Social Media | 5 Reasons I Use HooteSuite For Twitter & Google +

As a creativepreneur, if you want to make money, you need your work to be seen. It is impossible to expect that people will land on your webpage as if by magic, fall in love with your content and then pay you big money to do something for them. I know this is 100% impossible because that was my own thought process in 2011 when I first created my "craft blog" (it's in quotes because it was the saddest little craft blog you would have ever seen. Trust me here, it was awful.) and started posting. Sure, I had a Facebook page, my own; used mostly for complaining about how cold Iowa was or how big Lil'Elle was getting. I had no idea that the world of blogging, in general, had become so competitive.

So today I am going to save you those two years of heartache (when I had about 3 page views a week and posted about once a month, finally so frustrated that I shut it down and created a new blog; not once but twice!) and share with you the magic that is HooteSuite, why I prefer it to Buffer or CoSchedule and why you should never use an automated program to schedule your facebook posts.

HooteSuite is a crazy powerful tool to use when scheduling your social media posts. I use the free version and look at me fly! Get all the tips now!

Seriously, I love me some HooteSuite, and you will too. Clicky click and let's get to it!

Let me first start out by saying that I have not included a single affiliate link in this post. HooteSuite has never contacted me and probably has no idea who I am so I'm not being paid to tell you how awesome I think this service is and I'm probably never going to be paid to say how awesome I think their services are. I just genuinely love using HooteSuite.

And here's just a few reasons why:

1 | Link up to 3 social platforms for free -

I've talked before about how Jewish I am when it comes to spending money. I don't like the idea of working hard to build beautiful blogs for my clients and then paying someone else to give me a shout out or paying to give myself a shout out on my own social networks. Yes, I can understand paying for convenience, but in the end these are my social networks and I am sharing my own content. This is not something I feel I should have to pay to do. If I want to pay for something I will pay for advertising somewhere, but not on my own platforms.

Since I use HooteSuite to share on Twitter and Google + I am left with a third network I can add later if I choose to do so. I don't use any outside scheduler for Facebook (because FB hates third party extensions and you actually lose posts by not using the FB in-house scheduler), I will likely add Instagram whenever Windows gets off their butts and puts out an "official" IG app. Sharing to IG is a new option added recently and I haven't tried it yet but since it IG is now owned by Facebook I am betting that there will be similar issues with who sees what before too much longer.

2 | I'm a Twitter Snob

Which means that I am usually on Twitter before anything else. I post the most there, I have the highest followers there and I generate the most of my traffic from Twitter. I love Twitter. Seriously, get out the embosser people because I am in a very deep, committed relationship with Twitter and I'm pretty sure that is never going away.

The irony is that I used to hate Twitter. I could never understand mentions or hashtags (seriously y'all, why is it even called a hashtag? It's a pound or number sign...). Over time I grew to love the ease and simplicity of Tweeting and eventually became a master of my own Twitter page.

Because I am on Twitter so much, when I am sitting at my computer I love being able to set up streams in HooteSuite. I have three streams currently set up but I could easily add more. Right now I have a column (also called a stream) for my mentions, another for new followers and a third for my tweets. On one page I can see everything happening from these three things in Twitter and can then respond or act accordingly.

This is helpful to me because I can see everything all at once and I don't have to have multiple page tabs open or click back and forth. It's also particularly helpful when I participate in Twitter parties because I can create a stream with any specific hashtag and follow along with ease.

I use streams to see everything all at once on Twitter, keeping everything on one page makes everyone's life easier.

3 | One and Done

I love the fact that I can set everything up in HooteSuite in one sitting. I can share all my content to Twitter and Google + (as I said, you can add more platforms if you pay for pro and you can add a third platform to the free option, I don't because I don't need to.) during my scheduling time each morning and I never need to hop back and forth from platform to platform.

Any internet user knows that the more tabs you have open in your browser the more lag you will get on your load times. I have a system that I will share in another post but for me I like to keep HooteSuite, Pinterest and my actual blog page open. Why? Because all the URLs for any of my products, services and blog posts can be found right on my website so I don't need to head to every channel I use. And Pinterest because that is where I get the content from others that I share on Twitter as well.

HooteSuite makes it easy to use and easy to share everything I need.

4 | The Scheduler Adds Everything

The perfect Tweet should consist of your comment, a URL, hashtags and mentions. And it can be really hard to keep it all at 140 characters. HooteSuite makes it easy to keep yourself in check by having a character countdown, an in post link shortner, and the ability to add your own images. You can also choose where you are sharing by clicking what platform you are connected to. Want to hone in on a specific target? You can do that right in your HooteSuite post as well. You can also save the handles you mention most often so you do not have to go back and forth to your Twitter page a million times. I also particularly like that I can change the privacy on posts as needed in the event that I am sharing something not meant for my target audience.

I love that I can do everything I need to do for any given post in HooteSuite. It's all right there and ready for me. I have everything set up how I need it so all I need is the content!

5 | Did I Mention It's Free?

Although you can upgrade your account to add more streams or to add more social platforms, there is nothing limited about what you can do with your three free platforms when it comes to sharing.

Keeping my hard earned money in my pocket is a major priority for me so when I find free tools that I absolutely love, I tend to use the heck out of them. I also like to share why this can be helpful to anyone.

Obviously, if you are a major corporation or have a bunch of people you work with, HootSuite may not be the answer to your social media scheduling needs. But for us bloggers wanting to spread the word, it's definitely the perfect choice.