HootSuite offers a professional and consolidated collection of Twitter-related tools. It is a website that you log into from your web browser from anywhere, not a program that you have to download and install.

You can set up HootSuite to manage one or several different Twitter accounts. From its slick interface, you can easily create and customize multiple tabs of tweets, and each tab can have one or more columns inside that further organize tweets. Each column represents some grouping of tweets, such as your home feed, mentions of your company or Twitter account, direct messages to you, pending tweets (that you haven’t sent yet), sent tweets, and various keyword searches for things you’d like to monitor. You can easily control column width, as well as drag and drop columns and tabs to change their order and position.

As mentioned, each column features a list of tweets matching the criteria you selected. Each tweet is accompanied by the photo/avatar of the tweeps (Twitter users like you and me), the time, date, and source of the tweet, and a group of buttons that easily let you Favorite/Unfavorite, Direct Message, Reply, or Re-Tweet. You may also click on the tweep’s name to view their Twitter profile.

Above the conglomeration of tabs and columns is a collapsible box from which you can tweet directly (from any of the Twitter accounts you set up in HootSuite). You can type your tweet, select one or more Twitter accounts to issue the Tweet, choose what day and time you’d like the tweet to go out, and even use its URL shortener (like the formerly mentioned bit.ly – http://bit.ly) to shorten long web addresses. So, HootSuite can be used to queue up multiple tweets in advance—for several different Twitter accounts.

For the more intensively-inclined Twitter user, HootSuite offers the ability for multiple users to log into your HootSuite account and manage it with various restrictions that you control. Further, it graphically tracks statistics about your Twitter usage, lets you monitor your company brand, and embed your custom HootSuite columns in other websites.

HootSuite is an excellent Twitter tool that we’ve been using for a couple weeks now with great success. I keep it open in my browser all day, and check it from time to time to keep tabs on my Twitter life. Take a look at it and let us know what you think!

Craig Samson

I just read a blog about Twitter and the challenges of leveraging the social networking phenom for business. (Click to read.)

I found this article interesting. It put into words what I’ve been unable to express. I’ve been grappling with how to use Twitter appropriately and effectively in the business community. But I keep coming back to the question, what does Fandotech have to say daily that will bring value to our followers? Turns out, according to this article, that’s the right question. On the other hand, would it be more effective to have my sales team tweet?

Having their finger on the pulse of the marketplace, and the needs of our clients, puts our sales team in a much better position to tweet more effectively and more frequently. Where as Fandotech would only need to tweet about very deliberate and specific events, such as maintence windows, network updates, status alerts, and product releases. This would be especially useful in the case of a network down catastrophe where only our cell phones could potentially link us to our clients. These instances would be rare, but I could see how Twitter could serve an invaluable service.

The article signs off with the following words of wisdom, “…remember that success is found online when you provide value to others.” I’m definitely interested in hearing how others are leveraging Twitter in the business community and/or personally to stay connected. Creative ideas for bringing value to our clients through our communications with them is alway appreciated!

Gillian Kenny