I took my own advice and began “listening” to social media, specifically Twitter, months ago. I first used the Twitter web interface which initially seemed fine but only because I didn't know any better. Being a bit of a techie, I began searching for a better application with which to access Twitter. I used and tested numerous technologies including web-based and desktop applications. I tried Seesmic, Tweetdeck, CoTweet, and Objective Marketer. However, after the dust settled a certain application emerged above all of the rest. I'd like to tell you 8 reasons why I love Hootsuite.
1. Scheduling of Tweets
For this reason alone iLove Hootsuite! I can schedule tweets whenever I'd like to post and, unlike some other applications, Hootsuite will tweet them on schedule. This feature has been extremely helpful for me when I have found numerous articles I've liked in Google Reader, for example, and want to post them to my personal Twitter account. This allows me to space out my tweets in order to keep the Twitter “noise” at a reasonable level. I also love this feature when I am posting for the independent school where I work because it allows me to schedule posts in the evening when I think I can reach more students as opposed to parents. I feel like I am better able to time my tweets in order to reach a specific audience.
2. Ability for Multiple Users to Handle Multiple Accounts
Hootsuite has become my one-stop-shop. With Hootsuite, I don't need to access different applications or different social networks anymore. Hootsuite has the ability to handle my multiple Twitter accounts, my Facebook profile, my multiple Facebook Pages, my LinkedIn account, and my PingFm account. On top of all this access is the elegant user interface (UI) which I will address later. Finally, Hootsuite has the ability to allow multiple users to manage a single Twitter account which is great for our official school account.
3. Elegant User Interface
Quite simply, Hootsuite‘s user interface most elegantly handles the large amount of data generated by all of the social media accounts I maintain. The interface is tab-based and within those tabs, you have the ability to have multiple columns of data. For example, I have a tab for my personal Twitter account in which I monitor my home feed, mentions, direct messages, pending tweets, and send tweets. I am able to view large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
4. Statistics
Hootsuite gives you the ability to track your statistics on a user account level and individual tweet level. In order to use this function, you have to tweet from Hootsuite and shorten any URLs with their own URL shorter, ow.ly.
5. iPhone App
Hootsuite has created a wonderful iPhone app that gives you access to all of your customized information from the web-based version of Hootsuite. It is my Hootsuite on the road and has a very robust feature set including scheduling of tweets, statistics, and the ability to share photos.
6. Web-based
This comes down to personal preference but I love the fact that Hootsuite is a web-based application. The performance is great and being platform-independent is a must because I use Windows at school and MacOS X at home. Additionally, I am restricted from installing applications at school and although our technology department would be happy to install a new application for me I feel guilty bothering them when new updates are released.
7. Brand Monitoring
Within Hootsuite, I can set up Twitter searches or keyword monitoring and keep these all on one tab for easy access and viewing.
8. Cost
This is the best part. Hootsuite is free! Enough said…
If it isn't obvious from my list, I love Hootsuite. While I found that the other Twitter applications that I mentioned did have fairly good feature sets, they couldn't match the overall set of features offered by Hootsuite as well as deliver them in an attractive user interface. Hootsuite allows me to be more efficient which in turn allows me to be more effective. Do yourself a favor and try Hootsuite today.
