Hootsuite – Sarah J. Harken

For every social media specialist and marketer, Hootsuite is a gift sent from God. This tool allows one to manage multiple social media networks at once, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and they just recently added Instagram!

I learned to use this system when I was an intern for the headquarters of Lake Michigan Credit Union. As a marketing intern, part of my job was to manage the social media accounts, which included Twitter and Facebook.

Every Monday I would plan out posts for the following week. I would write 7 for Facebook and 21 for Twitter. Next, my manager would edit them. Then, every Friday I would spend about an hour scheduling these posts on Hootsuite.

Hootsuite allows one to simply type a post, attach a picture if necessary, and then choose the date and time he/she wants it to be published. This made managing social media SO much easier because after I was done scheduling on Friday, I did not have to worry about creating content to post for the next week; I knew that one post would be published on Facebook and three on Twitter each day. I would still monitor the accounts in order to stay connected with my consumers, but being able to arrange the posts in advance saved me a plethora of time.

This system also came in handy when I went on Spring Break. Instead of having to take time out of my vacation to worry about work, I was able to schedule all of the posts before I left. That way, I could thoroughly enjoy my vacation without any distractions.

I had a goal of increasing the amount of likes/followers and activity on both of these social networking pages. The photo below demonstrates that I succeeded; I could not have done it without the assistance of Hootsuite.

Issuu. (20 April, 2017). Lake Michigan Credit Union Internship Report. [Screenshot]. https ://issuu.com/sarahharken/docs/internship_report

The following pictures are examples of some of the posts that I created and scheduled with this tool. I was not able to find screenshots of my posts scheduled on the actual system, however, on the Facebook posts in the upper lefthand corner it reads, “Published by Hootsuite.”

Issuu. (20 April, 2017). Lake Michigan Credit Union Internship Report. [Screenshot]. https ://issuu.com/sarahharken/docs/internship_report

I highly recommend checking this tool out even if it’s just for personal use! Hootsuite will help you boost your page engagement and interact with your followers more consistently.