HootSuite blog – Social Media Dashboard

Good news, owl-lovers! We’ve updated our suite of mobile apps this morning and have rolled out a couple of important bug fixes.

iPhone users, you’ll notice HootSuite v1.1.5.3 is live in the iTunes App Store. This update fixes a recent issue with Twitter search streams, and also resolves a few bugs some users had when composing new messages. Visit our iPhone page for more details and links to download the app.

We’ve also bumped our Android app to v1.0.11. This latest update resolves a few crashing issues that some users were experiencing when sending tweets, and it fixes a force-close problem that sometimes occurred when loading old tweets. Check out our Android page for more details, and links to the app in the Android Market.

We recommend all mobile users update their apps as soon as possible. Happy tweeting!

Android, iPhone, update android, iPhone, mobile, update

Great Day for Mobile!

Yesterday was a big Social CRM release for HootSuite web, but we didn’t stop there and today have a treat for the mobile users. To go along with Apple’s release of the iPhone 4, we’ve updated an iOS4-ready version of HootSuite for iPhone with a number of new features to help you keep on top of the social media game.

This round of treats includes addition of location-based social game “foursquare,” customizable re-sizing of fonts for easy reading, and updates to iPhone’s iOS4 to allow app switching and performance tweaks. Plus a basket full of preference goodies from RT-style choice to custom avatar sizes.

Check It In

Foursquare is a social game which uses location-based services to keep tabs on your friends, discover your city, and earn points. By being the most frequent visitor to your local coffee shop, pizza joint, you might be anointed “mayor” which can include all sorts of perks.

Get social on the town with these tools:

Check-in and Shout out – Check-in then shout out your current location to your friends on Foursquare, Twitter, and Facebook.

Check-ins streams – Find out where all of your foursquare friends have recently checked in so you’re never left out on the fun-times.

Check-in history – Follow your own trail of check-ins and see where you’ve been — ideal for archiving activities for and memory recollections.

Sign-up for a foursquare account to compete for badges and accolades with your friends or share your location on Twitter and Facebook.

Locked and Loaded

HootSuite is ready to go for iPhone 4 and iOS4. This results in performance improvements for iPhone 3G or iPhone 4, including ability to switch apps quickly — if you leave the app, you’ll return right where you left off with no waiting.

Just for You

We listened to your feedback and added more choices in the preferences to allow a customized mobile experience, including:

Re-tweet choice – Choose from Twitter’s native RT style, classic RTs, or both
Font sizing – Change the font size for accessibility and/or convenience
Avatar sizing – Fill the stream with smiling profile pics or minimize for more text space
Username or real name – Select which moniker displays to identify your contacts
Timestamp styles – Display relative or absolute data on timestamps
Auto-enable geotag – Share your location automatically on every update
Photo upload options – Save snaps to the iPhone’s library, plus control the image quality

Wanna change? Adjust preferences as desired starting under the Settings tab.

Pro Tips

Push Notifications with Boxcar — This tool snuck in as part of the last release, but in case you missed it… Connect HootSuite with the Boxcar app (free) for instant push notifications whenever you receive a new @mention or DM.

Instant Ow.ly links in Safari — While you are browsing with Safari and see a tweet-able page, just prepend the url with “owly://” (no quotes) and voila! you’ll pre-populate a HootSuite message with a short link ready send to your network.

On Deck

Suggestions for additional preferences that you’d like to see in a future update? Great! Don’t hesitate to add it to feedback.hootsuite.com. We are constantly looking for ways that we can improve how you compose and converse on-the-go.

HootSuite for iPhone update is available at the iTunes App store in Lite (no-cost) and Full ($2.99 USD) versions. Follow @HootSuiteiPhone for updates. See hootsuite.com/iphone for more details.

Blackberry Notes

Finally, fans of RIM’s Blackberry phones can almost… finally begin Hoot-ing since HootBerry is just about ready for beta release. To get on-board for early access, simply sign up at: http://ow.ly/2aRUx and you’ll be among the first to try the new tool.

Notes:

foursquare is ™ foursquare
Boxcar is ™ Boxcar

iPhone, releases apple, check in, features, foursquare, geo tagging, geo-location, ios4, iPhone, itouch, release, update

HootSuite is ready to help businesses socially manage campaigns and offer assistance — all from one dashboard.

The line between customer relationship management, technical support and promotional messaging is blurring as customers seek and expect interactions across multiple channels. HootSuite’s newest update adds tools to help learn about your audience and engage them with the information they desire.

Social CRM

Filter by Influence

Drill down into your network by filtering columns by influence score. Sorting by Klout’s algorithmically-produced score allows you to learn which followers and contacts enjoy the widest reach. Ideal for quickly identifying campaign candidates or response priority.

Filter by Keyword

Too many messages to sort through? No problem. Filter your columns on-the-fly by keyword. Type in your desired word to remove the extraneous updates and focus on what’s on your mind. Ideal for tracking topics and prospecting for clients.

Filter columns by influence score or keyword

Follower Insights

Get to know your network with the knowledge behind the “Insights” tab. Learn where your contacts hang-out online including publicly available links to social profiles, a collection of images, even occupations and title — all in one view.

Hoot to Zendesk Support

Where does social networking end and tech support begin? It doesn’t matter since Twitter updates can now become track-able tickets directly in the popular help desk app, Zendesk. This integration helps streamline your customer service and ensure quality responses.

Organization View

Since HootSuite released Team Collaboration tools, many users have added extensive networks. Now managing your colleagues is easier thanks to a new view which shows your contacts on each network, along with a simple way to add more team members.

Organize your teams and networks

Next Up, Premium Paid Packages

From enterprises to start-ups, HootSuite is pleased to help businesses and organizations reach out to spread messages, monitor conversations and track results. As you may know, we’re excited about releasing paid plans in the coming weeks.

Keep in mind, HootSuite will remain free for an estimated 95% of users based on current usage patterns. Meanwhile, premium users will enjoy access to extra features, high limits and prioritized support.

We’ll release details in the coming weeks but to preview, the paid plans will offer:

* Unlimited social networks
* Unlimited RSS feeds
* Team members on social networks
* Advanced analytics & reports
* Expedited support

Thanks to all of you who completed the HootSuite survey — we are committed to offering top quality tools for all types of users and apprecaite your participation.

##

UPDATE

We’ve added an easy way to opt-out of the Insights tool so your data will not be shown within HootSuite. Please follow the steps detailed at: How to Opt-out of Insights.

In brief, click on your personal profile card > choose the Insights tab > click “What’s This?” > click Opt-out > confirm Opt-out — Your data be instantly removed from HootSuite.

releases filters, influence, klout, rapleaf, release, social crm, Support, twicket, update, zendesk

Languages, Email and Instapaper

Hoot hoot! We’ve listened to your feedback and suggestions added new tools into a fresh update to the HootSuite iPhone apps (both Full and Lite versions). This release includes localization for four languages plus makes sharing content even easier – both with others via email and yourself with Instapaper.

Translation to 4 Languages

First off, on the internationalization front: HootSuite for the iPhone now has native support for Japanese, German, Spanish, and Portuguese!

We’re excited to make HootSuite easier to use for non-English speakers and wonder “What language would you like to see next?” Let us know in the Feedback channel.

We’ve also made it a little simpler to see what people are saying in other languages with a single click to translate a tweet into your phone’s default language rather than scrolling through 50+ choices. This is extra handy for monitoring brand sentiment from other countries as well as tapping into local conversations when traveling.

Tweet to Email

Want to send a tweet or link to someone who doesn’t use Twitter? Perhaps an interesting link or compelling comment about your company? … No problem.

With the new “Email Tweet” option, you can pass content along to your non-Tweeting friends and co-workers with a quick click using your phone’s built in mail app.

Save it for Later

Also new in this version is another frequently requested feature: support for Instapaper. This popular web tool allows you save web content to read later with a quick click directly from HootSuite. This allows you to peruse the content at the end of a link when you have the time.

How sweet is that? Folks commuting by transit or mining brand mentions will certainly love this feature. Let us know it makes life easier for you.

Both the Email and Instapaper tools are accessed from an expanded menu with finger-friendly buttons … starting by clicking the arrow.

More Down the Road

That’s not all from the HootSuite iPhone team as even more updates are in the works with even more compelling features coming soon to make HootSuite iPhone the fave choice of jet-setters, commuters, marketers on the go and anyone with a need for convenient communication.

Have a great feature idea? Please contribute to the Feedback channel which allows other users to vote for your idea … plus you’ll experience lovely warm fuzzy feelings each time you use the new feature that you requested.

iPhone, releases german, HootSuite, instapaper, iPhone, japanese, localization, portuguese, spanish, update

All About the Teamwork

As you’ve likely noticed, HootSuite has added “Owners and Teams” – a new access structure designed for group message publishing and conversation monitoring. With this Team Collaboration release, you can easily coordinate with clients and colleagues — without sacrificing control over valuable account information.

Reaction to the Release

Venture Beat – HootSuite targets agencies and groups with social collaboration tools – Cody Barbierri

HootSuite, a social networking navigation and management startup, today launched several new collaboration tools targeted at public relations agencies and groups who often work in teams to publish and manage through their various social networking channels, like Twitter and Facebook.

The new collaboration tools are meant to help the group publishing and monitoring process  according to the company’s blog. More specifically, help make sure the process is as easy as possible between agencies, groups and their clients. Valuable time is often lost as groups scramble to figure out who should respond or post what during the day.

Vertical Measures – HootSuite Does it Again! – Kaila S.

Today, Hootsuite has upgraded their Twitter platform yet again, and integrated many features that users (like myself) are super happy about. Twitter rolled out their solution to multi-tweeters a few weeks ago (to a few select companies), and Hootsuite has now integrated their version into their platform. Team collaboration on Hootsuite is easier than ever, allowing team owners to control the account and invite other team members to manage an individual account. Team owners can manage the roles of each individual team member, including revoking access with the click of a button.

Web-WorkAtHome.com – HootSuite Adds New Team Collaboration Tool – Bill Masson

I have always been a fan of HootSuite and they keep on going from strength to strength. This latest set of enhancements gives you more flexibility especially if you are part of a group. Team collaboration is very much in mind in these latest updates, with every social network account having a designated owner who is in charge. This gives the owner the ability to add team members to social networks without compromising password security. Team members can have basic or advanced access to accounts which can easily be transferred as roles change.

With the new Team Management system, you can:

• Invite other HootSuite users to share your Social Networks
• Request access to someone else’s Social Network
• Assign Team Members advanced permissions
• Add RSS feeds to any Social Network you have access to
• Consolidate all your HootSuite accounts

methodshop.com – HootSuite Releases Team Features

Oh Hootsuite, we can’t even begin to count all the reasons why we love you. But the team tools you announced today are just amazing.

Once you add all your accounts to Hootsuite, you can then do all the normal stuff you might do like reply, post, and shorten links. But Hootsuite also allows you to post the same message to multiple accounts, schedule posts, track clicks, import RSS feeds and as of today, add additional team members to help you manage your accounts.

If you haven’t tried Hootsuite yet, then stop reading this article and go sign up for an account now. Hootsuite allows you to add all your social media accounts (Facebook Profiles, Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc.) into one easy to use dashboard.

Web Business Consultants – HootSuite Upgrades – Christine Weremy

In April 2010, Hootsuite added some upgrades that makes it easier to update multiple social media pages (including Twitter and Facebook pages) and to share administration privileges with others. According to the brand’s April 13, 2010 article, each account can add “team members” to the account without compromising password security and each member can hold various administration capabilities (i.e., basic or advanced).

The new updates allows the administrator to add multiple accounts to his or her account without having to create a new account (before accounts with different email addresses couldn’t share the same account). The upgrades also includes adding multiple RSS feeds to a social media pages and a ‘reply all’ option. According to the April article, this option allows the administrator to pre-populate a message with all recipients of an original message with one click.

Anocial – HootSuite Rolls out Team Collaboration – Brian Ellis

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.

Hootsuite announces today that it now plays better with others. The team collaboration tools will now allow you to assemble your own team and give them rights to various social media accounts as needed. Once on the team anyone can add any social media account to the team without administrative rights. The team owner can assign administrative rights to whom ever they choose but retain the right to delete any account when needed. All in all, I see this as a step in the right direction.

USF: University of South Florida – HootSuite: Manage Team and Multiple Twitter Accounts with Ease

HootSuite is a free ‘Swiss Army Knife’ online application for serious Twitter users. If you manage multiple Twitter accounts and/or share twittering duties with your team, you should give HootSuite a try.  HootSuite manages every aspect of the Twitter experience and even provides statistics on your tweets made from HootSuite and Ow.ly, HootSuite’s URL shortener.  There are numerous other features that will help you streamline your Twitter account management, including scheduling your Tweets for times when your readers are actually reading.  I actually schedule most of my tweets for between 9 am and 5 pm, although I actually tweet them around 2:00 am.

Watch this five minute video to see some of the slick features in this amazingly useful product.  Oh, there is also a HootSuite iPhone App. so you can manage your Tweets on-the-go!

This fundamental advancement will enable enterprises, agencies, content publishers, and consultants to work with clients and colleagues seamlessly, without sacrificing control over confidential account info or compromising message timeliness.

Best known as a web and mobile-based tool for managing Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and other social networks, HootSuite continues to respond to organizations who use the dashboard for customer relationship management and support desks applications, in addition to social media promotional campaigns.

And here’s a few more sources who covered the release:

• Computer User – HootSuite Adds Social Network Team Collaboration Tools – Ideal for Agencies, Enterprises, Consultants and Marketing Groups
• Computerized Spirit – HootSuite Adds Team Collaboration Tools – A Brief Tour
• topix – HootSuite Adds Team Collaboration Tools to Social Media Dashboard
• pingmicro - HootSuite Adds Team Collaboration Tools to Social Media Dashboard – Svartling
• twitterarabic-blogspot – HootSuite Targets Agencies and Groups with Social Collaboration Tools
• Yahoo! news – HootSuite Adds Social Network Team Collaboration Tools – Ideal for Agencies, Enterprises, Consultants and Marketing Groups

Thanks for the coverage and just wait to see what we have planned next!

News Roundup business, Facebook, features, feedback, groups, HootSuite, MySpace, new release, release, rss feeds, social media, update, URLs

At HootSuite, the professional Twitter client, we want to live up to our name, so we’re constantly listening to you and implementing improvements. Our newest update adds exciting new features, including file sharing and auto-complete. 

Picture Uploading

Many of our users have requested this feature, and we’ve obliged. Within HootSuite, you can now upload pictures by pressing the picture icon.

Once you’ve uploaded your image, HootSuite will return an ow.ly URL for you to tweet — making it trackable through our custom analytics. Every picture uploaded is hosted on ow.ly. By logging into ow.ly, you can also administer your galleries. This is yet another way we’ve pushed Twitter to amazing new heights.

File Uploading

Now you can share files on Twitter. HootSuite is the first major Twitter client to support this exciting feature. Similar to picture uploading, you must instead click the document icon. HootSuite supports many document formats: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Photoshop, and MP3 files. As with pictures, links to files are trackable with HootSuite’s custom analytics.

Intelligent Auto-Complete

Ever forgotten someone’s Twitter username? HootSuite’s new auto-complete feature helps you overcome this problem. Once you type a name, HootSuite remembers it. With your next reply, HootSuite automatically generates a list of the names you most frequently engage with. You can also remove someone from auto-complete by pressing the “x” button beside their name.

What will HootSuite do next? We’ve got lots of goodness planned, but we welcome all feature requests. What features would you like to see added to HootSuite in our next update?

features, update auto-complete, documents, features, file sharing, image, photo, picture, update

Ever wanted to post a status update to multiple Twitter profiles simultaneously?

Never fear, HootSuite users! With our new tweet box, you can do just that.

When you log in, you’ll see our nifty new tool, right at the top of the page:

See those profile thumbnails on the right? Select one, two, or all of them — your tweets can now be sent from multiple Twitter profiles at once!

The new tweet box also makes it super easy to send direct messages. Just create a new tweet that starts with ‘d username’ and it’ll be sent as a DM.

Want to schedule a tweet for later? No prob. Click the “Send Later” link to choose when your update will be posted to Twitter.

We’ve also improved the ways ow.ly links get added to your tweets. If you shrink a link, we’ll generate an ow.ly link for you and place it right into the body of your tweet text. You can even add multiple ow.ly links to a single tweet.

Have an ow.ly link you want to send out from multiple Twitter profiles? No problem. When you send your tweet, we’ll generate a unique ow.ly link for each of your Twitter profiles, so you can track clickthrough rates from each Twitter profile individually.

Are you a stats hound? If you add multiple ow.ly links to a tweet, you can view each ow.ly link’s stats individually on the Sent tab. Just click the “Stats” button on the tweet and you’ll see all the juicy details.

If the new tweet box is eating up too much of your screen real estate, you can minimize it at any time. Just click the arrow at the bottom of the box and it’ll roll up into the top of the page.

How’s that for tidy?

Enjoy the new tweet box. We hope it makes your Twitter life easier.

features, hootsuite news new features, tweet box, update

We’ve introduced some new features into the HootSuite nest!

Favourites

Now you can mark your favourite tweets right from within HootSuite.

Whenever you’re browsing your feeds, searches, or @replies, you’ll see a star icon next to each tweet. Like what someone said? Save it to your favourites with one click. Check out your faves later — they’re saved under their own tab.

See ALL your sent tweets

By popular demand, we’ve changed the way the Sent tab works. Instead of just showing you tweets made from Hootsuite, we’re now able to show you all the tweets you’ve sent — even those posted from the web, from your phone, or from your mobile twitter app.

The Sent tab still has the juicy stats function and threaded conversation views, but now you’re able to see all your tweets, too!

Enjoy the new features… there are more where those came from. Stay tuned!

features, hootsuite news, update favorite, favourite, new features, sent tab, update

HootSuite will be updated this evening. The new release includes some new features, and improvements upon the issues reported by some users.

(Please note that the site may be down from 10pm to 12am PST. Fear not! Your prescheduled tweets will still go out during this time.)

New features:

1) Home and @Reply tabs will show “in reply to” links that let you see the tweet being responded to.

2) We’ve added text to the RSS feed settings page to help clarify whether a feed is paused or “feeding.”

3) On the search page, any search you make is automatically saved — no more extra clicks to save your favorite searches to HootSuite!

Improvements:

1) We’ve enhanced our server so using ow.ly should become more efficient and faster.

2) We’ve updated RSS feeds. This should eliminate the problems some have experienced and keep things running smoothly.

3) We’ve updated our click tracker to do a better job of filtering out bot and spiders from your clickthrough stats. This may have the side effect of making your previous stats suddenly shrink as we remove known bots from the database.

4) Clicking on @username within a tweet will now show you recent tweets from that user, rather than starting an @reply tweet.

5) We’ve made mouse-overs on Home/@Reply/DM page more consistent.

6) We’ve solved some of those pesky IE6 bugs.

Thanks for your feedback, everyone.

customer service click tracker, feedback, ow.ly, rss, update