How does Hootsuite work and can you really use it to grow your social media accounts? Does it help with automation?
I will answer those questions – and more – in this Hootsuite review!
Managing your social media accounts can be tough, especially figuring out what to share. Hootsuite makes it easy to manage your accounts, Twitter in particular.
Two weeks ago, I made an account on Hootsuite to try it out.
I have been playing around with it ever since and I wanted to share my findings with you.
How Does Hootsuite Work?
When you grant Hootsuite access to your social media accounts, it will use each platform’s API and stay logged in (until your password is changed).
From there, it is up to you to control what Hootsuite does with your accounts.
Hootsuite manages social media accounts, with a focus on Twitter, but it works on five other social media platforms too (Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Instagram, and YouTube).
You connect Hootsuite to your social media accounts and it provides with a host of features to make the most of the platforms.
If you want to expand your reach on social media, Hootsuite is definitely worth a look.
The free version provides plenty of features you can use to grow your account but there is a paid version too.
The paid version is ideal for teams as you can add multiple people to the same account.
This makes it easy for people to schedule messages far into the future so there’s always something being published.
I Tried Hootsuite for Two Weeks, This is What Happened…
Though these results aren’t so impressive, one could argue that two weeks is not enough time to grow any social media account organically.
I started using the service in September 7 and I tried to post at least five times a day (a combination of regular Tweets, Re-tweets, links to articles, and pictures).
The arrow is when I started using the service.
The above screenshot is from my daily Tweet impressions. There is an uptick after I started using the service but it seems to balance out.
The one thing I really like about Hootsuite is you can schedule posts so they’ll go out no matter what you’re doing at the time.
The scheduling feature is my favorite Hootsuite feature, and you can also see a preview of how your Tweets will look when they do go live.
The red circle indicates when I started using the service.
As you can see, the engagement rate does increase a lot, but then it drops, and continues dropping, until today where it spiked again.
I’m not entirely sure why this happened, maybe it all comes down to the content.
Images tend to have a much higher engagement rate than plain-text Tweets.
It is clear I have been getting more Likes, but nothing too impressive.
Still, if I keep at it (and I will) the stats will continue to climb.
Keep in mind my account doesn’t have many followers anyways.
As I earn more followers, the impressions, Likes, and other stats will also increase.
All in all, I have been happy trying out Hootsuite!
I mean, the free scheduling feature alone is quite useful.
Lets take a look at how Hootsuite works…
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Getting Started with Hootsuite:
Getting started with Hootsuite is really easy; connect your social media accounts, assign a password, and you’re good to go.
On the right hand side you will see a menu with links to different features and services.
I usually stick to the Stream menu because it has everything I need in there.
Publisher allows you to see all you schedules posts and add more to the list.
Analytics lets you make detailed reports that track specific changes, such as new followers, engagement rates, likes, etc.
Streams is the main dashboard and you can customize it as you see fit.
This is a feature I really love!
You can add a new “Stream” for almost anything inside Twitter.
Just keep in mind the more streams you add the smaller each individual box becomes.
I usually only use three Streams (my account, schedules posts, and a stream to track specific keywords).
One type of stream I found quite interesting is the “Keyword” tracking stream.
What this stream does is show you all the new posts that contain a specific keyword.
How does this help?
It makes it easier to build connections with people in specific niches by interacting with them and curating their content.
You can also come across interesting content that you and your followers can benefit from.
To set up a keyword stream, hit the Add Stream button, and select the Keyword tab.
The new stream will appear in your dashboard showing on the latest posts that have your keyword.
It is a really useful feature!
But the most useful feature, by far, is the scheduling service.
To schedule a post, find the little text area above the dashboard, hover your mouse over it, and the menu above will pop out.
From here you can type in a message to share, schedule a time, and even throw in some media.
To attach media, drag and drop the file from your computer into the text area and it will automatically upload.
When you hit the schedule button the message will be added to your Scheduled stream (which can be found either on the Stream dashboard or in the Publisher menu).
From there you can make any final changes before the post goes out into the world.
Using this feature alone can drastically improve your engagement rates.
Once again, it comes down to the type of content you choose to share.
Still, this scheduling feature makes it super easy to create a steady stream of social media content to keep your accounts active.
Not to mention you can schedule messages to go out when you’re away from your computer or traveling or just taking a snooze.
You can also curate content from RSS feeds, either your own sites or someone else’s.
This makes it easy to come up with content to share on your profile and keep it as active as possible.
My recommendation would be to link your website’s RSS feed as well as a few other RSS feeds from websites or bloggers you admire.
Or you can go all-out…
Make multiple social media accounts, connect them all to Hootsuite, and whenever you publish a new article on your site it will be shared to all your accounts.
There are some interesting strategies you can come up with to make the most of Hootsuite and social media.
Play around with different ideas and you will find one that works for your business.
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Does Hootsuite Work?
So to answer the question, does Hootsuite work?
Yes it does, and very well.
Its perfect for anyone who wants to focus on social media (something every marketer should).
You can go ahead and make a free account with the link below!
Do you have any experience with social media management apps like Hootsuite? How does Hootsuite work for you and your online business? We’d love to hear.
Leave a comment below!
Hi Todd,
Good review of Hootsuite. Years ago I used a SM management service that worked well. I can’t find it again now, so it’s probably gone, been acquired or something…I liked your description of all the features available.
A couple of questions, please:
Can you put the content you want posted, or does Hootsuite get triggered by new activity on the blog?
You mentioned several SM sites…does it handle pinterest too?
I guess playing around with it will answer most of my ?
Are there other SM managers worth looking at or eliimating and why?
Thank you!
Annie
Gone through the page and i could say that you had clearly explained the concept of how Hootsuite Works, really nicely done.
You made it easy to follow and understand how to use Hootsuite your advantage.
This becomes a beneficial concept especially for new marketers. They can easily understand how to leverage social platforms and ultimately, this can be a great benefit in developing a website.
Social media can be a full time job to monitor. Having Hootsuite can be a real time saver in the social media world with style of synchronization.
It seems to be the most practical application that online marketers can utilize.
Thanks Fatimah for your feedback on Hootsuite, it’s a solid service that will definitely help your online business grow.
I heard about Hootsuite and all along, I had the impression it only works with Twitter. To be able to manage all social media accounts, I think that would be so convenient and definitely one of the major PLUS points of this application.
I haven’t used it before but I may try since it has a free version. I used to think that while internet marketers may want to reach their audience via social media, perhaps an effective go-to-market plan is to focus on 1 to 2 social media channels first and expand when there is a sizable following.
This thought came about because I was spending a considerable chunk of time posting to FB, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ etc. If Hootsuite can post simultaneously to all of these, then I can cut my time and be more efficient.
You’ve got it Jude, that’s exactly how to use Hootsuite and I think you’ll find it makes the whole process a lot more easy and efficient.
Thanks for the feedback and input.
Thanks for this review Todd, I learned something about Hootsuite. I was aware of the scheduling posts feature but I didn’t know about the keyword tracking feature. That sounds like a great way of finding content to share with your followers.
I agree the best feature is the scheduling service. Posting on the different social media platforms is so time consuming and I’m well aware that I don’t post often enough to get much engagement. Now that I have a better understanding of how Hootsuite works I will give it a try.
Thanks again ,
Peter
Awesome Peter, thanks for the feedback and well stated. Hootsuite can certainly make the social marketing process much smoother.
Cheers
Hey Tim, very informative article.
I also used Hootsuite in the past and it was a great tool to help me advertise my online business on the major social media websites. No longer did I have to sneak away at work, trying to post links to my business on FB, but instead I could just pre-schedule my post daily.
So people abuse this software by using it as a affiliate link signup spambot, but when used properly it can help boost and maintain engagement with followers on the major social media sites.
Awesome Eric, thanks for your feedback on Hootsuite, much appreciated and good advise.
Thanks for providing such great review about Hootsuite.
I was totally ignorant about Hootsuite. From your review I got to know about Hootsuite and as a blogger it’ll be beneficial for me as I can integrate all my social network profile in this platform for better management.
Thank you again
Awesome, happy to help. Thanks for your kind feedback and hey, at least you know how Hootsuite can benefit your business.
The next step is to spend a bit of time there and utilize the platform to expand your social networks and influence.
Hi Todd, I am an aspiring internet entrepreneur. I have just published my first website just last week. And I understand social media element is important to promote a site.
Hence, I was immediately interested in your review of hootsuite. You did a comprehensive review.
Right now I am concentrating on writing content for my site. I am definitely going to try hootsuite next month. I am going to see whether I can Ieverage on hootsuite to direct traffic to my site.
So thanks pal!
Song
You bet Song,
Make sure you have all your social pages put together with the current brand you’re trying to portray.
A new site needs lots of content and then it’s important to share that content. So you need to develop those social platforms and I think you’ll find HootSuite to be a great tool in this area of internet marketing.
Thanks
Perfect summary of Hootsuite! I wasn’t aware that social media accounts could be linked in this manner, it’s pretty annoying having so many different social/business media accounts out there that need continuity, but require different logins, have a different format and take up so much damn time.
Awesome post – glad to see your tweet impressions have raised after using hootsuite! I may have to give this a try soon.
Yeah Kegan, you said it perfectly. This is how I’ve felt about social media for a while. It’s good to expand social traffic to your site and Hootsuite can certainly help streamline this process.
I’d heard of Hootsuite but had no idea what it did. I hope you keep on using it and post an updated article in 3 months and 6 months to see if the uptick in impressions and likes continues. To me, it seems like Hootsuite helps people with consistency in posting, tweeting, etc. As long as the material is ready, it makes sense to me. And, as a Mon-Fri 9-5’er, I can really see the value in scheduling social media activity ahead of time, so I can have info hitting platforms even while I’m hard at work in my day job. Good info. Thanks!
Exactly Alyssa. Hootsuite is just another great tool to improve efficiency and innovate one’s online business.
Thanks for the feedback.