Monday, July 20, 2015

Social Media Basics for Writers, Part VII - Get Started with Hootsuite


This is our first lesson in Hootsuite. This is the way I manage my social media in 30 minutes a day.

If you're looking for links for previous posts in this series, they're now at the bottom of the post. Now onward with Hootsuite!

I get up every morning and go to my inbox (because that’s where I receive notifications of new blog posts and Internet articles). I look through the posts and decide what my audience will find valuable. 
Then I schedule the posts to post throughout the day. That takes me about 20 minutes.

Then, several times a day (about every hour or hour-and-a-half) I check my Hootsuite account to see if anyone has mentioned me, or answered a question. I can rejoin the conversation and have meaningful dialogue without being chained to the Internet all day.

Now, the best way to explain how to set up Hootsuite is to walk you through it, step by step. 
Set Up Your Account
First, go to www.Hootsuite.com and set up a FREE, personal account. Start with a free account and if you need more, you can move to the paid version. For most, the free account does everything needed. The only difference between the paid and free version is how many platforms you can have. The free version offers 3, the paid offers many more.

Once you have that done, you can move on to the steps below.

Adding Social Networks
Adding additional social networks to your Hootsuite page is simple. All you need to do is click on your picture in the sidebar. This will give you the menu pictured in the screenshot below.

You can see that I currently have one Twitter profile, three Facebook profiles, and one Google + profile. If I wanted to add a profile, I’d first have to delete one of these because the free version of Hootsuite only allows you five profiles.

Deleting a profile is also simple. Click on a profile and a COG icon appears. Click the COG icon and you’ll get the dropdown menu you see pictured in the screenshot below when I clicked on the BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS profile.



One other thing you can do with this dropdown menu is SYNC AVATAR. Your avatar is the picture that appears with a particular social media profile. You’ll notice on the screenshot above that my Facebook Author Profile, doesn’t have a picture. For some reason, it disappeared. All I had to do to get it to reappear was to click on SYNC AVATAR.

Personalizing Streams
Another one of my favorite options in Hootsuite is the ability to decide what streams I want and where I want them. For those not familiar with Hootsuite, a stream is a column of information. It can be from any of your social media profiles, Twitter, Facebook. LinkedIn, Google +, whichever you choose. Below is a screenshot of how I have my first three streams set up.


As you can see, the first three streams I have are:
  • My main Twitter feed.
  • A mention column that tells me when someone mentions me on Twitter.
  • All my scheduled social media updates. 

Here’s how to customize which streams you have show up on your page. There is a limit on the number of streams you can have on a Hootsuite tab. You can only have ten. But personally, I don’t find a need for near that many.

To customize your streams, you’ll first click on ADD STREAM. This will bring up a pop-up window. You can see mine in the screenshot below.



You can customize your streams within each of your social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, etc) You can also do a search for a topic or keyword, and you can compose a list within this application. I recommend you take time to play around with this part of Hootsuite to get familiar with the hundreds of combinations and options.

You can change the order your streams appear on the screen by clicking on the blue header at the top of the stream and dragging them where you want them to go.

And, if you decide you no longer want a specific stream, click on the arrow on the right corner of the stream’s blue header and choose DELETE STREAM.

With these basics, you’ll be able to personalize your Hootsuite page to make interacting on different social media networks simpler.

Now it’s your turn. Ask any questions you have in the comments section and also let us in on any tips you have when managing your Hootsuite account.

Don’t forget to join the conversation!
Blessings,

15 comments:

  1. Thanks for this and I look forward to the next informative article. So far I only use Hootsuite to schedule posts in advance. I shall play around a bit and see what else I can use it for.

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    1. Mary, there is a lot you can do. In the next post, I'm going to share how to set up streams so they're topically driven and give you the content you're interested in. Thanks for stopping by, Blessings, E

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  2. Thanks for the helpful explanations. I've had trouble getting going on Hootsuite, mainly due to procrastination.

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    1. Ginger, it's hard to start something when it feels like we're adding to our workload. The cool thing about Hootsuite is that it diminishes our workload. Hang in there! Blessings, E

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  3. I have been using hootsuite to schedule my updates and to post my blog to facebook and twitter since I attended your class at the Carolina Christian Writers Conference. Then two weeks ago my wordpress stream stopped loading on hootsuite. I did all of the Help hints and an email chat with hootsuite and have gotten no answers. Has anyone else had this problem?

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    1. Jennifer, I'm not sure what you mean by "stopped loading" on Hootsuite. Were you using the automated feature to automatically post your blog to social media through hootsuite? If so, that's not an option I recommend. I suggest that every update you schedule through Hootsuite be one that you've composed yourself. Forgive me if I've misunderstood what you're referring to. I'd love to know more! Blessings, E

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  4. I'm off to try it! I got released from jury duty. I'm kind of bummed. I thought it would be a great experience for a writer, but I did get a lot of notes on the people I spent the morning with. :o)

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    1. Ane, let me know if you need help! Blessings, E

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  5. Thanks!! And I just tried to share on Twitter with the links, but there's an error. Could be on my end. :/ Will try again with the Twitter button.

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    1. Julie, it appears to be working. I'm not sure what was going on. Thanks for the heads up! Blessings, E

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  6. Edie, I quit using Hootsuite because I couldn't get posts to go out. I scheduled them but they wouldn't go out or the wrong thing would go to Twitter. I got frustrated with it and quit. :-(

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    1. Marcie, I'm not sure what to tell you. There are a lot of things that can keep your posts from going out. The biggest is that the connection between Hootsuite and that social media network isn't complete. For example, when FB made some changes, I had to go back in and verify (reconnect) FB with Hootsuite. I don't know what you mean by "the wrong thing would go to Twitter." Did you mean a FB post would go to Twitter or that Hootsuite sent out something it made up? If you have FB and Twitter connected to each other then something you only scheduled on Hootsuite to go to FB would still go to Twitter. If you could send me a detailed email, I'm happy to help you sort this out. ediegmelson@gmail.com Blessings, E

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  7. Edie, thanks for this helpful post. I've got Hootsuite set up and have my Twitter, Facebook, and Linked for my connected networks. I also have a Google+ account but when I cliick to add it I'm told I don't have any 'pages' there. How do I get that linked?

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    1. Peggy, because of Google+ rules, only a Google+ PAGE can be connected with Hootsuite. I have a series of posts about using Google+ that can help you set up a page. Blessings, E

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  8. Thank you Edie! I've had 'learn Hootsuite' on my list of things to do for a year and I didn't know where to start. Your post got me going! I've set up my account and await the next post about Hootsuite. THANK YOU! And thank you to Cherrilynn Brisbano for introducing me to your blog.

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