Hootsuite is a social media management platform. A social media platform is a tool that allow you to manage all your social media profiles on a single interface. The social media platform simplify process from scheduling content to generating reports.

You can add Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube on the platform. One user is able to link 3 social media accounts to a free Hootsuite account. You can sign up for the free plan via this link.

In this post, I will focus on managing your LinkedIn profile using the free account because I use Hootsuite for my LinkedIn profile only. You are highly recommended to use Hootsuite for LinkedIn profile especially if you would need to schedule content. This is because you can plan your content in advance, and have the content published on time, especially when you have to air a time sensitive post. At the moment, LinkedIn does not have a "schedule" function.¹ LinkedIn, it's about time you look into providing this option! On top of that, Hootsuite allows you to manage your personal LinkedIn profile too. Most social media management platforms only assist with the management of company's pages, and not personal page.

There are only 2 functions available with a free account. They are "Streams" and "Publisher".

"Streams" acts as a dashboard. You can customise the page by adding your social network page. I mainly used Hootsuite for LinkedIn posts. Hence, the dashboard is only displaying content that I posted on my LinkedIn Profile.

On the "Publisher" page, you have the standard calendar view. Click on "New Post", to create a new post for the social media platform.

This allows you to have a preview of the content you wish to post.² You can choose to post now or schedule the post.

The post will be automatically published on your LinkedIn profile or company page as scheduled.

Hootsuite is a very easy platform to use. This platform is suitable for entrepreneurs or sole proprietors who are just starting out, because it’s free. You can capitalise on using the free Hootsuite account to manage your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook pages. The free plan provides the basic needs - creation of content and scheduling or publishing of content. However, the only downside is you can't view the engagement of your posts on Hootsuite. You would need to toggle between LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to view the engagement of the individual post. It’s still important to measure the engagement level of each post, so that you know what your audience like. I would recommend that you get a paid plan to view the “Analytics” when you earn a steady stream of income.

That's all for Hootsuite.

Feel free to let me know what other marketing content that you you would like to read.

x, Esther

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