One Stop Shop: Hootsuite for Social Media Management

Without worrying about the tens if not hundreds of social media channels available out there, let's assume you intend to brand yourself on a few of the most popular:  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Got an update you want to share? You can compose it in the first channel, and then proceed to copy/paste it into each remaining channel until you've covered your social media spectrum. If this sounds tedious, it's because it is...

Enter the Hootsuite platform! One of many tools out there for one-stop social media management, this is an excellent way to monitor and manage all of your feeds from one window. Each feed has its own tab, but the kicker is the text field at the top: you can compose one message and then select the profile(s) to post it! Offering both free and premium memberships, working in Hootsuite can streamline your approach and, more importantly, your monitoring of your brand's engagement.

A few other nice features included in the Hootsuite interface:

• Schedule updates (great if you are leading up to an event or planning a campaign).
• Use the character counter to ensure you aren't going over your limit (i.e. Twitter).
• Option to "shrink links" you want to share (especially helpful if you have that character limit).
• Add up to five feeds in Hootsuite Free - more in Hootsuite Pro (premium) - including tabs for keyword searches, lists, etc.

Remember, there's an online conversation going on all day, every day, and it's likely talking about you. It's up to you if you decide to join or not. It's why Social Media Matters.