Hootsuite is often a crowd favorite when it comes to managing several social media accounts at once. One of the reasons it appealed to people over Tweetdeck was that you didn’t have to install anything on your computer, but now there are web applications for that as well. Corbin Haresnape at Brazen Careerist was seeking some information for his community about using Hootsuite to manage your online persona, and passively seek jobs through social media. While this will not be all encompassing, social media has become a new way to network with employers that you may be interested in working with, and Hootsuite effectively allows you to do so.
Getting Connected
The first thing you need to do besides creating a Hootsuite account is to add all of your social media accounts. For the free version you can manage five accounts, two RSS feeds and are unable to have team members. If you want more than one person to use Hootsuite to manage a particular account you have to have team members, which means you need to upgrade to the pro version. There is a cost associated with adding team members as well. For this particular example you will be viewing my pro account affiliated with managing GovWin, but I have 12 accounts currently attached to Hootsuite associated with Play This, a non-profit, and personal ones.
Tips for Using Hootsuite
I’ll keep the text short and show you a quick video tour of Hootsuite pro while highlighting the different ways to passively seek jobs. I will also be covering the items discussed below.
Filter Streams by Keyword –
Hootsuite gives you the option to filter through certain feeds based on a keyword you enter. For example you may want to find a new job, but all you want to see are tweets listing a particular position or field. At the top right of the stream is a down arrow, select the arrow, Filter by…, then keyword from the new dropdown menu. From here you can type in a particular area of interest or title that you may be seeking. Unfortunately the keyword search is not boolean friendly, so you can’t exclude specific terms.
Filter Streams by Klout -
I’m not the biggest fan of Klout, however if you created a designated stream to follow a hashtag or current event this can be useful. Once again you need to locate the down arrow at the top right of the stream, select Filter by…, and then choose Klout Score. This can be particularly useful if you are participating in a job chat and want to find major influencers.
User Insight -
By clicking on a Twitter username you will be able to view tweets mentioning them, their basic profile info, Klout Score, tweets they have sent, tweets they have favorited and other networks they are connected to.
Embedding a Custom Twitter Stream –
Pros Vs Cons
Pro
- It allows you to connect the most well used social networks
- Scheduling tweets allows you to keep a brand socially moving even when you unplug.
- You can view more than one feed at a time.
- Sending a message over many different accounts at one time is simple.
- Allows you to participate in Tweetchats easier.
- It connects well with their mobile applications.
- Setting up RSS feeds allows your website to automatically produce tweets and status updates when you want it to.
Cons
- The built in analytics tool is ok, as a pro member you can integrate Google Analytics.
- Occasionally your scheduled tweets won’t send even if Twitter is working properly.
- They charge you just to be able to manage an account that someone else has attacked to theirs.
- You can’t manage Linkedin groups, but you cant send status updates to your profile.
- There are no alerts when you receive a new notification, Tweetdeck does this.
- The service is not exactly reliable, and even as a pro member they like to create popup windows seeking votes and other spam.
Hootsuite Stream Search Tips
| Example | Show results… |
| twitter search | containing both “twitter” and “search”. |
| “owls rock“ | containing the exact phrase “owls rock”. |
| ninjas OR pirates | containing either “ninjas” or “pirates” (or both). |
| super -man | containing “super” but not “man”. |
| #followfriday | containing the hashtag “followfriday”. |
| from:HootSuite | sent from person “hootsuite”. |
| to:invoke | sent to person “invoke”. |
| @memelabs | referencing person “memelabs”. |
| colbertsince:2008-07-27 | containing “colbert” sent since “2008-07-27″ |
| w00t until:2008-07-27 | containing “w00t” sent up to “2008-07-27″. |
unicorns  |
containing “unicorns” with a positive attitude. |
fail  |
containing “fail” and with a negative attitude. |
| bacon ? | containing “bacon” and asking a question. |
| rainbowsfilter:links | containing “rainbows” and linking to URLs. |
*If I sound odd in the videos it’s because I have some wicked allergies due to pollen.
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