Social Media Automation Using HootSuite

Social media has become a key element in any well thought out marketing strategy. The growth of social media networking sites and membership participation has been phenomenal, and it does not appear that the growth will subside anytime soon.

Social media networking is here to stay, for a while anyway, and for any online entrepreneur to succeed, they'll have to explore and research to discover ways to fit it into their marketing scheme.

Social Media Automation

There are some so called "purists" who think any type of automation regarding social media is bad. However, there is nothing wrong with social media automation if it is done properly and it can save you lots of time.

HootSuite is a tool that works within your web browser, and many people use it for automating social media. This tool is useful for scheduling tweets, creating keyword and list streams, monitoring Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, and much more. HootSuite offers statistics so you can monitor trackbacks and click throughs right from the dashboard.

HootSuite Streams

The keyword and list streams are two important features of HootSuite that many business owners swear by. A keyword stream allows you to view tweets people make on specific keywords. The tweets include comments made by people you may or may not already be following.

For example, let's say you sell designer cell phone covers, so you would set up a keyword stream for that keyword, "designer phone covers" or "phone covers." Then you follow the stream, and you come across a tweet someone made who is looking for phone covers.

This is an opportunity to reply to a sales prospect and tell them about your cell phone covers in a tweet comment. You do not have to actively monitor Twitter either. You can check the keyword stream when it is convenient for you and reply to tweets as you have time.

Another feature of HootSuite is the list stream, which allows you to keep up with your important Twitter contacts. You can easily import your Twitter lists into HootSuite, and see them in easy to view columns. It also offers drag and drop functionality. You can organize people into groups, including both those you are following and those you aren't. You can then view the tweets these people make in the tweet stream on the list's page.

RSS Feeds

You can also feed content from your blog to your streams in HootSuite using RSS integration. Updated blog content can be sent to multiple social media accounts; however, there is a limit to the number of RSS feeds that can be created in the standard account so many people choose to use an RSS mixing service to combine the feeds.

At the present time, HootSuite is free to use for the standard account which includes 5 social networking profiles and 2 RSS feeds. The free account is ad supported so you will see ads when logged in.

They offer a pro account for $5.99 a month which includes unlimited social profiles, unlimited RSS feeds, and enhanced analytics. The pro account also integrates with Google Analytics and Facebook Insights and it is advertisement free. HootSuite is very simple to use and can save you a great deal of time in your social media marketing campaign.