Instead of visiting every social network every day and posting separate status updates, why not set up a social media hub where you can access your customized dashboard and monitor and post to them all at once?
HootSuite
HootSuite is a powerful social media manager with over 6 million users.
It will let you monitor and post to multiple social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, WordPress, etc. You can schedule and deploy status updates and tweets in advance, track mentions of your name, and view reports analyzing social media traffic. The application offers the Ow.ly url shortener for quickly making short urls to post on Twitter. And there are mobile apps available for nearly every type of device.
Here’s what you can do with some of the major social media applications:
Twitter
Use HootSuite to send and schedule Tweets, search what others are tweeting, organize your tweets by list or keyword, as well as monitor Mentions, Direct Messages, Sent Tweets, Favorited Tweets, and more in dedicated streams.
Facebook
Post updates, add images, monitor feeds, and more.
LinkedIn
HootSuite allows you to post directly to your Company Pages, Groups and Profiles, as well as create job search streams.
Google+ Pages
Share and comment on posts, search public posts and updates, see recent user activity, as well as view comments and +1s.
WordPress
schedule and cross-post content to multiple WordPress accounts. The publishing platform integration also allows you to reblog noteworthy posts and create a stream for blogs you’re following.
Create Your Own!
Start by signing up for a HootSuite account here: https://hootsuite.com
You will then be brought to your dashboard page and you’ll see that you haven’t set up any tabs or added any social networks yet.
Set up Your Profile
You can start by filling out your profile by clicking on the default owl avatar in the upper left corner. This will lead you to your profile page where you can edit your info and start adding social networks.
Add Social Networks
Once you’re done with your profile, click to start adding your networks. You can add up to 5 with the free account. You will be prompted to login to your social networks as you choose each one. HootSuite will then be authorized to access those applications and feed in your info and enable you to post to your accounts from within HootSuite.
View Tabs
Once you’re done adding your social networks, click on the Home icon on the left navigation. This will bring you to your main dashboard where you will see that HootSuite has set up tabs for you displaying different feeds from each of your networks. You can organize any of these by dragging and dropping them with the mouse. Now you can easily monitor what’s happening on all of your social networks in one interface.
Post Status Updates and Tweets
You’re now ready to start posting to your social networks. Click into the “Compose message” box at the top and you will see that it expands. Here is where you can write your status update or tweet, include a link to a website in the “add a link” box to be automatically shortened, and choose which of your social networks to send the update/tweet/message to. Also, if you click on the calendar icon, a scheduling interface appears and you can choose the time and date that your update will be deployed to your networks of choice!
View Reports
There are basic reports that are available with the free account of HootSuite. Click on the analytics icon on the left navigation and choose either: Twitter Overview, Ow.ly Click Summary, or URL Click Stats – Ow.ly.
Success!
Congrats! Now you know how to create your own social media posting dashboard, monitor your networks, schedule and post to multiple networks at once and view analytical reports.
The post How to Create a Social Media Posting Hub with HootSuite appeared first on OEDB.org.
