'Net Features : hootsuite

Big List of Personal Branding Solutions

Michael Garrity — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:00:00 GMT

The Web has made the “personal brand” more of an actual thing than ever before. These days, individuals can have their own websites, online portfolios, social media profiles and other online spaces where they can share work, market themselves or connect with their audiences or customers.

Personal branding is a useful tool for freelancers and individuals who own their own businesses, but it also has numerous benefits and presents marketing opportunities for people who work for larger organizations, as it allows them to share company news and information (although you have to be careful to follow SEC guidelines), personally interact with their customers and generally humanize their organizations a bit.

Luckily, the Internet won’t just leave you hanging. There are a number of useful tools available online that can help you simplify, automate and improve your personal branding efforts around the Web. Check out Website Magazine’s big list of personal branding solutions by clicking "Read More" below.

HootSuite Chrome Extension Makes Social Monitoring Effortless

Allison Howen — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:35:00 GMT

A new Google Chrome extension is helping HootSuite Pro and Enterprise users who are part of HootSuite Teams expand their organization’s social monitoring capabilities.

The extension, dubbed HootSuite Assignments, is beneficial for social media managers because it can help them respond to customer inquiries or take advantage of marketing opportunities in real-time. This is because posts from Facebook and Twitter can quickly be assigned to the most appropriate team member in sales, customer support, public relations or marketing, so that suitable responses are published promptly.

Once the Assignment extension is downloaded, HootSuite Team members have access to an “Assign To” button, which is located directly below each status update on Facebook and Twitter’s websites. From there, users can choose the team or team member that they want to assign the post to, as well as have the option to include a custom message to guide the assigned team member’s next action. After the post has been assigned, the assignee receives an email notification to view that post within an in-browser popup menu. Moreover, social managers have the ability to monitor the progress on tasks that have been assigned as well as tasks that have been completed.

“Social media gives businesses the remarkable ability to listen to what the public and their clients are saying about their brand or their product, and then respond in real-time. So effective, enterprise companies are now constantly monitoring and engaging with their audiences on social media networks, using tools like ours,” said Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite. “But we also realize that not all of them are using the HootSuite dashboard all the time. Some are doing this right from Facebook.com or Twitter.com. In our business we have to be flexible and adapt quickly to what people need now for a better and smoother social media experience.”

HootSuite's Autoschedule Goes Mobile

Allison Howen — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:15:00 GMT

Social media management just got a whole lot easier.

This is because HootSuite has updated its mobile applications to include Autoschedule functionality, which allows social media managers to automate posting times directly from their mobile device.

This feature is simple to use and will undoubtedly be very helpful to the 3.75 million users who have downloaded Hootsuite’s mobile apps for iOS and Android devices. Users simply need to access the schedule icon after a message has been composed, toggle the Autoschedule switch to “on” and schedule a posting time. Then, the scheduled messages will appear in the Pending Tweets stream.

It is also important to note that aside from Autoschedule, HootSuite launched a few additional updates for its apps, including push notifications, better navigational features for the Android app and an updated iOS layout that is optimized for the iPhone5.

HootSuite, Webtrends Show Social's Value

Allison Howen — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 21:12:00 GMT

Finding the return on investment (ROI) from a social media campaign can be a difficult task, to say the least – but it just got easier for HootSuite Enterprise clients.

The popular social media management platform has announced a new integration with Webtrends Analytics, which offers performance data that helps Web workers better evaluate the ROI of their social activities.

The Webtrends reports can be customized to show connections between social messages and website conversions, which allow organizations to optimize their social strategies and compare their social ROI against other channels, such as SEM, email or display advertising. The integrated HootSuite-Webtrends capabilities are currently available for free to HootSuite Enterprise and Webtrends Analytics On-Demand clients.

“Every organization must continually evaluate and optimize the social media ROI of each department’s publishing and engagement efforts. For that you need measurement-driven management, and the HootSuite-Webtrends integration helps satisfy that need,” said Ryan Holmes, CEO HootSuite. “This partnership is another example of HootSuite’s commitment to our clients’ success, and to providing the market-leading functionality that our Enterprise clients expect.”

Clients can use the integration’s closed loop reporting to analyze aspects of social campaigns such as which messages result in the highest number of conversions, which networks are the most valuable source for traffic, or to discover the best times and days to post. By leveraging this information, businesses can optimize social campaigns to be more engaging and drive more conversions.

“At Webtrends, we believe that analytics drive insight and insight drives more effective digital marketing,” said Alex Yoder, CEO, Webtrends. “Our new partnership with HootSuite will provide marketers with unprecedented insights into social media engagement and effectiveness leading to valuable, quantifiable, and repeatable social media marketing optimization for organizations of all types.”

HootSuite Tool Challenges Yammer

Allison Howen — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:30:00 GMT

Watch out Yammer – because HootSuite just launched an internal communication tool that enables organizations to have conversations without leaving the social media dashboard.

The social media management platform released the beta version of HootSuite Conversations. This tool is built on top of HootSuite Teams functionality, and empowers everyone within an organization to collaborate with real-time chat. The platform is currently in free beta and available to all users, including Free, Pro and Enterprise clients.

“Conversations is built on top of HootSuite Teams which helps visualize the organizational structure of work groups in your business. Conversations will increase efficiency between teams or departments and ultimately improve ROI,” said Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite. “Now, true social collaboration can happen around campaigns or trending topics that impact business immediately.”

The Conversations platform also enables users to send social messages to internal conversations for teams to discuss and share. This allows teams to talk about response strategies, communicate approved messaging and encourages team members to broadcast across their own social networks by commenting, re-tweeting or posting content. Additionally, the platform allows users to import contacts from their personal Google or Yahoo Account address books, so that no one is left out of important conversations.

To join a conversation, users simply need to click on the speech bubble icon in the top right corner of the HootSuite dashboard. While existing users can automatically join conversations, new users can sign up for a HootSuite account in order to join the conversation that they were invited to. Basic HootSuite users can use this tool to collaborate with anyone, however, they can also use the tool to join specific Team conversations by upgrading to HootSuite Pro. Also noteworthy, is that since Conversations is built into HootSuite’s Teams functionality, Team users can leverage this new tool to assign messages for follow up, report on team activity and outcomes, share search streams and more.

HootSuite Adds Yammer to App Directory

Allison Howen — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:05:00 GMT

HootSuite is constantly adding applications to its ever-expanding App Directory, but this newest integration grabbed our attention because it features one of the most popular private enterprise social networks – Yammer.

The new app enables social media managers to conveniently monitor and reply to Yammer conversations without leaving the HootSuite dashboard. Once Yammer is accessed within HootSuite, users have the ability to view and engage with conversations from Yammer’s main feed, inbox and groups, as well as post updates, add attachments and search for content across Yammer networks.

This app should prove to be very useful, especially for teams who may need to collaborate quickly to answer customer questions from other social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter.

“The integration of Yammer demonstrates the increasing role of social collaboration in business. As companies grow, employees become increasingly decentralized from one another and rely on multiple tools like Yammer to work through and complete projects.” says Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite. “Use of social media continues to grow beyond marketing. We see departments including customer service, human resources, sales, public relations and research and development teams are looking to HootSuite for solutions to tackle collaboration problems.”

The Most Popular Social Media Management Systems

Allison Howen — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 16:30:00 GMT

Although we all know the large audience that businesses can potentially reach through a strong social media campaign, one of the biggest complaints from professionals is that this marketing channel is too time consuming to manage and monitor.

And while social media may be time consuming, there are many tools available that can help ease the commitment of posting content to multiple networks on a regular basis. In fact, many brands leverage some type of social media management dashboard to help with their social media campaigns.

Until now, we weren’t sure which social dashboards are the most popular among the Web’s top brands. However, a new survey from Pingdom reveals which social media management systems (SMMS) are the most used among 96 of the world’s top brands, including Coca-Cola, Google, IBM and McDonalds.

The study took a look at the last 20 tweets from each brand, and then examined which tools were used to post each status update. And the most popular social media management system is...

HootSuite!

The survey reveals that 20 percent of the examined brands use HootSuite, including H&M, eBay, UPS and IBM. The second most popular SMMS with 16 percent of the examined brands leveraging its services is TweetDeck, followed by 9 percent who use SocialEngage. However, one of the study's most interesting finds reveals that 28 out of the 96 examined accounts didn't use any SMMS for posting tweets.

Other survey findings show that the examined brands used a total of 42 different apps to post tweets, including Instagram which is becoming an increasingly popular posting alternative. Additionally, it is important to note that some accounts actually use more than one SMMS to post updates from. For example, @ciscosystems tweets from Crowdbooster, Tweetdeck, StockTwits, Sprinklr and Twitter’s website.

Which social media management system do you use? Let us know in the comments section below.

APIs Make Google+ Easier to Manage for Brands

Michael Garrity — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:15:00 GMT

Did you forget about Google+? I almost did, and I write about this stuff for a living, so you’re totally forgiven if the social network fell off your radar sometime in the last few months.

However, if you’re business has a Page on G+, or even if you’ve just considered it, the site has probably just become considerably more appealing, as it just released some new APIs with an eye on improving the Google+ management experience for brands.

Now, other social media management tools, such as HootSuite or Buddy Media, can connect directly to G+ pages. Previously, only a small selection of software partners had products that could be used seamlessly with the social network. These APIs are available to everyone with no restrictions in place, which adds incredible social management depth to Google+.

Brands on Google+ can now use third-party tools to schedule, monitor, and track posts as needed.

This new open API is meant to cater specifically to businesses, as it only lets third-party tools manage brand pages, not personal ones. Most likely, the social network is attempting to lure in more companies looking to expand their social presence, as that is a major part of what helped Facebook blossom and take over the Web a few years ago. Until this release, many complaints were lodged at G+ for its lack of tools that would help businesses grow their reach on the site, and for a long time, Google kept its APIs very protected; this news could usher in a significant growth period for the social network from a commercial prospective.

HootSuite App Directory Adds MailChimp and More

Allison Howen — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:00:00 GMT

The ever-growing HootSuite App Directory has just gotten a little bigger.

The social media management platform just added new partner integrations from MailChimp, Chime.in, Identi.ca, Vision Critical Surveys and RSS Reader into their App Directory. These new apps are immediately available to all HootSuite users.

Check out more information about the newest apps below:

MailChimp – This app enables HootSuite users to send email newsletters, manage subscriber lists, track campaign performance, view and search for recent email campaigns and share campaigns to social networks.

Chime.in – This app from social interest network Chime.in, allows users to schedule and send chimes, leave and view comments, preview photos and videos.

Identi.ca – HootSuite users can use this app to post status updates, monitor timelines and messages, track replies and view conversations.

Vision Critical Surveys – This app enables users to design and share surveys with social networks and monitor results in real-time.

RSS Reader – Users can utilize this app for a quick and easy way to view RSS feeds in the HootSuite dashboard, as well as share stories and articles from feeds to social networks.

“Businesses today are social, says HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes. "Success depends on connecting with customers instantly across multiple social media channels and networks. The growth of our App Directory gives clients an impressive arsenal of tools to do this, all in a single place. Our goal, as we close in on six million users by end of year, is to continue aggressively integrating leading apps, turning our dashboard into the mother of all SaaS resources for the social business.”

This new set of apps joins the current group within the HootSuite App Directory, which includes applications from Digg, TrendSpottr, InboxQ, Constant Contact, Get Satisfaction, YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr and Orkut.

HootSuite Adds Adobe Integration

Allison Howen — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:15:00 GMT

A HootSuite integration with Adobe provides HootSuite Enterprise users with a new toolset for tracking on-site social media ROI.

The HootSuite and Adobe Genesis integration connects social media messages to website conversions and statistics, which allows HootSuite Enterprise users to optimize their social strategies and compare social media ROI against other digital channels.

The Adobe integration provides users with the ability to access metrics on social team members, social networks and social profiles to help optimize posting schedules. Additionally, users will be able to automatically track and tie social media actions to specific metrics, which allows for accurate comparison against other digital channels like email and paid search.

The integration measures message efficacy (how many on-site conversions were driven from a particular message), employee ROI (which employee is driving the most revenue from social), social account success, social network value (which social platform provides the greatest ROI per post) and optimal time of day for posting. However, the integration is only available to Enterprise users, so non-enterprise users must fill out the Enterprise demo form and talk to a HootSuite Account Executive about changing their plan.

“Businesses are in dire need of ways to measure social media ROI, and for the first time HootSuite’s partnership with Adobe will tell them where their marketing dollars are going,” says HootSuite's CEO, Ryan Holmes of the integration. “The partnership makes it possible to directly connect social media activity to a business’s bottom line, providing marketers with the necessary instrumentation to accurately test, measure, and optimize the impact of their social media strategies.”

The Adobe integration is just one of multiple recent announcements from the social media dashboard provider. Other announcements include an integration with social media optimization platform SocialFlow – which helps Enterprise clients manage Twitter and Facebook updates, the availability of push notifications for iOS users, as well as updates to the HootSuite Tumblr and Trendspottr apps.

New Tools Available in HootSuite App Directory

Allison Howen — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:45:00 GMT

The HootSuite App Directory, which went live in November, has launched application support for three new networks – Constant Contact, Summify and Formulists.

Let’s take a look at the features of these new apps:

Constant Contact – Enables HootSuite users to view results of recent email campaigns, and share campaigns across social networks, which extends the reach of a business’s online marketing initiatives. Users of this app can view the number of emails sent, opens, clicks and bounces, as well as view who opened and clicked on links, and which links were clicked on.

Summify – Users can control the large amount of news on social networks, as well as filter important updates into personalized digest summaries within HootSuite’s user-created streams. Additional features include the ability to view details of new items within summaries, such as who shared items, and the actual message that was shared.

Formulists – Formulists users can manage Twitter lists more easily and view dynamic, personalized list streams within the HootSuite dashboard. This app allows users to analyze lists and streams with a variety of features, as well as view and engage top fans, followers and unfollowers.

This new lineup adds to HootSuite’s App Directory, which already includes apps for YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr and Get Satisfaction. The new tools are immediately available to the more than 2.7 million HootSuite users throughout the world, including Basic, Pro and Enterprise users. These tools will enable social media managers to publish content and target more audiences across a larger number of social networks

Casting a Wide Net: Successful Social on a Budget

Allison Howen — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Social media marketers are like fishermen: posts are cast out like fishing rods, in hopes that the right bait was chosen to capture the attention of an audience in the deep blue sea of the social Web.

And while social media is a valuable marketing option, it can also be very time consuming. Furthermore, as every successful business person knows – time equals money. Therefore, when it comes to social media, it is important to make sure that one is using the right platforms, as well as has the right tools in their tackle box in order to monitor and manage the best and most affordable marketing campaign possible.

The Platforms

Social platforms come with different audiences and layouts. Since there are many social media platforms on the Web right now – with inevitably more to come – a marketer needs to choose which networks will be their brand’s focus. While marketers might catch the most fish with Facebook and Twitter, which are like the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans of social media, other platforms such as LinkedIn and YouTube are viable options as well.

It is important for a marketer to realize that quality is more important than quantity when it comes to social networks, after all, a fisherman can’t catch fish in a lake that he rarely visits. Choosing the right platform should be based on a brand’s social goals and expectations. For example, a brand that is focusing on location-based offers would want to consider using Foursquare, while a brand that’s focused on informing readers may want to choose a platform like Tumblr.

Nevertheless, a brand should choose the social networks that will relate best to its goals. The networks should compliment the content that will be posted, and above all else the platforms should stay interactive and social.

Saving Time, Saving Money

After choosing which platforms will be the focus, marketers will realize that interacting, engaging and creating content can be very time consuming – just like fishing. However, unlike fishing, marketers can use tools to help them manage social media more efficiently, and therefore cost effectively.

Solutions such as Tweetdeck and HootSuite are both options to consider when looking for a dashboard to manage social networks. Both of these solutions are free, and provide marketers with the capability to post updates, reply to fans and even schedule posts in advance – all in one location.

Twitter’s Tweetdeck dashboard allows users to update their Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Foursquare channels in one spot. Furthermore, the dashboard allows users to filter their Twitter feeds, clear seen updates, and monitor trending topics, as well as create groups for Facebook friends, share photos and links. The dashboard is also customizable, so users can view the information they want to see without having to sort through a ton of tabs or windows. Conveniently, this solution can be downloaded to the desktop, Android and iPhone or Chrome browser, which means that users can manage their accounts from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection.

Outside the Twitterverse is another social managing dashboard called HootSuite. This dashboard allows users to manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, YouTube, Google Plus and more. Additionally, users can view analytics with this solution, which is helpful when monitoring, at least as well as one currently can, the ROI on social.

Analyzing Success

Just like reeling in the big catch, analyzing social success metrics can be difficult. First, one has to define what makes a social campaign successful: is it conversions, a large following or engaged fans? It probably should be all three, as well as some other metrics like check-ins and fan growth rate. But aside from the weekly Facebook report that business Pages’ receive, marketers can get a more detailed look at analytics through a few free solutions.

Facebook users can use the business analytics tool All Facebook Stats, which provides users with a deeper analysis of their fans, distribution, engagement and content. This free tool offers graphs and numbers that will display easy to understand analytics so that marketers can determine which social areas have been successful, as well as which areas can be improved upon.

The social media marketing tool Wildfire, is another solution that is valuable for monitoring Facebook and Twitter success, especially for those with a competitive streak. This solution allows users to compare the likes, followers and check-ins of specific Facebook Pages and Twitter handles. It can be a very useful tool for businesses that wants to compare their own social success with that of a competitor.

Lastly, Crowdbooster is another tool that marketers can take advantage of to help them monitor the impressions, follower growth, retweets and influential followers of a specific brand on Facebook and Twitter. The solution even recommends audience members to engage with, as well as the best times of day to post for the most social success. Users can also post from the solution, which provides graphs and analytics that can help marketers decide their brands social strengths and weaknesses.

Gone Fishin’

It’s time to take that “Gone Fishin’” sign off the door, because with these free tools, social media can not only be a lucrative marketing option, but if the only investment made in it is a little bit of time, the ROI will be on an upward trend as soon as the first post hits the social sea.

HootSuite Reveals App Directory

Allison Howen — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:00:00 GMT

Social Media Marketers can now share content on even more networks from the social media managing dashboard of HootSuite, which has just launched an App Directory that allows users to add extensions to their dashboards in order to create a customized sharing experience.

The App Directory opened up with support for four popular content-sharing networks that include YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr and Get Satisfaction.

These integrations allow users to upload, search and comment on YouTube videos and Flickr photos, publish blog posts and comment or re-blog on Tumblr blog posts, as well as participate in Get Satisfaction support conversations – all through the HootSuite dashboard. However, currently these new networks are only available in an advance release to HootSuite Pro and Enterprise customers, but will be rolled out to all users in the near feature.

Furthermore, the new App Directory opens up opportunities for third-party developers to build extensions for the HootSuite platform.

“We look forward to seeing the unique extensions, mash-ups and integrations savvy developers create for the HootSuite App Directory,” says Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite. “Our rapidly growing customer base is eager for more tools to spark their social-media powered campaigns and build their brands online to drive leads and awareness. If you have an idea, I encourage you to apply for access.”

HootSuite Enhances LinkedIn Integration, With A Catch

Allison Howen — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:26:00 GMT

Hootsuite is enhancing its integration with LinkedIn to allow users to include posts to LinkedIn Profiles, Groups and even allow the set-up of job searches by keyword.

This long-awaited integration of being able to post directly to a LinkedIn Group from Hootsuite is making progress, yet one feature is only available for the enterprise platform.

That being said — here are some features that you can expect to see:

LinkedIn Company Pages- This feature is currently only available on the enterprise platform. It will provide users the ability to post status updates to the new LinkdIn company pages from HootSuite, view company updates and view company details through pop up profiles on the dashboard

LinkedIn Groups- At last — the ability to monitor, schedule and post discussions in LinkedIn groups, as well as save comments as a stream to follow conversations and share discussions with others by email.

Job Search- Provides the ability to create a list of jobs based on search results and preview job listings.

HootSuite Launches New Facebook Tools

Allison Howen — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:30:00 GMT

HootSuite, a social media managing solution, has released new tools to support its Facebook section, which aim at making monitoring Facebook campaigns more complete for HootSuite users.

The new tools include support for Facebook groups and events, enhancements for the pages and profile tools and a search option for all public postings on Facebook.

Here is a list of the new monitoring tools:

Brand monitoring- Allows users to track mentions across all public Facebook updates.

Photo Uploading- Features the scheduling and posting of images onto Facebook pages.

Search Streams- All public Facebook content is now searchable, which is a feature that is exclusive to Hootsuite.

Geo-targeting- Allows for targeting messaging by region or language throughout the world, however this feature is only available for enterprise customers. (see picture below)

Additionally, Hootsuite has also improved existing features such as the compose box, which features an improved interface for attaching links and photos, the profile picker, an auto-completing tool for choosing the correct social profile, and the report library, which allows the social analytics reports to work between web, PDF and print views.

“With the new HootSuite features, marketing and communications teams now can efficiently manage the complete project life-cycle alongside other important channels like Twitter and Linkedin," says Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite.