Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram … managing your social media presence can be dizzying at best, and a complete headache at worst. Maintaining an active and engaged social media presence allows you to network, research, collaborate and showcase expertise, but it can prove a difficult juggling act. All hail the social media management tool – allowing you to stay on top of your accounts with minimal effort, and maximum impact. This guide focuses on one of the most popular tools around – Hootsuite.
What is Hootsuite?
Hootsuite is an online social media management tool, used to grapple with multiple social accounts via one portal. With just one login and one interface for all profiles, it provides an easy way to maximise your social media presence.
Getting started with Hootsuite is straightforward. The free version allows you to manage up to five social media profiles from one platform. From here, you can:
- Monitor your news feed
- Post content
- Schedule posts to be published at a later date
- Review and respond to interactions
- Generate reports
- Manage lists
- Assign tasks to team members
Work More Efficiently
It’s easy to get sucked into the vortex of social media. With its constant generation of information and opinions, you can lose hours to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.
By using a management tool like Hootsuite, you can promote efficient working by establishing a routine. Instead of logging into multiple social media accounts several times a day, you can login to Hootsuite first thing in the morning and before you go home, to monitor your news feed, interactions, and schedule posts to be published at any time during the day. If most of your customers use social media in the evening and on weekends, you can schedule a post to be published at 8pm or on a Saturday, instead of being limited by your working hours.
Collaborate
If several people within your company manage your social media presence, then Hootsuite can be incredibly useful. If you stick with the free version, you can simply share one username and password. Alternatively, by upgrading to the Pro version you will be able to set multiple contributors with varying permissions.
Analyse and Report
If you take social media seriously, you’ll need statistics to monitor the success of your campaign. Hootsuite provides analytics and reporting so you can track new followers / likes, engagement levels, and URL link clicks.
What are the Alternatives?
Social media management is a question of personal preference. Interfaces and functionality change from tool to tool, so it’s worth trying out a few to see which suits your style of working. Aside from Hootsuite, why not take a look at Sprout Social, Buffer, TweetDeck and SocialOomph.
