In a previous post I mentioned the HootSuite dashboard, and what it has to offer. Recently they added new gadgets to the dashboard, and upgraded the interface. I am pretty excited about these new and improved features, because they consolidate several routine activities, and provide new capabilities for social media activites. The new features include Geo-Searchable tool, Themes, Google Analytics, Re-tweets, and Language preferences.

The Geo-Searchable tool allows users to filter the search and information by your geographic location. For example- say you want to find out what people are tweeting about in your industry or particular area of interest, in your geographic area. The search box pops up with all of your results; from here you can follow them, re-tweet, add to favorites, reply, or send a direct message. I find this new tool to be very useful when it comes to looking for specific topics that are currently hot or trending to the top discussions. 

HootSuite is beefing up its language options, having recently added the Japanese language as an option, with many more to come! While I prefer the English option for my posting, I think it is great to add language options because HootSuite will be a tool that anyone can use.

The re-tweet (RT) option has also been upgraded to allow you to automatically re-tweet, which saves you time. You can still use the old RT method, but I much prefer the automatic re-tweet button, because you waste characters on the RT, and it’s just easier to use.

HootSuite created new themes for your dashboard to mix it up a little. The new themes include blue steel, classic and magnum. I prefer the magnum theme, it’s bold and everything stands out on my dashboard.

The new feature that I benefit from the most is integration of Google Analytics within the dashboard. Now within the Stats tab I can access my Google Analytics along with the summary and individual messages. I really like this new feature! I can view analytics quickly within the same dashboard that I do everything else. And if you have multiple Google Analytics accounts, you can link all accounts into HootSuite’s dashboard. This is sweet!

Clearly HootSuite is on the move to build out their product. So far, they are on the right track by expanding features that combine activities and resources to combine a series of related and routine activities into a single dashboard, which is a real time saver. I hope to see more work on their integration with Facebook. I’ll keep you posted.

Alexandra Talucci
Marketing Associate
RedZebraWorks

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There are many tools available to use for social media and for Twitter in particular. One tool that I use on a daily basis is HootSuite. HootSuite is a dashboard that allows you to monitor multiple profiles at once. I simply login to one dashboard and manage multiple accounts in one space, which is great since I constantly have ten plus tabs open on my computer.

HootSuite allows you to monitor keywords, statistics, schedule messages to be sent out, use a URL shortening tool, and monitor conversations of the people you are following.

The social media accounts that you can link through HootSuite include Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Page, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress, MySpace, and Foursquare. Within these accounts you can link multiple Twitter accounts such as a personal account and multiple client accounts, along with pages such as a personal Facebook and a company Facebook Page.

So in one place you are able to manage all of these accounts and you post to them all at once.

I really like the shortening tool. It’s convenient and makes it easy to keep your posts within the 140 characters of a Twitter post. This is a practical tool for me, because I don’t have to be logged into each Twitter account to make a post. Talk about a time saver!

One of my favorite discoveries is that HootSuite’s shortening tool also tracks the metrics of my posts through the HootSuite shortening tool. This allows me to view how many people clicked on the link and on which specific date. This is a quick way to see how people are responding to the material that you are posting. Unfortunately this feature only tracks Twitter metrics right now.

If you find that you’re constantly logging in and out of accounts to post content, then sign up today for a free account with HootSuite. You can get off to a quick start by watching this useful webinar.

Alexandra Talucci
Marketing Associate
RedZebraWorks

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