Twitter can be a useful tool in promoting your blog and making connections with other bloggers. It can also be a major time sucker. How can you make it productive for you?
I use a FREE Twitter Client, called HootSuite to manage my twitter time. If you have multiple twitter accounts, this is a must for you. Instead of logging into each account to tweet or retweet, you simply log into HootSuite to access all your accounts from one dashboard.
Though, there are many Twitter Clients to choose from, I’ve found HootSuite works the best for me. One of my favorite features is the ability to schedule tweets. This is probably the best function of HootSuite.
In the past, I would log in and see so many tweets from my friends I wanted to retweet. It feels spammy to retweet too many in a row. Instead, I can now simply schedule those retweets for an hour interval so each tweet gets the attention it deserves. There are so many uses for scheduling tweets such as reminding your followers of giveaways, special events, and more!
Other functions of HootSuite include:
- Stats when you use owl.y for url shortening
- Hootlet: Allows you to quickly “hoot” sites you are browsing on the web.
- Group Creation
- Multiple users if your twitter account has additional contributors.
- View user information from dashboard
Hootsuite recently released a iPhone application for download for $1.99. I’ve been using it for a week or so now and really feel it is valuable and as functional as the web dashboard.
Briana Carter writes about bargains and other money saving tips at BargainBriana.com as well as recently launching The Frugal Map, which connects readers to bloggers. She is an avid Twitter user @Bargainbriana and @FrugalMap.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Briana! Thank you for blogging about HootSuite. We believe the ability to schedule tweets and status updates is one of the killer features of HootSuite. And we got a lot more exciting features coming up.
Chris,
Ambassador of Happiness
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Briana Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Please let me know when you announce the new features! Would love to hear!
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Thanks for the great info.!
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I use HootSuite to feed my blog posts to my Facebook fan page, and just today realized that DUH! I can use it to schedule a “manual” FB fan page update. Love HootSuite!
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Briana Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Carrie – I wrote this post before Jenny at Southern Savers mentioned that feature to me! I think that is a great to we can manage our FB fan pages and twitter streams all in one place! Love the tab features!
Def would love to hear how others are using HootSuite or other social media applications!
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Melissa @SavingCentswithSense.net Reply:
February 12th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Ok, sorry if this is a silly questions, but…How do you get it to feed to your Facebook fan page? When I logged in to Facebook, it only wants to update to my personal page, instead of the fan page. Thanks for the input!
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I’ve been considering the iPhone app. Thanks for your input.
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Briana Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 10:19 am
I normally don’t pay for iPhone applications but this one was worth the $1.99 to me!
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Briana Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Tami – It is worth trying out at least! You may find you like one feature on one application more than the other. For me, I’ve found Hootsuite does what I want it to. For twitter parties and such, I’ll still use TweetGrid or Tweetchat, though!
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What a great resource! I’ve been using Seesmic for awhile, but ability to schedule tweets with Hootsuite just might win me over.
Thanks!
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Briana Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 10:22 am
I’ve never tried Seesmic so I can’t really compare. The scheduling feature is a great one, though! Especially to schedule reminders for your followers and for certain campaigns as well!
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Thanks so much for this post Briana! I just added this today, and already am blown away by how much time this is going to save me.
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Wow! I just hopped over to check out HootSuite and it looks fantastic! Thanks for the heads-up! I love the idea of scheduling tweets.
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Thanks for the info. I have been wondering which of these was the best to use. Does it work for like Twitter Parties and such?
Thanks!
Dian
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Briana Reply:
February 11th, 2010 at 1:07 am
Personally, I still like TweetGrid or TweetChat for Twitter Parties!
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Thanks for this tip. I’ve been struggling with how best to manage my multiple twitter accounts.
TweetGrid is amazing too! I was introduced to it at Blissdom for the first time.
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I love HootSuite for the Hootlet and OMG, I can update my FAN PAGE via HOOTSUITE? It’s my new favorite thing!
a
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