HootSuite blog – Social Media Dashboard

Tech blogging super-hero Robert Scoble (Rackspace etc.) visited Vancouver to participate in the VX Commerce Media Day event on a panel called “Wireless Meets Digital | Audio” plus take in some Olympic sports – including seeing the Canadian Women’s hockey team win Gold.

As he usually does, Robert visited local tech companies to shoot video of the remarkable work happening behind the scenes. He popped by HootSuite HQ after hours for a conversation with ace iPhone developer Richerd Chan about the features and development path of the iPhone and Android apps, plus digs deep about industry evolution trends with CEO Ryan Holmes including discourse on molecular structure and sentiment analysis – plus the backstory behind the crowd-sourced name (thanks again @mattnathan).

Blurb: Hootsuite is a new corporate client for Twitter that lets multiple users share one account, among other things. Here you see the latest Hootsuite client for iPhone demoed and we talk about the corporate Twitter client market.

More: He also visited BootupLabs and wrote a compelling article about the changes in entrepreneurial culture and the emergence of the worldwide startup.

Idea: Consider following @scobelizer’s Most Influential People in Tech list

Didya notice? The tiki bar in the background of the shot with Ryan

News Roundup android, future, iPhone, scoble, scobleizer, tech blogger, Twitter, video

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

HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes is San Francisco-bound to speak on a panel at OMMA Social event at the Nikko Hotel on January 26.

Here’s the blurb about the event:

All in all, OMMA Social San Francisco will lay the groundwork for what looks to be the biggest year yet in social media, a medium that’s already seen some very big years. We hope to see you there!

OMMA Social is designed to guide marketing and media professionals through the constantly-shifting terrain of social media. This one-day conference will address social marketing challenges and provide insights into how to make social networking work for companies now, and in the future.

He’ll participate in a panel called: “The Twitter Clients Speak: Where Third-Party Twitter Developers Think the Platform Is Going” along with Somrat Niyogi, CEO & Founder, Bazaar Labs, Mathieu Thouvenin, Product Manager, Seesmic and moderated by Justin Thorp, Director of Community, Clearspring.

Here’s the gist of the panel:

As one of the most closely-watched social media platforms ever, what lies in Twitter’s future is the subject of constant speculation. How will it monetize itself? Has its growth maxed out? What new services are being developed both within Twitter, and among developers, to keep it on the cutting edge of social media? How will the addition of a geolocation tool change how Twitter is used? On this panel, we talk to some people with highly-educated opinions about the future of Twitter: developers of some of the service’s most popular applications.

Be sure to say hello when if see him and let him know what you think of HootSuite.

Photo credit: Ryan Holmes speaking at BCAIM event

events events, future, ivoker, ryan holmes, san francisco, Twitter

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

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

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

Thanks to votes from many of you wonderful people, we won a Shorty Award for “best app” in January of this year. Now, the team behind the Shorty Awards has collated a comprehensive new research report about Twitter for business.

The Shorty Report provides the latest data through interviews with dozens of companies that are using Twitter to make a big impact with short messages.

Use the code “HOOTREPORT” at checkout to score 10% off this value-packed information package, and get an edge on the competition.

Here are some teaser quotes from some of the corporate Tweeting heavyweights interviewed for the report:

“I’ve always been accessible, but Twitter lowers the psychological hurdle people might have in trying to contact me”
-Tony Hsieh @zappos, CEO of Zappos

“For the most part what you see on Twitter is just me being myself.”
-Frank Eliason @comcastcares, Director of digital care for Comcast

“Not only can fans talk to Marvel, but in many cases they can talk to the editor, the writer, or the artist.”
-Ryan Penagos @marvel, Editor at Marvel online

“I think the overwhelming expectation from customers is that we listen to them.”
-Morgan Johnston @JetBlue, Manager of corporate communications for JetBlue Airways

“I believe there is a place for any business to use Twitter. It allows any person, institution or business to become its own wire service.”
-Veronica McGregor @NASA and @MarsPhoenix of NASA

You can read an excerpt from the report at www.ShortyReport.com.

Twitter for business business, data, interviews, research, shorty report, Twitter

Yesterday evening, the partners at Invoke accepted the award for best application for Hootsuite (@hootsuite) at the 1st Annual Shorty Awards. More than 50, 000 public nominations and votes were tweeted to determine the winners. Hootsuite was one of the 26 winners of the evening (a full list can be viewed here).

The awards ceremony was streamed live last night from the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. You can still check out Hootsuite’s 140 character acceptance speech here (it’s around the 1:25:45 mark).

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez (@ricksanchezcnn) hosted the awards ceremony. Our hometown boys David Tedman (@d1337), Dario Meli (@quikness) and Ryan Holmes (@invoker) spent the evening chatting and mingling with the Twitterati, and doing their thing, from backstage to the press room.

The guys hung out with MC Hammer @MCHammer (who apparently was a big fan of Dario’s hat), Mr. Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee, and @Greenmoms, the green women bloggers.

They had the chance to speak with @Matman, the extraterrestrial of WellcomeMat, and @bettydraper The Real Mrs. Donald Draper.

Hootsuite thanks everyone who participated! Hoot Hoot!

For photos from the event please visit the Invoke Blog

hootsuite news agency, application, award, best app, Invoke, Shorty Awards, Twitter

Posted by Jenn Lowther

Twitter is an immensely useful tool for both personal and professional communication and interaction. Its been fascinating watching the growth of twitter over the past year and seeing the many ways that both people and businesses have begun utilize it. One of the best ways that twitter has been adopted – from a business point of view – is as a tool for customer service.

Twitter, by its very nature, is a digital soap box for people to talk about what’s important to them at any moment of the day. It’s the ideal platform to use when you are happy or upset with a company to voice your pleasure or vent your frustration. Thanks to swift organic growth and the underlying transparency and simplicity of the system, Twitter has become an ideal tool to use for customer service.

Twitter allows you to track what your customers are saying about your brand in real time – no other medium gives you such immediate and unfiltered response from people who are using your product or service. This represents a perfect opportunity for companies to interject into these conversations and either cement the positive brand experience or to rectify any issues that were encountered.

When we launched HootSuite, we actively used twitter as one of our main avenues to hear what our users were saying and how they were using HootSuite. By using twitter, we were able to follow what people were saying about our service, deal with any issues that cropped up surrounding our launch, update people as to the status of new features, and actively engage in conversations with people that were interested in our product. This allowed us to get a real time feel of how our users were using HootSuite and what features they wanted to see implemented. We took this information and included it into our development process, allowing us to give our users a product that they really wanted to use. We’re not alone in using twitter for this purpose, the following are companies currently using twitter for customer service:

Southwest Airlines

Dell Computers

Comcast

Starbucks

Jet Blue

Home Depot

Whole Foods

H&R Block

Zappos

Kodak

General Motors

Pandora

To augment the above list of large companies that use twitter for customer service, we put a quick call out on twitter to see who else is using twitter and the following companies/organizations responded:

Your Sole (Orthopedic Insoles)

Paper Check (Essay Editing and Proofreading Services)

I Can Has Cheezeburger

Fail Blog

Engrish Funny

Schipul Marketing

Richland College

Telstra BigPond (Australian ISP)

Newspaper Direct

Perkler (Online Community for Loyalty and Rewards)

Nashville Lifestyles/The Tennessean

US Air Force

Zhiing (Social Navigation Application for Smartphones)

Filthy Farm Girl (Sells soap)

Twitter for business, customer service, social media customer service, social media, Twitter