Social Media Tool Review: HootSuite

Do you find you’re spending too much time switching back and forth between multiple Twitter accounts, trying to keep up with the streams of tweets coming through by the hour? If so, you’ll almost certainly be interested in HootSuite, which recently won mashable.com’s award for best social media management tool.

In a nutshell:
HootSuite is primarily used to link Twitter accounts together, allowing users to tweet from one or more of these accounts. It can also do things like generate tweets each time you post a new update to Facebook, and display tweets as a threaded conversation. The video below outlines just a few of HootSuite’s functions:

Positives:
Some of HootSuite’s most enticing features are the ability to schedule your updates, monitor mentions of your brand, and track the results of your social media efforts. This last feature, which covers website analytics such as visits and page views as well as where your traffic is coming from, will be particularly interesting to real estate agents who want to see exactly what effect their Twitter use is having.

Drawbacks:
Like any online tool with both free and paid versions, HootSuite’s premium accounts offer a lot more functionality. That said, the pricing of US$5.99 per month shouldn’t break the bank. First time users might also feel overwhelmed by all HootSuite’s different features, however the service has created a quick start guide to address this.

Have you been using HootSuite to manage your Twitter accounts? Let us know what you think of the service in our comments.

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