Hootsuite

Hello Everybody,

In this post I will be covering chapter 7 of Intro to Social Media Marketing, Hootsuite.

Hootsuite helps you manage social media by providing assistance on developing and posting content to multiple social networks at once. You can use this to connect to the Facebook Page, Twitter and LinkedIn that we have already created in past posts. People when first starting their social media for businesses, usually start with a burst of energy, but after time it becomes more difficult to maintain regularity in posting manually, which can lead to a drop in interaction from viewers. This is where Hootsuite becomes handy.

It's not critical to understand all of the options Hootsuite has available for you, but just be ready to explore and poke around a bit. They have a variety of different plans and options (some are even free!). A good way to start is to watch the videos they provide on social media and on their dashboard. They also have a good "getting started" link in their Hootsuite Help. So sign up, I would start with a free account and then later upgrade if you want. It'll walk you through how to add all your social networks by logging onto them through Hootsuite and then accepting Hootsuite when logging into that social media account. Little side note, if starting with a free account, you'll only be able to add 3 social media accounts, so I would suggest sticking to the main three of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Also adding social media doesn't mean you "always" post to them, it just makes it an option.

While in Hootsuite you should set up your "streams". "Streams" are like Hootsuite's way of "social listening". It will set up a feed of people who are mentioning you. It'll give you a glance of what's going on in relation to your specific account. In order to post on Hootusite you can click on the little drop-down triangle to choose "where" you are going to post. If you are posting to Twitter and go over the 140 characters, your tweet will show those first 140 characters and then supply a link to the entire message. You can also schedule your posts so that your posts happen at a certain time that you think it will get more attention, like say during morning hours when people are waking up or the usual lunch break time.

Until next time,
Caitlin Campbell