Why I like Hootsuite.

Keeping on top of all your social media accounts can be a bit daunting and rather time consuming. For maximum impact you need to spread out your posts over the week but spreading your time out across the week can distract you from other tasks and hamper your productivity. Thankfully there is software out there that can help you manage all of this. There are a few options out there including TweetDeck and Seesmic but the one I personally use is Hootsuite. It allows me to see several different social media platforms at once, it allows me to see stats on things like links clicked on and it allows me to schedule posts to appear anytime in the future. Best of all the basic version of this software is completely free.

The ability to schedule posts is particularly useful as you can set up what you would like to post for the week (or the month, however long you want) in one big chunk without all of it appearing on your pages at once. While it remains really important to continue to monitor what is going on on your pages so you can engage fully with your followers this can make posting to social media a much more efficient process.

The free version of Hootsuite has a few options around reporting as well. They are not nearly as in depth as those of the full version but it can show you how many people have clicked on specific links that you have posted. While limited it is always good to be able to get some feedback on which content your followers like the most.

Another neat feature is the link shrinker. This is especially useful for Twitter with its character limits on posts but it can also be really useful if you want to post a long, messy looking link. Put it on the link shrinker as you can see I have done below, hit the "shrink" button and you'll have one much shorter link.

I have not needed to use any of the pay features so far. I think for a small or medium business the free version of Hootsuite is more than enough. I could see the full version becoming much more useful when you have multiple people working on your online social presence and catering to a large audience. The best way to find out more about it is to sign up and try it out. It has loads of features that even I don't use due to the nature of our community but some of you out there might find really useful.

Have a look at hootsuite.com to see if you might find this tool useful for your business. For anyone that does give it a try I'd be really interested to hear how you find it and what you use it for the most. Just send us an email or leave a comment below.

Pinterest from a beginners point of view.

Spiral is new to Pinterest. I signed us up this week in the hopes of discovering a little more about it and with the hope that it could be useful. Both to our clients and to us here at Spiral.

At first glance it looks like a bit of fun. There are thousands of cool pictures already pinned up there to browse and anything that catches your eye you can repin to your own boards. Any pictures you see on another website you can also grab and pin to your boards with the click of a button (your boards are just the way you organise images by category on your page). It's like having an online scrapbook. The key feature I can see is the ease with which you can pin images from anywhere at anytime. From amazing landscapes to stunning culinary creations, there are great pictures of everything out there.

Spiral's Pinterest page so far. Check it out!

But why should a business have a Pinterest page? Well we originally wanted to be on Pinterest because we are a little bit nuts about the web. We want to try everything that might be useful to us and our customers. However it quickly became apparent to me the constructive ways we could use Pinterest. We could post a portfolio of websites or software that we've created so that others can see what we do. We can post pictures of things that we like so that others can see who we are. We could even post pictures of products that we sell. One of the great features of Pinterest is that the pictures contain a link back to the original source no matter how many times they have been repinned. I can see this being particularly useful for any business with an online store as images pinned to Pinterest will contain a link back to the original product page and (if it's a popular picture) the image could be repinned over and over again around the world.

Is it worth it? From a personal perspective I would say this is a great way to have a look at some of the amazing pictures out there and a great way to create your own online scrapbook. From a business perspective it could be a great way to get some exposure. A great way to display who and what you are on the web, particularly if your products are visually appealing. It doesn't replace other social media options but it does complement them well. Images have been shown to be one of the most evocative and powerful resources in the online world. Maybe now is the time to get a few more pictures out there of who you are and what you do.

Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter to hear more in the future!

Where to post your status!

Confused by social media and not sure where to post your status. KISA sent me this handy flowchart to help you decide.

21 Social Media Terms

1. Blog – A tool used by writers around the globe to connect with readers. The most popular blogging platforms include WordPress, Typepad and Blogger.
2. Delicious – A free online bookmarking service. When someone tags an article, video or blog post with a Delicious bookmark, it’s the equivalent of getting a “vote.”
3. Digg – Similar to Delicious in that people vote for articles, videos and blog posts. If your content gets enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the front page for millions of visitors to see.
4. Facebook – A social network that connects people with friends, family and business associates. Facebook is the largest social network in the world with more than 500 million users.
5. Flickr – A social network that allows users to store photos online and then share them with others through profiles, groups, sets and other methods.
6. Foursquare — Foursquare is a mobile check-in service that allows people to get points every time they visit their favorite restaurant, bar, coffee shop or whatever. The more points you get, the more likely you’ll be the recipient of special offers from that establishment.
7. HootSuite – HootSuite allows you to manage multiple social media profiles, pre-schedule tweets or posts and view metrics.
8. Like – Instead of writing a comment for a message or a status update, a Facebook user can click the “Like” button as a quick way to show approval and share the message.
9. LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site that is mainly used for professional networking.
10. Reddit – Reddit is similar to Digg and Delicious. It is a social news site that is built upon a community of users who share and comment on stories.
11. Skype – A free program that allows for text, audio and video chats between users.
12. StumbleUpon – A platform that’s similar to Digg, Delicious and Reddit. When you rate a website that you like using StumbleUpon, you automatically share it with like-minded people around the globe.
13. Technorati – Real-time search for user-generated media (including blogs) by tag or keyword. Also provides popularity indexes.
14. TweetDeck – An application that connects users with contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more.
15. Tweetup – A Tweetup is an organized or impromptu gathering of people who use Twitter.
16. Twitter – Twitter is a platform that allows users to share 140-character-long messages publicly. User can “follow” each other as a way of subscribing to each others’ messages. Additionally, users can use the @username command to direct a message towards another Twitter user.
17. Twitter Search – Twitter Search is a search engine operated by Twitter to search for Twitter messages and users in real-time.
18. Vimeo – Vimeo is a video sharing service in which users can upload videos to be hosted online and shared and watched by others.  
19. Webinar – A webinar is a live video event such as a meeting, training, or presentation that takes place via the Internet.
20. WordPress – WordPress is a content management system and contains blog publishing tools that allow users to host and publish blogs.
21. YouTube – A video sharing service where people can upload videos to be hosted online.

Facebook just got better for non-profits

Establishing new relationships and growing supporters are huge undertakings for non-profits. Social media tools, such as Facebook, are becoming critical in ensuring non-profits efforts are successful. This month Facebook announced its launch of a new resource centre designed to support not-for-profit organisations. The page, "Non-Profits on Facebook" offers tutorials, open discussions and educational material to specifically help not-for-profits.

Some of the resources published and available through the Non-profits on Facebook page include:

• a Getting Started Guide
• a Guide for Non-profits
• Quicktips 

The Guide for Non-profits includes set-up instructions in addition to best practices for using the network and connecting with online communities.


The new resource center already has more than 425,000 Likes.

Christchurch and Twitter

It takes just seconds to post a status update to Twitter which means Twitter can break news even before the news stations. Within minutes of the earthquake in Christchurch people were tweeting about the disaster. At a time when many people in Chch didn't have radio or television coverage Twitter provided status updates for them via their mobile phones.

You can find out whats happening in Christchurch by searching for the hashtags

• #christchurch 
• #eqnz

or looking at the twitter handles:

• twitter.com/#!/nzpolice_chch
• twitter.com/#!/NZRedCross
• twitter.com/#!/NZcivildefence

The Japanese earthquake is #eqjp

... and if you don't know what these #tags mean you can go on over to the Twitter glossary and look them up.