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February 12, 2010

HootSuite – Use Twitter Like a Pro

HootSuite is a Twitter client developed especially for businesses and professional users. Whether you’re interested in allowing multiple editors to have access to your Twitter account, automatically posting links to all of your most recent blog posts, or tracking your influence on the web, HootSuite’s seemingly endless features make it the go-to Twitter client for anyone looking for a better way to manage the surge of Twitter communications.

Sign up by entering your Twitter username, and get started right away creating custom groups and a personalized layout to best fit your needs. Sort the users you follow into a more easy-to-understand system by utilizing the custom columns feature, which allows you to separate users and make special categories for people such as friends, family, coworkers, and businesses. HootSuite’s flexible layout allows you to reorganize your columns and feeds into the way that works best for your needs.

For users with two or more Twitter accounts, HootSuite makes it possible to stay logged in to multiple accounts at once. It allows you to give other users editing access to your accounts, and automatically posts RSS updates from your blog or website directly into your feed. HootSuite features extensive tracking tools that let you to measure your online influence and find out how many people are clicking on your links each day. For anyone looking for a professional Twitter client that makes it easy to manage multiple accounts, HootSuite is certainly worth checking out.

Practical Uses:

  • Send tweets from multiple Twitter accounts
  • Automatically send updates from your blog to your Twitter feed
  • Find out how many users are clicking on your Twitter links each day
  • Monitor and proactively engage with Twitter users talking about your company

Insider Tips:

  • Set up keyword tracking to receive alerts whenever specific words are used on Twitter
  • Create embeddable columns to use on your blog or website
  • Add the name and email address of another user to give them editing access to your account
  • Use tracking tools to see referring websites and geographic locations for the people who clicked on your links

What we liked:

  • Completely customizable interface can be changed to meet your needs
  • Ability to post a tweet on multiple Twitter accounts at once
  • Extensive tracking tools make it easy to see your influence on the web
  • Flexible groups and columns make it easy to sort followers and friends
  • Companion iPhone application is available

What we didn’t like:

  • Because of the sheer quantity of options available to a user, the interface can get a bit unwieldy
  • HootSuite is made primarily for business professionals, so it might not be the best Twitter client for individual users

Alternatives:

Company Info:

  • Launched: December 2008
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: Vancouver, Canada
  • Founded by: Invoke
  • Web site: http://hootsuite.com

Costs:

  • Free

Comments

  1. This is definitely my favorite twitter web app, the recent update with groups, linkedIn, among other upgrades have made it a pretty great tool. By far the best for scheduling tweets and managing multiple accounts.

  2. I was very close to dumping Hootsuite for Addthis which also provide in-depth tracking of url interactions and click backs, but this article is making me want to give the little owl from hootsuite another chance. May the best app win.

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