How to Streamline Your Social Media Participation Using HootSuite
If you’re looking to streamline your social media strategy, HootSuite can save you time, effort and money by helping you post to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress & Mixi simultaneously. If you’re like me, you want to make sure you’ve got your bases covered when posting to your social media channels, but let’s be honest… it can be a pain in the butt. Even if you’re efficient, it can be very time consuming. HootSuite has assembled a fairly easy to understand user interface that allows you to do many of the “daily grind” quickly, easily and free. Gone are the days of writing a blog and opening all of your social media channels and manually posting to each.Here are some great advantages to this service:
- Post to 5 social media channels all at once instantly.
- Schedule future posts to your social media channels.
- Monitor feedback and posts to your channels on 1 screen.
Although this is a great tool you can use to streamline your social media, there are a few drawbacks to this service:
- Posts to Google+ are not currently supported when using the HootSuite mobile app.
- Your hashtags are shown on networks that support it, (Facebook, Twitter, Google+), but will post as just text on LinkedIn which currently does not support it.
- If you want to track the analytics of views and clicked links in your posts you must use Hootsuite’s “ow.ly” link shortener, or sign up for the “Pro” or “Enterprise” service.
Some would also say that using the Hootsuite ow.ly link shortener reveals that you are using a social media “dashboard” which might suggest that you aren’t engaged with your audience, thus defeating the purpose of social media. I would respectfully disagree, and propose that is a tool designed to manage rather than circumvent interaction.
President & Founder – Everest Legal Marketing, LLC
Doug Bradley is the Founder and CEO of Everest Legal Marketing. Doug has over a decade of experience specifically in legal marketing, and foremost with expertise in Search Engine Optimization for law firms. Doug has been quoted on numerous websites, co-hosted many MCLE sessions, and has advised law firms of all sizes on the topic of effective marketing and ethical SEO strategies.
