One tool I already recommended before and the only one that has kept me as a customer for several years is my favorite social media management tool – Hootsuite.
I don’t think there is anyone who is into blogging that is using only one or two social networks. Most of us use 5, 10 or more. Always trying and testing which one will be the one for us.
When I first started with Twitter, I used several different management tools, trying to find the one that is easy to use yet has a lot of features. As I ventured into Facebook, I needed a tool for that too (Facebook did not have scheduling features at the time). Then another network… and another.
So now I had a bunch of social media profiles, run through a bunch of management tools. I heard a lot about Hootsuite at the time and had to try it, hoping I can consolidate all my networks in one place – and not spend money on it 😉
I can tell you that after starting with Hootsuite I never looked back.
As a matter of fact, I went ahead and signed up for the Pro option to use all the features I needed to run successful social media campaigns. By investing these few bucks every months, I was able not only to consolidate my own social media profiles, but run clients’ profiles more effectively as well!
Why am I telling you all this? Well, seems like some of the tools I used to use, were not just inferior to Hootsuite back then. They are becoming even more inferior as time goes by.
One of the things that happened, that made me feel really good about going with Hootsuite is the fact that Tweetdeck (the very first option I used) had two major changes that will affect a lot of their users:
- they are not integrated with Facebook anymore
- they are going away with their iPhone and Android apps
They explained it by taking a different direction in their company and development of this tool, which I absolutely understand. However, to me, someone who runs several businesses mostly through social media – this means I can not use the app the way I need it the most – on the go and updating most of my networks at once.
Now, removing features by “competing” apps is only a minor thing that makes Hootsuite lead the pack. The thing that makes them stand out is actually constant adding of features.
In these few years I’ve been using Hootsuite, their app gallery has grown to be, probably the most comprehensive collection of tools for online entrepreneurs.
Comprehensive tools for online entrepreneurs
One by one social media has been integrated into Hootsuite.
I started with Twitter. Then added my Facebook personal profile and all pages. Then Youtube (two channels). Followed by Instagram and Tumblr and so on.
The beauty of this is that you can cross post, if you feel like it, which I do with some networks. Then, for those I want to keep completely unique, I can schedule posts instead.
While talking about apps, let me mention a few you may find interesting, especially when you think how many tasks you can run from a single management tool: MailChimp, Evernote, WordPress, StumbleUpon, SlideShare, Blogger and many more. Majority of apps are free and are installed with a single click.
If you want even more functionality, some of the apps will offer premium features for a (very small) fee. But most likely, you will be able to do everything with your Hootsuite subscription. Which you can try for free for 30 days!
Now, can you imagine having all your social media in one tool, your blogs and social profiles and being able to share from one network to another and get that max exposure on all of them.
Here are some of the ways I use these features:
- I share from my Youtube subscriptions to my Facebook page – everyone likes a good video
- I use my Instagram feed to quickly scroll through and “like” or comment on photos
- I use Tumblr setting to quickly post an update without having to log into the site itself
- I use Hootsuite to update my Google+ pages because it is faster than switching accounts on Google
These are only a few ideas how you can organize and speed up your social media presence.
Get your Free 30 Day Trial of HootSuite Pro
With their batch schedule option (where you can upload a file with a pile of updates that will be spread through out a certain period of time) you can go on vacation without anyone ever noticing you are gone 🙂
But most important for me, really, is the fact that I have all those sites in one dashboard. I am sure that by using this tool I save hours upon hours of work every week.
I am pretty sure you aren’t using Hootsuite just because you haven’t tried it yet. So I strongly recommend you check it out and sign up for a free trial of the premium package, you will definitely not find a better tool!