Do you want to widen your social media footprint without consuming any more of your valuable time? Whether you are a web profits or internet marketing professional, or if you simply want to organize your Facebook, Twitter and Blogging messages, posts and uploads efficiently to save time, there are a number of management applications that can help you. So far, none of these applications can qualify as the complete one-stop-solution for every service. So you have to often purchase and run two or more of them. How do you choose which application will give you the ideal functions and services that you want?
There are at least four widely used applications now available - Hootsuite, Socialoomph, Tweetadder and Tweetdeck. Each claim to offer everything you need. But in practice, it does not quite work out that way. You need to cherry pick which of the functions you want from each application. So set out here are the functions from each applications that can work well to manage all of your social media activity.
And why not extend your own footprint with a number of solutions? This also stops you from having too much reliance on one application provider. Plus, it gives you the all-important spread-out programmed tweeting, which always needs a very prudent approach, in order to stop the dreaded Twitter De-Activation. So let's now look at how to get more efficient from each tool?
1. Tweetadder - let's you program Twitter direct messages but their real point of difference is a search for multiple targets to follow, based on the keywords that you select. Some great geekery into the Twitterland API gets you thousands of targets. Then you can program how and when you follow, at what daily levels. There can be a temptation to create a huge target list unless you are really limited with your keywords. It's actually much better to do this for one keyword, in small burst of a few hundred targets at a time. Then see the relevance of whom you are following and who follows back. There is also a neat app to decide how long you wait to be followed - and unfollow if you are not followed back within a day limit that you select.
2. Tweetdeck - this let's you display a number of your social media accounts together and then select the contents and fields that you want to view. Not that innovative in our opinion.
3. Hootsuite - let's you manage multiple accounts like tweetdeck, but across more alternative social media. It makes it easy to retweet and then track your own messaging. However, there are two points of difference that we really prefer about Hootsuite. First is the 'Hootlet'. You can paste this into your browser bar. It allows you to capture a web page that you want to tweet out to your followers, onto your Facebook pages, etc. It is very simple to add the page title, heading, reduced url and often choose a thumbnail visual too - all with one click on your hootlet button. Then you can select the accounts in your Hootsuite lists that you do, or don't, decide to send the headlines of the page to. It even let's you add some of your own text. And it has a box for you to add a secondary url, that you want to highlight to the recipient. It's brilliant for multiple tweeting of news or new information. But beware of two things that can get you banned from Twitter - one is using that secondary url to a direct affiliate link or cloak. It's much better to use your own web page urls and then carefully re-direct. The second risk to beware of is re-editing a hootlet, to highlight a high profile @username. And if you put this in a re-edit at the beginning, then Twitter's special control monitors will ban all your accounts in that hootlet. In a heartbeat, without appeal. Every one. Sotry to use hootlets to spread a broad level of new content to your audience. And give due credit to the sources of the pages. Second, Hootsuite lets you run programmed distribution of tweets. It's not that easy to manage, using excel columns and re-phasing all the dates, but it can let you run those important tweets out, on your terms when you choose.
4. Socialoomph - this is our favourite. It does not give you very good search functions, or much of an account-viewing interface, but it has a wide range of innovative functions, including multiple blogging. And it let's you run long lists of tweets and Facebook message programmes, for far longer than Hootsuite. The text files are much easier to set up too. And they will compress long urls for you, in their software. Beware of using the same url (even if it is shortened), in programmed tweets for more than one account however. Twitter will block that tweet across all your programmes and, again, you put that account at risk to de-activation. We love the cool Socialoomph function to shorten your urls, because you can select your own new codename to use across your entire web footprint and therefore stay close to your brand or subject. But once again, use it for your own web pages and not to just cloak those volatile affiliate links. You can also set up special email monitors, so you know when your accounts are favourited, re-tweeted etc.
So it's worth investing in more than one service, under their monthly subscription rates. Be prepared to need a few more hours per week to stay on top of your programmes, but it will be worth it, to accelerate your whole social interaction strategy to an entirely different level of impact and coverage.
There are at least four widely used applications now available - Hootsuite, Socialoomph, Tweetadder and Tweetdeck. Each claim to offer everything you need. But in practice, it does not quite work out that way. You need to cherry pick which of the functions you want from each application. So set out here are the functions from each applications that can work well to manage all of your social media activity.
And why not extend your own footprint with a number of solutions? This also stops you from having too much reliance on one application provider. Plus, it gives you the all-important spread-out programmed tweeting, which always needs a very prudent approach, in order to stop the dreaded Twitter De-Activation. So let's now look at how to get more efficient from each tool?
1. Tweetadder - let's you program Twitter direct messages but their real point of difference is a search for multiple targets to follow, based on the keywords that you select. Some great geekery into the Twitterland API gets you thousands of targets. Then you can program how and when you follow, at what daily levels. There can be a temptation to create a huge target list unless you are really limited with your keywords. It's actually much better to do this for one keyword, in small burst of a few hundred targets at a time. Then see the relevance of whom you are following and who follows back. There is also a neat app to decide how long you wait to be followed - and unfollow if you are not followed back within a day limit that you select.
2. Tweetdeck - this let's you display a number of your social media accounts together and then select the contents and fields that you want to view. Not that innovative in our opinion.
3. Hootsuite - let's you manage multiple accounts like tweetdeck, but across more alternative social media. It makes it easy to retweet and then track your own messaging. However, there are two points of difference that we really prefer about Hootsuite. First is the 'Hootlet'. You can paste this into your browser bar. It allows you to capture a web page that you want to tweet out to your followers, onto your Facebook pages, etc. It is very simple to add the page title, heading, reduced url and often choose a thumbnail visual too - all with one click on your hootlet button. Then you can select the accounts in your Hootsuite lists that you do, or don't, decide to send the headlines of the page to. It even let's you add some of your own text. And it has a box for you to add a secondary url, that you want to highlight to the recipient. It's brilliant for multiple tweeting of news or new information. But beware of two things that can get you banned from Twitter - one is using that secondary url to a direct affiliate link or cloak. It's much better to use your own web page urls and then carefully re-direct. The second risk to beware of is re-editing a hootlet, to highlight a high profile @username. And if you put this in a re-edit at the beginning, then Twitter's special control monitors will ban all your accounts in that hootlet. In a heartbeat, without appeal. Every one. Sotry to use hootlets to spread a broad level of new content to your audience. And give due credit to the sources of the pages. Second, Hootsuite lets you run programmed distribution of tweets. It's not that easy to manage, using excel columns and re-phasing all the dates, but it can let you run those important tweets out, on your terms when you choose.
4. Socialoomph - this is our favourite. It does not give you very good search functions, or much of an account-viewing interface, but it has a wide range of innovative functions, including multiple blogging. And it let's you run long lists of tweets and Facebook message programmes, for far longer than Hootsuite. The text files are much easier to set up too. And they will compress long urls for you, in their software. Beware of using the same url (even if it is shortened), in programmed tweets for more than one account however. Twitter will block that tweet across all your programmes and, again, you put that account at risk to de-activation. We love the cool Socialoomph function to shorten your urls, because you can select your own new codename to use across your entire web footprint and therefore stay close to your brand or subject. But once again, use it for your own web pages and not to just cloak those volatile affiliate links. You can also set up special email monitors, so you know when your accounts are favourited, re-tweeted etc.
So it's worth investing in more than one service, under their monthly subscription rates. Be prepared to need a few more hours per week to stay on top of your programmes, but it will be worth it, to accelerate your whole social interaction strategy to an entirely different level of impact and coverage.
About the Author:
Go to Web Profits Masters for everything you will need to develop and execute profitably your own internet marketing strategy. Join up with Socialoomph to manage all your social media here. This article, Hootsuite or Tweetadder? How To Make Best Use of Social Media Management Applications? is released under a creative commons attribution license.
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