HootSuite blog – Social Media Dashboard

You haven’t stopped talking about HootSuite so we’ll keep sharing stories with another HootSuite news round-up loaded with  your comments, case studies and compelling projects.

With the new school semester just around the corner, we thought now is a great time to see how social media can be used for research, sourcing and even librarians’ work. Plus, for new HootSuite owls, we’ve added in a couple of general articles and tutorials to help you earn an A+ in social media management.

As always, we invite you to follow HootSuite’s social bookmarks and/or follow @hootwatch to get the full firehose of knowledge. And now… here’s your homework:

oneforty – Featured Tweets: Mike Petroff Uses Hootsuite to Manage Emerson College Social Presence

Mike Petroff and his team at Emerson College are using HootSuite to help organize their social media efforts:

Hootsuite allows our account administrators to personalize the look and feel of their account, adding dashboard columns of search terms specific to their office. It also makes sharing and assigning replies between account administrators incredibly easy and traceable. Very rarely do tweets from our community go unnoticed. We can also share access to upcoming tweets and be on the same page with the events, stories and content that we’re promoting for a given week.

Library Tech Talk – Guest Post: HootSuite for Library Tweets!

This blogpost presents HootSuite to all librarians out there:

Librarians, If you have a Twitter account for your library, I highly recommend tweeting from HootSuite.com. If you currently tweet from the original web version of Twitter.com, follow these instructions to simplify tweeting on behalf of your library.

Want more HootSuite for libraries? “Using the Library Staff and Statistics to Create a Dynamic Twitter Program” covers it too.

Inc. – Shortlist of Twitter Apps for Your Desktop

This article focuses on different tools for managing Twitter, and the owl isn’t left out:

HootSuite—a great tool (and my personal favorite) with a user-friendly interface. All the standard Twitter functions plus the ability to track keywords and trends, post directly to Facebook, schedule posts, put followers into groups and the ability to manage multiple accounts. You can also track clickthroughs on your embedded links. HootSuite has both desktop and mobile versions.

Accelerated Online – HOW-TO: Setup HootSuite to Manage Your Social Media Accounts

This is a step-by-step guide to setting up HootSuite account with different social networks:

HootSuite is a web-based solution that allows you to manage your conversations on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress.com, MySpace, and FourSquare from a single application. Let’s look at setting up HootSuite to manage your activity on Twitter and Facebook.

Social Brite -  Set up a social media dashboard with HootSuite

Another good video aimed at non-profit groups which takes you through the process of adding HootSuite account:

The screencast above helps nonprofits take advantage of HootSuite’s new capabilities. As I say in this short tutorial, it’s one tool to manage your organization’s presence across a wide range of social networks. Very cool.

Associated Content – How to Get More PV’s and Promote Your Content to All Your Networks at Once by Using HootSuite

This is a detailed list of HootSuite’s features that help distribute your content through social networks like never before:

I have found a savior in the social networking/self-promotion/getting more PV’s venue and it’s as simple as they come. Check out the amazing HootSuite, it does everything all at once for you. I’m new to using their free service and even on my first day trying it, I fell in love. It’s a wonder, and a breeze to use.

Mashable – 11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates

Our wise geeks at Mashable included HootSuite in one of their latest round-ups (and yes, we enjoy each time this excellent tech/web/social news site mentions us;-)):

Hootsuite has a broad range of apps, including their web-based original, mobile apps (iPhone and Android), desktop apps (Windows , Mac and Linux) and add-ons for Firefox and Chrome, all with the power to schedule updates.

RedZebraWorks – HootSuite on Crazy Pills

The new HootSuite features are introduced in this article (which made it in the round-up just for the awesome title):

Clearly HootSuite is on the move to build out their product. So far, they are on the right track by expanding features that combine activities and resources to combine a series of related and routine activities into a single dashboard, which is a real time saver.

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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.

Nicole Yeary – Video: Why Hootsuite Rocks

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

Tubetorial – How To Become A Twitter Power User, Part I: Using HootSuite

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.

Dragon Bloggger – Ultimate HootSuite Tutorial

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:

@KathleneHestir -  Four Big Hootsuite Updates You Should Know About

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.

GROWMAP.COM – Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts

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.

Black Web 2.0 – How To Use Hootsuite to Coordinate Your Team and Manage Your Brand

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.

Greg de Lima – The Tools I Use

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.

Associated Content – Using HootSuite to Keep You Organized with Your Social Networking Sites

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.

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Big in Japan

Continuing on with Ryan’s busy schedule in Japan comes a video and interview in TechCrunch Japan which includes a special “hello” video message in the article: [jp] hootsuiteが7月に大幅アップデートを予定。Ryan Holmes氏インタビュー auto-translated to: HootSuite plans major updates in July – Ryan Holmes Interview.

One of the questions addresses the differences between HootSuite and other social media tools – here’s a translation:

How do you differentiate Hootsuite from Twitter Apps Seesmic and TweetDeck?

First, We think we should divide into consumer and enterprise Twitter users. For example, Twitter web page is used by the common people. Seesmic and TweetDeck are for power Twitter users. In our term of classification (or category), we are hoping to target the enterprise market. So, for the power user features that you have a Seesmic or TweetDeck and as such, the next step further for business users is to move to HootSuite for features such as teams and analysis.

In addition, Japan seeks support for services like mixi and GREE. HootSuite now offers Japanese version of the page and are listening to requests with two Japanese staff.

Lab Report

Photographer Zuco Pietro recapped the Open Network Lab event featuring Ryan along with Shinnichi Fujikawa, founder of Movatwi. Zudo is an Italian Photographer & Blogger , living between Tokyo, Rome and Barcelona and tweets in English, Italiano, Español & 日本語.

He had this to say about Ryan’s remarks about entrepreneurship in his post: Open Network Lab with Ryan Holmes from HootSuite:

I went to that meeting to learn something new. I hoped I could learn some new formula, something that will give me the elements to start my own business. Is there a procedure? Something that I should do first? Some ancient book with the secret of success?

At the end, after listening to their experiences, the initial problems they had, some advices and the whole saga… the conclusion was so so simple!

Follow your dream, don’t stop, listen to people with common sense and run away from the negative ones. Adapt, learn, and remember that mistakes are good and let you learn more. Jump!

More from the Road

touchannel station blog — by takaaki John TATSUMI and kazumichi Paul NISHIMURA, who “connect cocoro to kokoro” — spread the word about Japan and Ryan’s visit in: HootSuite – Hoot Tour in Japan フートスイート ツアー ジャパン – Ryan Holmes has come to Japan !!

matiere posted: HootSuite、日本語ヘルプデスクサイト開設 explaining that HootSuite has translated the iPhone App to Japanese, and added a Japanese Help Desk and Twitter account HootSuite Japan.

Netafull blog also shared the news about the Japanese community site in: HootSuite（フートスイート）」日本語サイトを開設 or {translated} HootSuite opened Japanese site.

Missing Owl

One small foible on Ryan’s trip is described by yOomii in Lost in flight – perhaps you can help?:

Oh dear, it seems that my mini hootsuite owly got lost in flight while on a business trip. He lost his way somewhere between San Francisco, New York, Washington, and Japan! If you see this small owl, please let me know. He’s probably scared being in a new area which he doesn’t know, and most likely he wants to be back home in Vancouver. If you spot him, please leave me a quick message to let me know, or help spread the word (especially if you live in these locations). Here’s hoping that he will be found and safely return home (:

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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.

It’s a Good Thing

Min Online (a “Media Industry Newsletter: Covering Magazines for 60 Years”) announced their Best of the Web Award Winners including Tweeter of the Year – Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s eponymous spokeswoman – Martha Stewart.

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!

“Essential” Says Mashable

We’re always pleased when the uber-useful blog Mashable mentions us. This time Christina Warren includes HootSuite in a list of 10 Essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers:

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.

Charted Up

Jamie Beckland wrote a comprehensive review of Twitter tools for businesses in The Four Best Social Media Management Platforms for Corporate Marketers. He compares HootSuite alongside CoTweet, SocialOomph and Spredfast. Under the “good” column, he mentions HootSuite’s “Great team permissions; stream views” and points out it’s best-suited for “cross-departmental teams” in his CC-licensed chart.

Top 10 Robots

Another HootSuite for Android review worth noting comes from Drew Alam of Top10.com in the aptly-named Top 10 Android apps of the year so far, ergo:

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.

Evolving URL Tools

Evolutionary Designs adds their thoughts in Hootsuite Adds New URL Shortener Options:

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.

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While in Toronto for Sprout Up, HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes sat down with Karim Kanji of Tech Vibes to deliver his insight about the SXSW experience, Vancouver’s start-up community, how HootSuite got started, and what the company is working on next.

Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite – Interview with Karim Kanji of Techvibes

As a bonus, check out this guest appearance by Dave Olson, HootSuite’s Community Marketing Director again by Karim Kanji.

A HootSuite shout-out to Karim Kanji for these great interviews.

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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

G4Tv.com’s Attack of the Show featured HootSuite in the Feb. 3, 2010 episode Top Twitter Tools Review. They do a stellar job of sharing the key benefits of using our beloved social media dashboard (and they seem to be using HootSuite as well).

Here’s how they set it up: “Nothing is more important than letting the world know about your current status in 140 characters or less. Check out our favorite Twitter apps that allows you to microblog your heart out.” ~ enjoy the vid!

Read more: Attack of the Twitter
Follow @aots

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Add some punch to your social media experience by integrating WordPress with HootSuite. It’s simple and hassle-free. Like an uppercut, HootSuite makes blogging that much more powerful.

Watch the tutorial video above and see why owls are the Bruce Lee of the bird world.

Initial support is for blogs hosted on WordPress.com, but support for self-hosted WordPress blogs is on the horizon.

UPDATE: We’ve had a number of users report that when they try to add their WordPress.com account into HootSuite it pulls back the wrong blog name and avatar. The cause for this has been identified and WordPress has resolved the issue for us. In case anyone is concerned, there was no way for users to post messages to the wrong blog, it was only an issue with the returned display name and avatar. Everything should be working fine now.

If you have further questions about WordPress integration with HootSuite, please visit us at http://feedback.hootsuite.com

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