Hootsuite has gone through a major rebranding initiative. Starting with a new logo and continuing through the Hootsuite webpage, they’ve taken on a more contemporary look and feel. Even the name, Hootsuite, has been changed to a lower-case ‘s’.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysd7uOQzlxY
And with the rebranding comes a number of cool announcements and developments!
Updated Hootsuite for Android
First, Android users, you all get a gorgeous new app today! Much like the iOS version that came out for iOS7, your new app now features saved searches, improved scrolling, swiping gestures and more. Check it out on the Google Play Store: http://owl.li/xBZkG
Updated Hootsuite for iOS
Second, not to be forgotten, iOS users, we get an update too, though not as significant. We get the new logo and a new entrance screen, but more importantly, we can now view Twitter relationship information. This is a great feature on desktop that’s been missing on mobile. Tap on any Twitter user’s profile on mobile, then tap the three circles icon in the lower right to access more menu items, and choose Friendship Status. You can see if you’re following that individual, and if they’re following you back – and even from multiple Twitter profiles if you have more than one configured. Awesomesauce!
Hootsuite Suggested Content
Third, and this is perhaps the most exciting of all the developments, Hootsuite has implemented a Suggested Content feature within the Hootsuite dashboard. Now, businesses will be offered a selection of article links to tweet out based on your past history of content and topics. This is a really interesting feature, so let’s dive into it a little deeper.
Head over to your dashboard and click on the Publisher icon (the paper airplane) to see your scheduled posts. Now, in the left menu bar, there’s a new option for “Suggested.” Now, it is in BETA which means that we’re all testing the feature now and helping Hootsuite to improve it with feedback, so be prepared for some bumps along the way. However, when I ran through it this morning, it worked fairly smoothly.
Clicking on Suggested will begin the process of letting Hootsuite know the kind of content you’re looking for. First, you’ll tell Hootsuite which social profile you want to use as a reference – this doesn’t mean you’re limited to that profile for sharing, it’s just the profile Hootsuite wants to analyze.
Next, Hootsuite will offer you three general topics that, based on your social profile’s history, it thinks you would be interested in sharing more articles on. You can accept them or refresh them for a new set. You can also type in different topics into one or more of the fields if you prefer to look for something specific.
You can now choose which social profiles you wish to send content to. There’s an option there to send you an email once you’ve sent all of your scheduled messages, which is nice if you’re using this to maintain a consistent level of activity. And there’s also a button to adjust your scheduling preferences. This will take you to the AutoSchedule Settings so it will use the same time and day and frequency settings you’ve already established.
Now, one aspect that I noticed was that when I selected multiple Twitter profiles and scheduled posts, the tweets were all scheduled to go out at the same times for both profiles. Normally, when you AutoSchedule multiple profiles, the tweets are staggered, so perhaps this is one of the bugs Hootsuite will iron out.
But once you’re happy with the topics and the selected social profiles and your scheduling preferences, click on Review Suggestions.
Now you’ll see the familiar Publisher screen with any updates you already have scheduled, alongside brand new suggestions from Hootsuite. It looks like Hootsuite will give you about 20 suggestions, and they’ll all have a solid blue border to the left ti distinguish them from your other scheduled content.
Review each suggestion. You can replace one, edit it to adjust the text or publishing date, or delete it completely. You can also bulk refresh or remove by checking the box to the left of each update and using the buttons above the list. Finally, once you’re happy with some of the suggestions, you need to select them and click on Schedule to add them to your queue.
This will return you to your Scheduled tab where you’ll see any existing status updates, and now your newly scheduled updates as well.
This follows a trend in online providers like Buffer and Klout to help businesses discover new content based on their interests and their audience, and it’s a tremendous time saver. Couple this with Hootsuite’s Syndicator app where you can bring in RSS feeds from your own favorite sources, and you’ll have an abundant supply of content that you can share with your followers whenever you wish.
New Hootsuite Compose Field & Social Profile Search
Finally, one development that has been gradually rolling out to the different browser platforms is the new Compose field. Social Profile selection is now to the left, and you can begin typing a network like “Twitter” and only see Twitter profiles, or type the name of your profile to call it up, making finding a single profile out of a long list of profiles quite easy. Hootsuite Pro users also now have a Targeting option where, when clicking on the globe icon, you can target your tweets based on country.
So all-in-all, a busy week for Hootsuite and Hootsuite users. If you haven’t already, I’d strongly recommend that you pick up The Unofficial Book On Hootsuite which will help you tremendously when it comes to understanding all of the amazing things you can do with the dashboard. It’s available now on Amazon for just $9.99.
What do you think about the new logo, branding, or any of these features? Will you use the Suggested Content option?
