Managing your business' social media so that it provides a healthy stream of coverage for your product can be a difficult task. There are countless conversations happening across many different platforms which can be near impossible to track. Luckily, cloud-based application Hootsuite can simplify the process; giving you the freedom to monitor and publish content across all your social networks in a number of seconds.
Hootsuite gives your business a standardised format for managing your social media. It makes checking for updates, mentions, follows and comments extremely time-efficient, which allows you to spend more time finding and creating content. You can add and remove streams in real-time, schedule posts to update across all your profiles and track potential contacts who send you direct messages. However there is, of course, a need to interpret the information yourself to ensure you make the most of the app - it won't just operate on its own.
Let's take a look at how Hootsuite can help you manage your social media.
Streams
With over 200 million tweets sent out every day it can be hard to identify and construct parameters for the twitter feeds you'd like to see. Hootsuite allows you to create your own streams with various filters, which help to ease this process. For example, you can easily create a stream which will only notify you when someone mentions your business in a tweet. Conveniently, if you have multiple streams you can arrange them onto a single page so as to see them simultaneously.
Scheduling
Hootsuite allows you to view your Twitter feed, Facebook wall and LinkedIn profile in either a single or multiple tabs. One of the major benefits of using Hootsuite, however, is the ability to schedule posts concurrently across all your social media profiles. This enables you to organise your posts in advance, and ensures your content is consistent across platforms.
Plans & Pricing
A FREE version of Hootsuite is available but has limited social profiles, feeds and reports; it is well-suited for small business owners who may want to test the app before purchasing an upgraded version. The PRO version comes with unlimited social profiles and feeds, integration with Facebook Insights and Google Analytics and up to an additional nine users. It comes at $5.99 per month but also has a 30 day free trial which you can use to compare the benefits against the free version. Lastly, the ENTERPRISE solution contains all the features already mentioned as well as advanced security and support, unlimited users and a built-in ROI calculator. Prices for this plan can be negotiated at the Hootsuite Enterprise homepage.
