A tool for managing Twitter, Facebook & other social media
Monitoring your connections, updating your status and just staying on top of your social media presence can become a challenge as your numbers of connections grows, particularly when you have more than a couple of hundred connections.
Even for just Twitter, if you want to be able to connect with people and follow what they say, eventually logging into Twitter.com just doesn’t do it.
That’s where a tool like Hootsuite comes in. I’ve been test-driving it for the past couple of weeks and so far I like it.
What I like about Hootsuite
I really like the pop-up profile. It saves me having to switch over to web browser when I want to see who the tweeter is. It also allows me to Follow, Unfollow, DM and add to a list just from the profile, as well as showing their most recent Tweet.
The “show conversation” button is awesome. It appears below any Tweet that is a reply to another. No more Twitternesia for me, where I forget what I said to the person replying to me. But it’s not just for my @conversations. When other people I follow are having a conversation the button appears so I can view the entire thread.
Speaking of Twitternesia, the Sent Tweets column on Hootsuite is great. Then I can remember what and when I said things, ‘cause I can’t remember.
Scheduling Tweets is pretty cool. Now let’s be clear, I’m not a big fan of automation on social media. It’s about networking and conversations with individuals; you can’t automate that. But I have these bursts of Tweeting where I’m reading blogs and finding cool links so I Tweet a whole bunch at once, which may be annoying to followers or may cause others to miss some interesting material.
By scheduling these Tweets of links to blog posts by others, I can spread it out a bit. It’s also great for when I’m online at odd hours when none of my usual people are online too.
To make Hootsuite operate the way I like, I had to install Mozilla Prism which allows me to run Hootsuite as stand-alone program rather than viewing from within my web browser.
Adding other accounts and other users is something I haven’t used but can see how it could be very useful. If you’re Tweeting for an organization where you might have more than one person managing a Twitter profile, Hootsuite is cool for that. You can just add users.
What I don’t like about Hootsuite
This may sound simplistic, but it’s not as pretty as Tweetdeck. Also, I miss the new followers tab from Tweetdeck. It’s nice to see who is new and their profile all in one place.
I really hate that I have to do a second step to shrink links in Hootsuite. In Tweetdeck I can set it to automatically shrink links that I type (or paste) into message bar. It’s not a huge deal, just annoying.
The tabs in Hootsuite don’t really work for me. Since my user name is the same across most social media sites, can’t tell which tab is which.
Speaking of tabs, I kind of hate that Facebook and LinkedIn are separate tabs rather than just another column like they are in Tweetdeck.
Conclusions
I mostly like Hootsuite and will probably keep using it, but I don’t think I’ll give up Tweetdeck entirely, if for no other reason than to keep up with new followers. I think it’s easier to update my Facebook profile and page from Hootsuite and I really like the schedule later feature.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Have you tried both? What’s your opinion? Or is there another tool I should be checking out? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
I have tried both. I do like the shrink button as well on tweetdeck. My major thing I love about hootsuite is I can have all the facebook pages I manage listed and quickly send to anyone of them. I couldn’t find this feature on Tweetdeck it would only let me do my personal Facebook. Also I have the little owly quick add which is a added bonus.
Hi Andrea, this is Paul from the HootSuite team. Thanks for write up, we’re glad you like HootSuite! I just wanted to let you know that you can rename your tabs to your liking. Just click on the tab, and then in the top right, inside the tab, you can ‘edit tab’. There you can rename your tab and change the auto refresh interval. Also, if you want to have Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all in the same column, you can do that. Just click the ‘Add Column’ button in the top left of the tab and select which column type you would like to add. Tabs and columns can also be sorted to your needs, just drag them to re-arrange. Lastly, for monitoring your new followers, check out the ‘People’ tab in the Launch menu to monitor new friends and followers. As for it not being as pretty, keep an eye out as you might see some changes in the near future. For all other suggestions and feature requests, please visit http://feedback.hootsuite.com or hit us up at @HootSuite_Help. Thanks again!
I’ve worked with both and I am a Hootsuite fan. I find Tweetdeck is slow. I actually use Hootsuite because I am charge of my workplaces’ twitter account. So it’s official!
Paul,
You guys at Hootsuite rock! Thanks for the tips and suggestions. I’m going to dig into it right away and make those changes.
Kate and Rhea, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Since I’m a speed demon, Hootsuite does sound like it’s going to be my tool of choice.
Andrea
I use Hootsuite, and am pleased.
I have more than one twitter account and have Facebook pages. It just makes it easier to have it all in one place – though a little time consuming, I have made a column for the people I follow more closely on my personal twitter account rather than following the stream of everyone one I follow (maybe I should unfollow some of those people
)
Andrea,
Great article and you’re right…the guys from HootSuite DO rock! Way to monitor your customer feedback!
Update:
TweetDeck has now added scheduled posts, which makes it a little closer to HootSuite. I really like that TweetDeck has a new followers column. But I prefer HootSuite’s pop-up window when I click on a Twitter i.d. I can see the person’s bio, links and past few tweets.
I now find I’m flipping between the two tools.
[...] more than a couple of hundred people? You need to use an aggregator. Two of the top ones are TweetDeck and HootSuite. Which one is better? Read the Baby Boomer Entrepreneur’s review to find [...]
Thanks for the article. I love Hootesuite, but I agree with wanting to be able to see my new followers. I see that I should be able to do this according to Hootesuite under the Launch tab. Since, they changed to the new version. I do not see it. I think it was removed. Can someone verify this or am I looking in the wrong place?
The “Launch” tab is now the Owl icon to the left of the “compose message” box. But while I can find a list of my followers and who I’m following, I can’t see a way to identify new followers like in Tweetdeck. I’ve sent a Tweet to @HootSuite_Help. When they get back to me, I’ll let you know what they say
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[...] Boomer Entreprenuer: A Review of Hootsuite as compared with TweetDeck I mostly like Hootsuite and will probably keep using it, but I don’t think I’ll give up [...]
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[...] Boomer Entreprenuer: A Review of Hootsuite as compared with TweetDeck I mostly like Hootsuite and will probably keep using it, but I don’t think I’ll give up [...]
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