tracking, HootSuite (the iPhone app: “HootSuite” (350 yen) and “HootSuite Lite” (free)) has been updated to 1.1.2 version.
Twitter web client “HootSuite” rocking some features are too high! – This is a detailed review of the latest HootSuite’s features. It has lots of useful information with many screenshots.
Made in Canada from Japan 40% of Twitter Client Access “HootSuite” to release the Japanese version – Popular Twitter client “HootSuite” (the Japanese version) will be released around July. Despite that the service is in English, 38 percent of all traffic comes from Japan. A Japanese support site was also published.
Open Network Lab goal is to encourage innovation and Internet based Start-Ups, which may explain the 40 minutes long panel on “How Engineers can start Companies”. HootSuite recently launched a Japanese version of their service,with the aid of Digital Garage which is heavily invested in the Twitter phenomena and related tools/services.
More HootSuite
Pre-board your own flight by following HootSuite’s social bookmarks and/or follow @hootwatch to get fast access to all the missives from around the world.
Keeping the media reports rolling out with another round-up of recent article about HootSuite. This time, the focus is on business users with a batch of tips, rankings, reviews and soliloquies about saving time, keeping an eye on assets and giving a hoot.
Settle in for a read to learn how to save time while increasing results in your social promotion campaigns.
Ryan Holmes - (cropped) photo by Lyle Stafford for National Post
Matt Hartley writes: In essence, Hootsuite users can track who’s talking about their company who’s passing around links related to promotions and news and what services they’re using to do so.
“That’s kind of the Holy Grail of what Hootsuite does,” Mr. Holmes said.
“Social media marketing didn’t really exist as a job title prior to the last couple of years, but we’re really building this as a tool for them and also traditional marketers that are looking for tools,” he said.
Jolie O’Dell writes: We’ve noticed that HootSuite has been cranking out major upgrades consistently over the past several months. In terms of team collaboration and CRM social media tools, this company seems to be en fuego. Last week, HootSuite added Facebook support and geolocation features to its iPhone app.
By Zachary Sniderman via Mashable: Managing a million different social media sites is a headache for even the most seasoned social media-ites. But what happens when your business is expected to maintain a Twitter account, a Facebook Page, or a WordPress blog?
Updating all those sites takes time and energy, but social media hubs like Hootsuite can help any small business efficiently manage their social media presence. Hootsuite is a free website that allows users to update, post, monitor, and track a range of popular social media services.
Like other social media hubs, Hootsuite’s hub can be customized to suit your needs. Whether you’re tracking one or multiple accounts across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more, Hootsuite might be an efficient, secure way to stay on top of all of them. Below are five quick ways to maximize Hootsuite … Read on …
Suite101.com, a global content site that provides trusted and reliable information to consumers today released its second annual readership index of Canadian-owned Web sites, entitled “Where The Online Readers Are.” The second annual index reveals that the top sites remain largely content sites, and social media activity by the top-trafficked sites has increased substantially.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Ow.ly http://ow.ly/ 468 new URL shortener
------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 HootSuite www.hootsuite.com 877 new Marketing
Camille Ricketts writes: Mobile location application Foursquare is diversifying itself into a platform of its own today by launching an aggregation of third-party applications built on top of its core service. It’s calling it the App Gallery.
{snip}
Currently, the featured apps include HootSuite (a service to share your favorite locations with your friends), Kickball (a new interface design), FourFace (a creative interface changer) and Mob Zombies (a game that plays on the zombie apocalypse meme).
David Garland writes: There are streams everywhere. Facebook. Twitter. Plus more. Information coming at you at a crazy pace. Now add in the fact, that many of us entrepreneurs are creating our own valuable content and promoting it. And keeping tabs on when our business pops up in a conversation. And paying attention to our niches. The list goes on and on.
Whew, I’m exhausted just thinking about it. So, what is the solution? What is an easy way to make it all manageable from anywhere (your computer, phone, etc.)? Ryan Holmes, founder of Invoke, came up with the solution for us entrepreneurs: Hootsuite.
As CEO of Hootsuite, Ryan has developed a unique platform that makes this quickly changing web easy to understand and manage. I had a chance to sit down (errr Skype down?) with Ryan and discuss Hootsuite for all of us.
What we hope to accomplish by using HootSuite is a more centralized place for managing our communications. We set up an account, using our company name and proceeded to add each of the company twitter accounts and our own personal accounts. Now, either of us can use the streamlined interface to “tweet” from our personal account or “tweet” from either of the company accounts.
{snip}
… more importantly, HootSuite can now track how many times a link was clicked. This lets us know which messages generated the most traffic for our websites. The more traffic, the more likely we are to establish ourselves as experts in what we’re doing and hopefully generate more leads for business.
Mark Thompson writes: In my personal opinion, I have found Hootsuite to be by far the best Twitter client out there. I’m sure a lot of people can make an argument for clients like Tweetdeck and Seesmic, but I find Hootsuite to be the most user-friendly, feature-rich, and up-to-date Twitter client available.
The interface is clean, customizable, and includes a wealth of information about your twitter account. Let’s take a detailed look into how Hootsuite can be used to manage your daily engagements for both personal and business use.
If you’re wanting to save a step, I’d try HootSuite, a free site that will allow you to post to Facebook pages and Twitter accounts at once. It also has a built-in link shortener.
If you have people with social media duties, you can give them different privileges on HootSuite without sharing your log-in information to the site. Also, you can edit access to specific social media accounts you have on Hootsuite. For example, if you have your personal Twitter account added on to HootSuite, you can select just the work account for access privileges.
Hootsuite for those that don’t know it or use it is about to get downright nasty in this game. Not nasty in a bad way but the app has grown and it’s going to sick. Forget the discussion internally about ROI and team management, this group has got it for you.
Key 4: Learn to monitor social media efficiently. Programs like TweetDeck, HootSuite and Seesmic make sharing content and links across Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook simpler. To monitor networks for inbound linking opportunities and reputation management, search columns for keywords or hashtags are extremely helpful. Additional monitoring can be done through Twitter Search and TweetBeep, while an overall online presence can be surveyed with tools like Trackur, Google Alerts or SocialMention.
Sure, we think HootSuite rocks but of course, we’re a bit biased ;-). Fortunately others agree and created videos and tutorials to demonstrate their affection.
Here’s a selection of recent videos to check out … and there are plenty more now which we compiled into a fan videos playlist on Youtube which includes some which are a bit old (we change so fast!) but still enjoyable.
In this round-up post, we included the intro bits from the creators to set-up the clips, plus we’ve included a handful of other articles to inspire and educate. If you like ‘em, be sure to add a comment to let the vid-makers know you appreciate their diligent efforts.
As always, check HootSuite’s social bookmarks for the full firehose of news and/or drop a comment below if there is something remarkable we missed.
A very quick video I put together in an hour based off a screenr I took on 5 things I like about Hootsuite; Many more new @Hootsuite benefits to cover, including facebook pages, RSS and more
Music: Triple Chrome Dipped by Michna, Magic Monday 2008 Ghostly International
Hi everyone, and welcome to Tubetorial. I’m Lorraine Nepomuceno. This is the first in a series of video tutorials on becoming a Twitter power-user. Today, I want to show you how to start using HootSuite, a free service that will add a whole lot to the capabilities of your Twitter account. If, like me, you love Twitter, you’ll love HootSuite.
I have talked about some of the great features of HootSuite in one of my previous posts comparing TweetDeck to Hootsuite and if you are interested in knowing why you should be using the Twitter management client, you can read that post for more information on the features and benefits.
For those of you who are interested in checking out HootSuite I did a video presentation demonstrating how to use Hootsuite to manage multiple Twitter accounts, build custom tabs and columns, schedule tweets and more:
A great collection of what HootSuite has added recently including the Learning program, URL shortening, team collaboration tools, iPhone updates and more:
Hootsuite has been on a roll in the past few weeks making their site more friendly to marketers and heavy tweeters with tons of new features like: team collaboration tools, Hootsuite University, an additional URL shortener and a bunch of updates to their iPhone app like: translation, Facebook integration and geo-location data.
Seeking comparisons? Growmap’s post has a stunning list of head-to-head showdowns between HootSuite and many other social tools to help you choose the best for your purposes:
Based on what I’ve seen so far, HootSuite is the clear winner (based on current popularity among power users), a slightly less complicated but serious alternative is CoTweet, and I am still very interested in trying out Pluggio (formerly Tweetminer) which has some interesting features the others lack.
Configuring, setting up and learning tools takes valuable time so my best advice is to decide which tool you’re going to use and forget about the others.
Focus on learning to use it effectively and only change if there is a compelling reason. You will accomplish more that way and save yourself a lot of stress. Once you have mastered your first selection you can always learn another and use two as some of the comparisons below suggest.
Rahsheen wrote an in-depth review — including a detailed look at working with teams and assignments — geared towards brand managers:
With a few new feature additions, Hootsuite has filled in the gaps and taken your social media management to the next level. Most important is the Message Assignment feature. Use this to assign specific updates and messages to specific team members, including an optional note to give them a heads-up. This allows you to divide work among your team in an efficient and simple manner. For instance, customer complaints, technical support, blog posts, and kudos could all be handled by specific individuals. As the manager, you can see what your team is doing and ensure quality. Team members can also forward messages to each other in the case that another team member could better handle the situation.
To increase efficiency, reduce redundancy, and keep everyone on the same page, Hootsuite has shared columns and drafts. This means the whole team sees the same set of columns and messages. The shared drafts allow you to store pre-written responses to make sure there is a level of consistency in your communications. You can quickly see what messages have been taken care of, what is outstanding, and which have been transferred using the Assignment Tracking feature. Finally, use the Forward Updates by Email function to share messages outside of Hootsuite. This makes it easy to show off your hard work to upper management or handle special issues.
This emerging entrepreneur compiled a list of his favorite web tools to share with students:
My prime online web-base Twitter manager. The ability to control various profiles, set up columns, team management, and best of all the speed at which it runs is absolutely amazing. I have used other tools, AIR based like TweetDeck, and Seesmic (online also), but HootSuite by far has won my approval as my Twitter manager.
Pat Bartels wrote a lengthy review of many tools in HootSuite including statistics, people browser, stream and Hootlet:
If you’re going to use Twitter and other social networking sites, this a must have tool. I never thought I would have a use for this, but as time progresses, I’m finding it invaluable. If you use several social networking sites, this will keep you connected and organized all at once. There is a lot more to HootSuite then I have indicated here. I’ve just highlighted some of the features that I use most. You can check out the other features at HootSuite.com.
As usual, we watched the news and commentary around the recent barrage of HootSuite iPhone releases and indeed there was plenty of conversation about social media tools for iPhones recently. No doubt people are passionate their phones and protective of their fave apps.
As outlined in many of the posts about new version, HootSuite iPhone is charting a unique course with tools like translation, localization, and click stats — plus multiple networks (Twitter and Facebook at this time) — to differentiate this mobile Owl from the rest of the flock.
Here’s a round-up of some of the posts which caught our eye. Certainly there are plenty more out there so consider following HootSuite’s social bookmarks to get the full firehose of news, and/or leave your recommended links in the comments for others to enjoy.
Jennifer Van Grove writes: Now that Tweetie 2 is set to become the free and official Twitter app for iPhone, iPhone app makers have been forced to step up their game. HootSuite — maker of business-friendly Twitter apps — is doing just that, adding language translation, Facebook integration and geolocation support to its iPhone apps.
{snip}
Perhaps most significant is the addition of instant translation for more than 50 languages, which should significantly help marketers understand foreign language tweets, replies and direct messages.
When it comes to Facebook, users will able to send and receive updates from that network as well. HootSuite integration supports updates to Pages and profiles as well as the ability to view updates from friends and likers.
Eli Milchman writes: When HootSuite’s iPhone applanded late last year, it had already set itself apart with a unique stat-tracking feature.
Now, it’s leapt even further away from the pack with a slew of new tricks, including the ability to translatetweets from 50 different languages and a supercool feature that lets users bump the iPhone of users they’d like to follow. The developers have also upgraded HootSuite’s Facebook integration, given it geolocation functionality and generally tweaked the hell out of it.
Another cool feature about the app was the ability to follow someone by merely “bumping” your iPhone next to theirs, (which is much more convenient than searching for their username), although this does require your iFriend to be running the HootSuite app as well.
Last but not least I am finding the translation tool very useful, especially when one is reading the latest rants of a certain Venezuelan President.
The app is impressive feature wise, although it seems to be geared more towards power users than those unfamiliar with Twitter (as the user interface is not as intuitive as Tweetie or Twittelator).
Overall I am enjoying HootSuite a lot more than when they first launched upon the app store, and hopefully they continue adding more social networks to the app (as not everyone enjoys updating their life on Twitter or Facebook).
Sardar Mohkim Khan writes: If one wins the game the others find it harder and the best option they have is to give multiple things to gain some traction. Lets get real and talk sense. We all know that Tweetie 2 is gaining grounds to be fairly called the default choice for the iPhone’s Twitter client and competition is finding it hard to grab shares. There are always ways and HootSuite has one.
{snip}
What HootSuite is doing is something anyone else would do to raise share amongst competition. You know it when the ground is already taken by one, the only better way to compete is to offer multiple features that users find more convenient to use. Lets see how this one plays along for HootSuite.
A mergence of instant language translation, social networking site, and geo-location may put squeeze on one to utter ‘yes’. HootSuite has just added more tools to the iPhone version of the highly appreciated social media dashboard including language translation, geo-location, and Facebook integration. The new update also comes with several key interface enhancements.
With Facebook support, social bugs can update their status, track their friends’ news updates, and schedule their messages for future publishing. Equipped with translate-ability, HootSuite snoozes in as a great choice for monitoring relevant topics and brand mentions from global friends and customers. Users can compose in their native language and translate on the go.
HootSuite has released an update to its popular iPhone Twitter client, adding support for posting updates to Facebook and including geolocation information to Twitter posts.
Simon Sage writes: HootSuite’s Twitter client for iPhone has been updated with a few powerful new features, like automated language translation, bumping iPhones to follow one another, and geotagging tweets. HootSuite also plays nice with Facebook now, just like their web app, enabling users to send updates to page fans and profile friends.
Geotagging support is excellent, but a bit of a no-brainer. I’m curious to see the real use cases for translations; HootSuite pegs itself as a twitter client for pros, so maybe companies dealing with a lot of international customers would find the feature handy. There have been a few usability improvements as well, including landscape keyboard, reply to all, Bump to follow people on Twitter, and general interface enhancements.
Plenty going on here at HootSuite HQ but before we lose track, we’re continuing on with the News Round-up catch-up fest with a variety of remarks, reviews, accolades and anecdotes from magazine, websites, vidcast and lists. Enjoy and stay tuned for more announcements coming shortly.
We mention this because The Martha Show use HootSuite to share musing with their audience and we think that is as tasty as homemade pie.
Here’s a snippet from Min’s article:
Not only is Martha Stewart far and away the magazine industry’s highest profile tweeter, her embrace of the microblogging platform early in its lifecycle helped Twitter itself break out of its niche. If Martha can bake, sew, garden, host a TV show, run a media empire and post multiple tweets a day, then so can the rest of us.
Made for Teams
Sport Marketing 2.0‘s sports-centric vidcast, “The Row Show” talked about HootSuite while lounging on couches with laptops/iPads and coffee. After a smattering of interesting tech industry news, they give a comprehensive overview of features of the HootSuite’s web and mobile versions including real-world scenarios about how to utilize the tools with your team – for sports, biz or what have you. They even give a shout-out for the webinars. Thanks guys!
HootSuite is a great tool not only for managing multiple Twitter accounts (or allowing multiple users access to an account), but also for managing multiple social networks. In November, HootSuite introduced support for LinkedIn and Facebook. HootSuite also now supports WordPress blogs, which works great if you want to have a way to schedule posts and messages to multiple networks. HootSuite also supports alerts and stats tracking. HootSuite is free.
Hootsuite is a robust Twitter client for professional users. It allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts, schedule tweets in advance and track statistics to measure the success of your tweets.
One of the unique features of this app is that you can create custom streams for specific tags and searches, which will display tweets matching those keywords – making keeping track of important topics a breeze.
Although I haven’t had much time to test this new feature, I will be testing this overt he next few days to see if Ow.ly works better and I get more clicks using it now that they removed the social bar from it.
That’ll do for this News Round-up but more in the queue to share in between announcements of the new feature releases and tips and tricks for making the most of HootSuite. Need more HootSuite news? Consider following social bookmarks via Delicious.com/HootSuite and/or @hootwatch.
At HootSuite HQ, we continually work to keep the dashboard on the leading edge of social media tools. Indeed, constant innovation and refinement keeps the 1.85+ million fans of the dash happily Hooting to their friends and fans via all the social networks supported in the tool.
The 
Owls are everywhere — or they seem to be at least — with conversations and coverage about 
Sure, we think HootSuite rocks but of course, we’re a bit biased ;-). Fortunately others agree and created videos and tutorials to demonstrate their affection.
