Yesterday I talked about automating some of my Twitter efforts, not spamming followers and making sure that valuable content is provided. I must admit, I have read almost all of the Twitter guides available but I still have had to sort through this entire process before coming across a tool that I was comfortable with and really helped me grow my reach. And I don’t even think this tool was recommended by any of these “authority” Twitter guides to boot! This tool is not the end-all-be-all of Twitter tools BUT it is free, it is simple and it is benefiting my business.
So what advantages do I get out of using Hootsuite? Two of my favorite features are the ease of scheduling posts (and being able to catch my pending posts in queue at a glance) and their link shortener/tracker. I can constantly track what topics people are most interested in, down to the day of the month, and the number of times my links were clicked on any given day. Invaluable! After just a few weeks of using Hootsuite’s Stats feature you can really zoom in on the content that your followers really want to read.
They offer the basic features of more advanced tools like managing @replies and direct messages, link shortening, scheduling Tweets, spam reporting, zooming in on other user profiles, follow, unfollow, groups, managing multiple Twitter accounts, allowing several users to access one account (great for businesses), quicksearch feature, RSS feeds, threaded conversations and more.
The most powerful feature, that takes the cake for me, is the Hootsuite integration with Ping.fm. Now I am not one to get caught up in every single social media site out there. (None of us can afford to give serious attention to more than a few, quality social media sites.) But, if you could broadcast your Tweets to dozens of social media sites, why not take advantage of that exposure? You sign-up for the accounts one time. You customize your profile one time. You set-up a method for tracking direct responses and replies one time and BAM, you are connected and you have expanded your Web 2.0 reach multiple times over. Very powerful if used properly and used in a set it and forget manner.
I check my traffic stats regularly and I am 100% definitely getting more traffic since implementing Hootsuite than I was before. It has been well worth the effort not just for Twitter but for the dozens of other sites that I have integrated through Hootsuite and Ping.fm that send me traffic on a regular basis.
So there you have it. My favorite Twitter tool and how I use it to expand my reach across the world of Web 2.0. In my next post we’ll wrap up Twitter and move on in our social media marketing discussion. I’ll also keep updating you on my Twitter efforts in the future.
Part 5: Twitter for Business: In the End, Only One Thing Really Matters
Filed under: Social Media
JL I am following your lead and really grateful for your blog and this info, I have tweetlater in action now and will hook up hoot thing soon, it looks like it does a little more, I really needed the shorten URL thing it has open doors for my site links plus the info on what to tweet about so I do the quote thing and bits of info from the mags I read and place links. my followers have increased. I already used google alerts so I know how helpful thse are, a few times I found my company being talked about really ts lots of times and I can go to forum and jump right in, keep adding this info and I will keep coming around and who knows I might be able to pay you some day soon
scootermike