Since my last blog offered you a few guidelines for incorporating social media into your marketing plan, I thought it only right that this week’s Cool Tool be something to help you stay on track with your efforts. After all, even if you find it fun and easy, managing your social media takes time, doesn’t it? I find that to be so true for me, and for many of my clients, too. So let’s see if I can simplify things for you a bit and show you how to use Hootsuite to help work your social media plan.
I have to say I was a bit blown away when I first learned that there are currently over 200 social media platforms out there to choose from. Imagine how I felt when I found out that there are just as many tools available for managing those platforms! Talk about mind-blowing! So how do you choose which one to use? First, decide on the criteria you need, and then do your research to see which one might best meet those needs. It’s also good to reach out to your colleagues and peers and see what they’re using.
Of course we can’t even begin to cover all of the tools out there, so let’s just take a quick look at one of the more popular ones—Hootsuite. Here are a few of the features that keeps Hootsuite at the top of the list when it comes to social media management.
- A broad range of apps (web-based, mobile and desktop) and add-ons (for Chrome and Firefox) makes it extremely versatile.
- You have the ability to save updates as templates, which reduces the amount of time spent preparing similar posts.
- Of course, you can schedule multiple updates in advance, and there’s a really nice feature called Autoschedule that will choose the time to release your posts in order to give them the best chance of being seen. This works well to help keep posts from appearing on all of your networks at the same time. How cool is that?
- You can shorten links, add images, files and even locations. That’s a huge help!
- You can set it up to receive an email notification when your updates post.
- There is a free version for up to 3 social network sites, which is great for small businesses or those just starting to create their social media presence.
Hootsuite takes a bit more time to set up than some of the other services, but it is such a robust system, it’s worth the effort for those who need or want all of the features it offers. And with the time you’ll save once you’re up and running, you’ll wish you had done it sooner.
And as always, if social media just isn’t your thing, partner with a virtual team that can handle it for you! Our Virtual Team works with extraordinary life and business coaches who are looking for a true business partner to bring their BIG ideas to into tangible, clickable reality. Want to learn more?
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