Using Hootsuite to Promote Your Small Business or Non-Profit

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade, you’ve probably heard that social media is vital to any organization’s marketing strategy. If you’ve ever tried to use social media to promote a small business or non-profit, however, you’ve probably also realized that social media marketing requires quite a bit of upkeep.

Your organization has slow weeks, which allows you to publish content easily. But your organization also has busy weeks, which makes it more difficult to keep on top of. Your pattern of posting has probably been uneven and you’ve noticed that you have less likes and shares than you did when you first started posting. Even though social media is a free means for your organization to promote itself, it’s beginning to seem like it’s more trouble than what it’s worth.

That’s why we’d like to introduce you to the power of using Hootsuite to promote your small business or non-profit.

Using Hootsuite to Promote Your Small Business or Non-Profit

Hootsuite is one of the top social media marketing tools available. It integrates with multiple social media accounts (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, and LinkedIn). What this means is that you can login to Hootsuite, generate content for one or more of these accounts and schedule social media posts ahead of time. In other words, Hootsuite allows you to manage all of your social media accounts on one dashboard.

Hootsuite has much to offer to organizations that want to manage their social media. For organizations that have more than one employee who will be using the software, Hootsuite allows organizations to set up roles and permissions for specific users. This allows organizations to decide what information each user can access and what actions each user can take (e.g., posting on certain social media accounts can be restricted).

Additionally, Hootsuite makes it possible for organizations to easily find content to re-post. Organizations can set up search streams to isolate content relevant to their organization. Finally, organizations can use Hootsuite to set up analytics on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that can help them discover how users on those sites are interacting with their posts, and can generate reports that illustrate those trends.

Learn How to Use Hootsuite the Right Way

Like any tool, however, Hootsuite has a bit of a learning curve. They provide a lot of excellent resources for learning the ins and outs of the tool, however. Their Resource Library contains hundreds of articles on topics ranging from getting started with your first post to managing multi-channel campaigns.

Limitations of Hootsuite to Manage Social Media

Given all of the benefits of Hootsuite, you might be asking yourself, “What’s the catch?” First, there is a small monthly fee if you want to access the most powerful features (starting at $19 per month). If you have a lot of accounts to manage (i.e., 50 or more) it can also cost you $499 a month or more. There is also a limitation as to how many analytics reports you get with the less expensive packages. For most organizations, however, using Hootsuite to promote your small business or non-profit should only cost you a few hundred dollars per year.

Second, while Hootsuite is a powerful tool, it cannot replace a good social media strategy. If you want to use social media to drive traffic to your organization, you need to do more than post in the right places with the right frequency. You also need to find posts to share and to develop original posts to demonstrate your organization’s expertise in your industry.

Jumpstart Your Organization’s Social Media Marketing with Hootsuite

Hootsuite isn’t a magic bullet for creating an effective social media campaign, but it is a robust tool that aids organizations to successfully organize, plan, and schedule their social media marketing. It also helps organizations to identify their posting patterns and analyze whether or not their clients are interacting with the posts they make on popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Given the low cost of Hootsuite’s most helpful features, organizations should definitely take advantage of this social media management software in their marketing campaigns.

Need Help With Hootsuite or Social Media Marketing for Your Small Business or Non-Profit?