19/02/2023
Social media management tools allow you to perform all kinds of tasks to help you organize, schedule, and track your content. Hootsuite, for example, is an all-in-one social media management tool that enables you to plan and create content, schedule posts, listen to and engage with customers, advertise, and collect analytics. A tool like Hootsuite enables you to address all of the pillars of social media marketing in one place.
In this reading, we’ll focus on how to use Hootsuite to compose and publish posts. Then, in an upcoming activity, you’ll have the opportunity to practice using Hootsuite to create and schedule Tweets by linking a Hootsuite account to the Twitter account you created previously.
Open a Hootsuite account
To start using Hootsuite for social media management, open a free student account at https://education.hootsuite.com/. You’ll be asked to enter your full name and email address and create a password. Then, click Back to Hootsuite.com.
Link your social media accounts to Hootsuite
To publish posts to social media using Hootsuite, you’ll first need to link your social media accounts to your Hootsuite account. Add your social media accounts to Hootsuite by clicking the My Profile icon in the bottom left and then clicking Manage accounts and teams.
The directions for how to add social media accounts to Hootsuite vary depending on whether the type of account (business or private) you are adding, and on the social media platform type. Hootsuite supports linking to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Help and Resources section with “Add or manage your social accounts” highlighted
Select accounts to publish to
One of Hootsuite’s key features is the ability to schedule and publish posts to multiple social media platforms at once. Instead of signing in to each platform separately, you can use Hootsuite to manage activity for all of your connected accounts in one place, which can save you time.
To create a new post, select the Create icon from the sidebar, then select Post.
Then select the account(s) you want to publish from the Publish list.
New post section with a personal account selected to “Publish to”
Compose your post
After you've selected social media accounts to publish to, you can compose your post.
In the Content area, enter the text of your post. You can also include the following:
Mentions: usernames of businesses, brands, or people preceded by the “@” symbol (for example, )
Links
Emojis: small digital images or icons used to express ideas or emotions
Hashtags: words or phrases preceded by the pound symbol that indicates that a piece of content relates to a specific topic or category (for example, )
Text of post: I am so excited to take the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Certificate! [celebration emoji]
Hootsuite copies the content of your post into tabs for each social media platform you've selected. In each tab, you can customize the content so it’s optimized for your unique audiences on each platform. For example, you can make the post shorter on Twitter, remove the hashtags on Facebook, or remove the link on Instagram.
Add media
When the body of your post is complete, you can add media—such as images, videos, and GIFs—to your post. Adding media to your social media posts increases the likelihood that your audience will engage with them.
Hootsuite offers a media library of royalty-free images and GIFs that you can add to your post. Or, you can upload your own.
To search for media in the tool, click Browse your media. Then select Free images or Free GIFs from the menu, type a keyword into the search bar, and select the media you want to include in your post.
To upload your own media from your device, drag content to the media area or click Or select files to upload.
A media section with “Select files to upload” and “Browse your media” options shown
You can edit images in your posts using Hootsuite’s built-in photo editor. For example, you can add effects or crop images to fit a specific platform. When you upload a video, Hootsuite automatically formats it for each platform you’ve chosen to post to.
To make images and videos more accessible, you can add alt text—a brief, written description of an image with the primary purpose of assisting individuals who are visually impaired—or subtitles.
Preview and publish your post
After you create your post, you can select a social media platform tab and preview how your post will look on that platform.
Preview of Tweet as it would appear on Twitter
When you're satisfied with your post, you can choose from the following publishing options:
Post now: Publish the post to your chosen platforms right away.
Schedule for later: Select a time and date to publish the post. Scheduling your posts in advance helps you keep your social media presence active and publish your posts at high-engagement times. If you have a paid plan, Hootsuite provides recommended times to post based on your historical data.
Save draft: Save a draft of your post if you're not ready to publish or schedule it yet. Your customized content will be saved for each social media platform tab.
View your scheduled posts
You can view and manage your social media posts in one place by clicking the Planner icon, which is Hootsuite’s built-in social media calendar. Review your scheduled posts and plan new content based on what you already have scheduled. You can create new posts in empty time slots, and reschedule, edit, or delete scheduled posts.
Social media calendar showing a week of scheduled posts
Key takeaways
Hootsuite is a powerful social media management tool that you can use to save time and organize your social media marketing content. With Hootsuite, you can manage all of your social accounts, across different social media platforms, in one place. Hootsuite allows you to schedule and publish posts to multiple social media platforms at once and to customize your content for each platform. And by scheduling posts in advance and then viewing them in Hootsuite’s social media calendar, you can more effectively plan and maintain a consistent social media presence.
Resources for more information
Hootsuite Platform Training: Series of instructional videos showing how to use the various features of the Hootsuite platform
Add a social account to Hootsuite: Article providing detailed instructions on how to link accounts from different social media platforms to Hootsuite
Create and publish posts: Article describing how to create and publish posts on Hootsuite
The Best Time to Post on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn: The article discusses the best times to post on different social media platforms
useful links :
https://education.hootsuite.com/
https://education.hootsuite.com/users/sign_in
https://help.hootsuite.com/hc/en-us/articles/1260804251930-Add-a-social-account-to-Hootsuite -social-networks-and-account-types-0-0
https://help.hootsuite.com/hc/en-us/articles/1260804305949-Create-and-publish-posts
https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-facebook-twitter-instagram/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-create-a-social-media-content-calendar/
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