Twitter has been a revolutionary tool for business owners who maintain an online presence. Even though Twitter limits you to only 140 characters, it’s ability to reach a wider audience make it a MUST for every entrepreneur out there (online or offline) to create their own Twitter account and start tweeting!

Once you start becoming an active tweeter, you can use the microblogging service to identify and follow key people in their industries, get up-to-date feeds on the latest breaking news, industry trends, industry competition, as well as creative ideas for articles and marketing!

As you start to create relationships, you’ll have a boatload of information you’ll need to track. People you want to connect with. Developments in your niche on which you want to remain current. The stream of information is endless and can seem overwhelming. That’s why you’ll need help organizing all of it. There are various applications that even allow you to manage these feeds. HootSuite is one of those applications.

HootSuite allows you to efficiently schedule tweets, link existing RSS feeds and tweet them out, use Ping.fm tweet broadcasting, manage multiple Twitter accounts, track tweet statistics, and even allow for multiple editors so Corporate users can have several team members tweet under the same profile. Let’s take a closer look at some of the features.

Schedule Tweets

I’ll admit, I rarely use the scheduled tweet feature unless I tweet on behalf of a client and know that I’m not going to be in the office at the time the tweet is scheduled. After all, it’s a social platform, you should be around to engage and interact with your followers, not just push tweets out to them. But I do occasionally use the feature on behalf of clients when I’m scheduled for a day off and want to make sure their profiles maintain a certain level of activity.

Multiple Editors

If you have a Social Media Manager or Virtual Assistant who helps with your tweeting, the additional editor feature is a great tool. It allows your assistant access to your own social media profiles without you having to share your password and allows them to add your profiles to their own HootSuite account so that they can remain active on their own networks as well as yours.

Track your tweet statistics

You can easily keep track of the statistics of how many people have clicked your tweets. There’s a stat button that allows you to easily see the stats of all your tweets. It also gives you a summary of your most popular tweets.

HootSuite Integrates Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and Ping.fm

You can simply utilize HootSuite as a Twitter client or add other social media platforms as well.

At the bottom of  HootSuite, you’ll click on the  ‘settings’ tab, then ‘social networks’,  then ‘add social network’.  Fill out your information and up you go.

Getting started with HootSuite

Go to www.hootsuite.com and sign up for a free account, configure your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Ping.fm account(s) and you’re good to go.

Once you’ve signed in, a dashboard displays basic information for each social media other profiles.  You’ll be able to organize your feeds as well see if you have any pending tweets, @replies, or direct messages.

Share Your Thoughts

Do you use HootSuite or do you prefer one of the other twitter applications?
Have any tips to share for successfully managing your accounts?

Leave your thoughts in the comment area below.