Social Media Tools - Part 1: Hootsuite

Social Media and Marketing: My Introduction

I recently read (well, listened to) a book/audiobook called "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" by David Meerman Scott.  (GREAT book!) The book talks all about social media (blogs, social networks, etc.) and how they can be effectively used in marketing.  I found it fascinating and overwhelming at the same time.  There's so much out there now! Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, blogging... not to mention social bookmarking like Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Delicious, and more. Up until reading this book, I was content with my comfortable knowledge of Facebook and Facebook alone, having seen Twitter and other services as a waste of my time.

Realizing, though, how quickly the world is moving into all of these types of services, I decided a few weeks ago to jump headlong into as many of these services as I could to see what they were all about.  Hence, this blog, my new Twitter account, my Delicious bookmarks account, and more.  I tested it out in my personal life, and am finally in the stages of slowly implementing it all into a Social Media Marketing plan at work.

Monitoring, tracking, and managing a brand's name out on the internet can be like trying to gather an entire class of 5-year-olds on the playground after they've each downed a Redbull. New posts, comments, blogs, and articles pop up every second, and anywhere and everywhere on the internet.  In order to keep on top of buzz about a company or product, companies need to be able to find, take note of, and where applicable, respond to, posted media.  After growing weary of spending hours a day trying to hunt down all the buzz about our product online, I embarked on a new journey: figure out a way to aggregate all of the social media information on the web into the simplest form possible.

I am by no means an expert in the field of social media marketing (on the contrary, I'm quite the newbie!) but on the technical side of it (monitoring, tracking, etc), I'm starting to feel pretty confident and figure I might share what I've learned so far. There's a lot, so I'm posting it in parts.

Part 1: Hootsuite - an all-in-one social networking client.

I use Hootsuite for our company to easily manage our Twitter account and Facebook page from one, easy-to-use interface.  Hootsuite allows you to add multiple social networks to your account (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm) and manage them all from one place.  You can type a post and select which account(s) you want it to post to.  The interface is highly customizable and makes at-a-glance information from all your networks simple and refreshing.

Keyword Tracking
A powerful feature of Hootsuite that is particularly useful for companies is the ability to track keyword results from Twitter.  For example, One of my columns (not in the image above, but on my business account) displays Twitter posts that contain our company name or products.  Another column shows posts about competitors.  You can choose how many column display (1-4) and which type of stream shows in each one.

Tabs
If you have a lot of networks and want detailed info from each one, you can keep organized with tabs.  I have a main feed for our company that shows direct Twitter messages in the first column, Twitter mentions about our product in the second, etc. I then have a separate tab for detailed Facebook page info.  In my personal account, I have a separate tabs for Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In all together.

Built-in URL Shortening and Tracking; Photo Uploading
Hootsuite allows for URL shortening right in the client, and can automatically shorten URLs you type to make it easier to post.  Taking this one step further, however, Hoosuite will automatically track every shortened URL you send, and provide you with a chart of statistics about how many clicks each link received, and more! You can easily add photos to your posts as well, right from within Hootsuite.

Blog/RSS Sync
Hootsuite can sync with an RSS feed from a blog, and automatically post a message to your networks when you write a new entry.  I have it set up, for example, to automatically send a message to my Facebook and Twitter accounts with the title and the shortened URL of a new blog post.  Again, a great time-saver.

Price
Hootsuite is by far the best, most intuitive social networking client I've used (and I've tried a lot). What's the best part? It's free. You can't beat free.

Conclusion
If you use multiple services such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook regularly, you might want to check this out and see if you like it.  While I do use it for personal use, Hootsuite makes its biggest contribution when I use it for business - to manage our company's social media presence.

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Hootsuite is just one part of my personalized "Social Media Tracking Dashboard" that I've been building for our business.  Next time I'll write about free tracking and charting tools that make it easy to see at-a-glance stats about your company's Twitter mentions and Forum/Blog posts.

MS

Turn Websites into Apps!

Okay, so I'm a fan of freeware.  I'll admit, sometimes I spend a little too much time searching for freeware for Mac, but in the end, I usually find some pretty neat stuff!

The latest find is a program called "Fluid."  Fluid is a site-specific browser that basically allows you to turn any website into a "program" on your computer.

Take sites like Grooveshark.com (my favorite online music service) for example.  They offer a desktop client for their service, but only for "V.I.P." members that pay.  Not me.  Instead, all I have to do is open up Fluid, type in "grooveshark.com," and click OK and let it create a Grooveshark "App" on my computer!  Now all I do is open that application and a little window opens up with grooveshark.com already in it!  Magic.

Simple, but handy.  I recently found an online tournament manager to use in our game room, but didn't want to have to browse to the site and log in every time we had a tournament.  Now all I do it double-click the "Tournament Manager" icon on the desktop and up it comes!

If you don't have a Mac, Google Chrome offers a similar feature with their "Application Shortcut" option or you can use Mozilla Prism.  If you use a certain website often (Facebook, anyone?) you might try giving this a shot!

MS

Free Online Backup Service

So living in the year 2010 is awesome.  I love all the technology we have: the internet, laptops, iPhones, digital cameras, etc.  all make life so much fun, and allow us to do so much more.  One problem with everything becoming digital, however, is that if something goes wrong (i.e. our hard drive crashes, laptop falls, etc.) then we risk losing EVERYTHING (photos, videos, journals, emails, school projects, and so on.)

I have a 2 Terabyte hard drive at work that my Macbook Pro backs up to every day, but honestly, I'm even a little wary about just having that.  A friend of mine put all of his movies, TV shows, and other large files on one of his external hard drives, only to have it crash and lose over 2 TB of data!  Bummer.  According to some stats I've seen floating around the internet, it seems around 50% of people have had a hard drive fail at one time or another.  I know it's happened in our family!

As a result, I spent some time poking around various websites yesterday looking for some FREE online backup services.  I've used Mozy.com in the past, which is great, but they only offer 2 GB backup space for free.  The plus side is that they offer unlimited storage for only $5/month, which is ridiculously cheap, but for now, I am just looking for a way to back up the really critical stuff I have.

I finally decided on iDrive (www.idrive.com).  They also offer 2 GB of storage for free, but if you let them send one referral email to each contact in your address book, you get an additional 10 GB!  Sweet! I just used another Gmail account I had and removed all the contacts that I knew wouldn't be interested, and sent off a referral.  (Note: you have to have at least 5 contacts).

iDrive works on Mac or PC and automatically backs up whatever files you want, whenever you want.  Lots of great options and pretty smooth integration make it a winner for me!

So if you've got a few minutes, I strongly recommend getting this set up and get your important files backed up online!  One less thing to worry about.  ;)

MS

Spiritual Food = Literal Food! (well, sometimes anyway!)

Okay, well I kept trying to think of something cool and interesting to write about for my all-holy 2nd blog post, but nothing really came.  Unfortunately, I'm finding my life this spring to be a very predictable routine, generally starting off great with the gym, progressing smoothly through work with plenty to do and lots of satisfaction, and driving home with the sunroof open and loving life.

Around 5 'o clock, my life segues into phase 2, which is the "buckle-down-and-drink-the-fire-hose-of-calculus-that-will-be-thrust-at-you-for-the-next-two-hours" phase.  By the end of that, I'm generally feeling much worse about myself and trying to think of other career paths I could take instead of trying to get into BYU's business program. :p

A few hours of calculus homework to top the night off, and by the time midnight comes around, Phase 3 is in full swing: my emotional batteries are at a critically low level, and I'm ready to rest, wake up, and start it all over again!  With such a schedule, I feel it's a bit difficult to learn something "new and exiting" each day.

WELL!  After such a lengthy and whiny introduction, I will finally get on to what I really intended to write about tonight, and that is something POSITIVE, right?  :)

Despite my ridiculous amounts of homework, I decided to go to Institute (basically a once-a-week religion class) tonight.  It was a great lesson on faith and it helped me get my mind rejuvenated a bit.  Class ended and I was dying of hunger, having not eaten since 11 AM this morning.  Feeling doomed to certain starvation lest I spend $5 on dinner at the food court, I grudgingly submitted to the fast-food idea and began to walk towards the exit.  To my surprise, however, the large pack of socializing college students stopped in front of me, in line for what I assumed were treats.  I decided to stick around and partake what I was sure was just cookies and water.

MUCH to my amazement and excitement, the "refreshments" were a full-on meal!  Sandwiches, chips, vegetables, Costco muffins, Rice Krispie treats, and more.  I just stared at the table in awe!  I didn't have to go spend money for dinner!  All because I decided to "do what I knew I should be doing" and go to institute.  God is too good.  I do a little something that blesses me spiritually anyway, and He blesses me with food and the ability to keep what little change I have in my pocket.  I like that.

Anyway, I realize it's not really all that exciting, but it meant a LOT to me (remember, I was about to start the depressing Phase 3 of my daily routine!  That was the highlight of my day, and I will focus on that for the rest of the night (even if I'm here in the library 'til they kick me out.)  :) 

MS

Setting the Stage

Alright!  Here I am, writing a blog!  Never thought I'd see the day.  So as I've thought a little about it, I've figured out what I want to write about here.  The blog itself is titled "Building Life's Resume" and I think that fits what I want to focus on.

I was always taught by my mother growing up that "what you focus on grows."  If you focus on the negative, you will find more negative.  Similarly, if you focus on the positive things in life, you will find more positive.  How true that is!

Hence, this blog is dedicated to writing about the positive things in life, and specifically the things, large or small, that I feel make me happier, wiser, more interesting, more skilled, or improve me in any way.  Don't expect deep, amazing stories or accomplishments all the time - I'm keeping my options open to include things that do nothing but make me smile or laugh that day, or satisfy an insignificant curiosity of mine.

My theory is that if I am regularly looking for things to add to this blog, I will naturally begin to focus more on the positive things in life, and continue to be inquisitive, curious, and adventurous.  In today's world, there is virtually no limit to what you can learn, experience, or accomplish.  I am determined to do my best to live life to it's fullest, and build a "resume of life" that I am proud of.