Before I disappeared to France for 3 weeks, where I had no expectation of regular access to the internet (without rather expensive data fees), I sent out a tweet (from @drbexl) asking for recommendations of software to use. I’d heard of Tweetlater, now SocialOomph, and that did to do what I needed, but most recommendations came through for Hootsuite, so after trialling that (and another piece of software for which I have forgotten the name right now – it’ll come back to me!), I found that Hootsuite did what I wanted in the most intuitive way. I run multiple Twitter accounts, 3 of my own, and 2 on behalf of other groups, and it’s so much easier to use one piece of software to bounce between the accounts, rather than having to log in and out of the traditional Twitter interface.
Multi-Posting:
If you have a message which would be suitable to post across more than one accounts, having written your post (remember, 140 characters or less), then all you need to do is tick the accounts, and the message will appear in both feeds. The images should automatically de-tick after posting, otherwise I would say remember to untick, as you really don’t want to forget and be sending inappropriate tweets for the stream you have planned.
URL Shortening/Attachments:
Compose the tweet as per usual in the 140 character box. When you reach the point at which you wish to insert your URL (web address), then click “shrink it”, and a shortened URL of approximately 17 characters will appear. Continue typing and press SEND. (There are also a number of statistical features available – to return to those later).
To add images or documents to your tweet (new this week), use the buttons on the left hand side of the URL box, far left for images, near side for documents. It will take you to “My Documents”, from where you can select appropriate attachments, which will appear as follows:
Pending Tweets:
Now, this is the tool I REALLY wanted, and has been great, and I was able to set up tweets weeks in advance, and have started using this even whilst I’m here, to spread out my tweets a little more, and keep me online at times when the other half of the world is awake (although I’m quite often awake in good times for USA/Oz/NZ!), although I believe that Twitter is at its best when you are using it in the here and now (and in another blog post, will talk about Twitterfon, which I use on my iPhone), and truly interacting with others, rather than feeding out information!
Simply write your tweet, select the profile you wish to use, and press ‘Send Later’, and select any time, so long as it’s at least 5 minutes in the future. I’ve only ever had one of these fail, when Hootsuite undertook a planned downtime, and I’d set the tweet so far in advance Ihadn’t connected the dates – but Hootsuite tells you which haven’t been successful, so if appropriate, you can re-send.
There are a number of other features which I will return to in future blogs, but for now follow the Hootsuite blog, or watch: