There are always some great new social media tools that will improve your social media marketing, however, there are also some existing tools we can use more effectively.
When was the last time you took a good look around to figure out how to use Hootsuite? and see what new functionality was added over the past year or two?
The following outlines just some of the ways you can leverage Hootsuite functionality to use it more effectively.
1. Â Setting up a stream at a conference
If you go to a conference and want to keep track of the conversation the best way to do this is to set up a stream filtered by the hash tag for the conference.
In Hootsuite select the search box, enter the hash tag and then click save as stream.
After you are finished the conference you could remove the stream.
You could also set up this search just to search through specific topics on Twitter or search based on locations.
2. Filtering Content within Streams
Hootsuite allows you to divide up content into streams (columns of filtered data).
You can perform searches based on content that is within that specific stream.
If you select the down arrow (highlighted in the screenshot below) you are given the option to filter your streams. Â You can filter by keyword or filter by Klout score (a score produced by klout which attempts to rank people by influence).
This is handy functionality to find relevant information within the steams.
3. Â Creating streams within Tabs
Streams are the columns of information you display within Hootsuite. Â For example, you can have a stream which displays when your name is mentioned or for a particular hashtag.
Over time as you add streams you end up with too much information. Â Sometimes it’s better to have multiple tabs and then have relevant streams within those columns. When I click on any of the tabs highlighted there can be multiple streams displayed relevant to the tab.
4. Â Hootsuite List Management
Twitter lists are a great way of organizing your twitter stream. Â Within Hootsuite there is List management functionality that allows you to drag and drop people you follow (or follow you) into lists. Â This is an easy way of grouping your twitter followers. Â You can also drag and drop people within the lists.
5. Distributing your blog content using an RSS feed
If you have a blog you can automatically set up the blog within Hootsuire and get Hootsuite to automatically send out content for that blog.
1. Â Select the option for viewing scheduled posts and/or setting up RSS
2. Â Select the ‘RSS feeds’ option.
3. Â Add your RSS feed.
When you are adding your RSS feed you’ll need to provide the following information:
- Profile to send feed items to – This is not necessarily twitter, this could also be Facebook or other platforms supported by Hootsuite.
- Check this feed for new posts every – This will automatically check your feed to look for new posts, the default this is set to 24 hours.
- Prepend text for each message – You can automatically add text into the start of any post sent out.
- Include text from post in messages – this is dependent on the length of the post.
- Prepend text to each message – You may want to put some additional text at the start of each post.
- URL Shortener – These tools just shorten the links so that more can be fit in a tweet.
This is just some of the the useful functionality that is not used enough within Hootsuite.
What are your tips for Hootsuite?