Whether you’re a small business owner or a marketing coordinator in a large organization, looking for the right tool for social media to expand your reach and help achieve your business goals is never an easy task. Most people jump on board trying out many different tools, only to find out it is not the right fit for them. This article will help those who are having a hard time deciding what to use when it comes to social media management.
HootSuite is a top industry leader specific in this domain. However, every business may have different goals and objectives when it comes to using social media. We hope to clarify the best tools for you in this series of blog posts for social media tools.
Feel free to share your thoughts and questions with us in the comments below!
Introduction to HootSuite’s Dashboard
If you are just starting to use social media in your marketing, you may want to test out Hootsuite’s social media management dashboard to start. The tool is easy to set up and fast to learn. All your main social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Wordpress) can be integrated into the dashboard for easy access. Other social networks such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr can be integrated through an app partnered with HootSuite. Multiple social accounts can be added into the dashboard, as long as you have permission for them. This allows easy management of all your social networks in one place, without ever leaving the dashboard to sign in.
When it comes to publishing, HootSuite’s publisher is built to help you publish or schedule any social messages efficiently. It allows you to post your messages across multiple social networks. So essentially, you can have one single message posted on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ all at the same time. You can choose to schedule messages according to the dates and times you would like to post, or it has an option for auto-scheduling. The auto-schedule is based on the best optimal times that HootSuite believes to be best for those networks that you have integrated with.
Here’s an idea of what it looks like:
One of my favourite thing about HootSuite is it’s Publisher mode, which allows you to view your scheduled posts in four different views (List, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly). The best part of about it is the ability to reschedule any posts by just drag and drop. This is very useful when you are managing multiple accounts and sometimes your content may be pushed back or moved up. Instead of deleting the message and reposting it, you can simply drag that specific social message you would like to reschedule and drop it to the new date.
Here’s the Publisher in the monthly view:
Taking Advantage of the Hootlet
The Hootlet bookmarking tool is now better than ever, with newer functions that has been added onto it’s existing Hootlet. It is made for easy social sharing when you are browsing through the web for valuable content. It’s slick drop down publishing box allows you to publish or schedule a message for that specific link without going back to your dashboard. The link is already shortened for you, so all you need is to write your message and indicate which social networks you would like to post on.
That’s pretty basic though. There’s so much more you can do with the Hootlet. See for yourself!
Amplify Your Marketing Efforts With HootSuite Apps
For most businesses, it is common now to include social media as part of your marketing plan. So using the right tools to help you achieve those business goals and objectives should be your main priority. Hootsuite is perfect for managing all your social networks in one place. However, the original purpose of HootSuite’s dashboard didn’t really include a focus on the other channels of inbound marketing or customer service as it’s functions. Those features slowly developed and evolved as the tool became more global.
It's hard to identify who’s your prospects, leads and customers on the streams of HootSuite’s Dashboard. Luckily, HootSuite’s App Directory has partnered with other companies to help provide those insights right on your dashboard. Apps like MailChimp, Salesforce, LeadSift, Nimble, Get Satisfaction and more, are available for you to install, and bring you other marketing, lead generation, and customer service support all in one dashboard.
Measure Your Social KPI’s with HootSuite Analytics
When you’re using social media in your marketing, it is important to track all the efforts of your campaigns with some numbers that you can compare. How else would you know if your campaigns are doing well or not? HootSuite makes it easy with their analytic reports. They have basic templates to measure Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn insights. However, if you would like some advanced insights and data from your social networks, you can build your own reports with their analytics modules for a fee.
Here’s what it would look like:
Well, what are you waiting for? If you think this is the right tool for you, get started with it. They offer a free account, but once you feel it’s worth it to indulge into it, you can upgrade for the Pro account. For a small fee, HootSuite can definitely bring back your time from signing in and out of multiple social media networks.
Still not sure? Tune in to our next post, Social Media Toolbox Series: Inbound with HubSpot Social Inbox. Subscribe to our blog and never miss the latest news and trends of inbound marketing.
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