Tools of the Trade: Hootsuite
Social Seven ? Social Media Podcast
With Erin Cell of Socially Powered and Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor
July 19, 2015
Hootsuite is one of our top tools for social media management. Hootsuite allows you to schedule posts for all of the key social media platforms including; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and now, Instagram. You can also add images, schedule timing, and upload different sized images for various platforms.
Canva works with Hootsuite! Yes, you can use your Canva images within Hootsuite and schedule them out. There is a capture feature where it takes the image from a blog post and automatically adds the image to the post. . There is an additional functionality to add pictures to different albums and multiple images.
The reporting offered through Hootsuite is a little pricey. However, the overviews are free and can provide you with a simple snapshot. Reports can be setup to distribute on a schedule via email automatically. In addition, clients can be notified when a post goes out through the tool.
The bulk import option is a lifesaver, especially for Twitter users. Sometimes it can be finicky, but overall it saves quite a bit of time. Hootsuite offers an option to import a .CSV file of tweets to go out on a schedule. This is great for social media content managers to reuse or repurpose content. Twitter is a constantly moving platform, so it?s unlikely followers will ever notice the content has been posted previously.
Free or paid version of Hootsuite? It?s a reasonable fee for the ease of use and benefits you receive. I?m paying about $8/month and have numerous accounts connected. In addition, there are over 180 apps within the site. Users can also upload a video from YouTube into Hootsuite.
Hootsuite recently added functionality with Instagram! WOOHOO! You can now schedule your Instagram posts in Hootsuite and it will remind you when it?s time to post to Insta. Hootsuite has also added the ability to monitor and engage with your customer, competitors, and industry through the platform!
The question was asked: Do you schedule Facebook posts through Hootsuite? Is there a difference in reach and engagement when posting through the tool?
Short answer is, it depends on the type of post. Rumor has it Facebook penalizes account owners who schedule posts through other sites or tools because they want users to natively post directly from the site. However, Facebook scheduler doesn?t always work and you can count on Hootsuite posting the content as scheduled. This is still a bit of uncharted territory so be sure to monitor engagement when using Hootsuite and compare it against what you receive when you post to Facebook natively.
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