I’ve blogged about HootSuite several times already over the past two years, but this latest release is just amazing.  Having always been a fan of web based apps of client apps, with Google’s push for HTML5 and HootSuite’s undying commitment to building the best social media management app on the market, I’m even more on board with transitioning to a nearly 100% virtual tool set.

On to HootSuite5 featuring HTML5:

HootSuite users will see significant changes to the social media dashboard today beginning with a completely refreshed HTML5 user interface, plus geo-located search, native Twitter ReTweets, and integrated Google Analytics.

For all you Google Analytics users that are tired of double coding and multiple stats repositories:

Google Analytics users no longer need to switch screens to analyze site traffic and performance because all the data is now available in HootSuite’s dashboard. Using OAuth secure login functionality, you can track conversion to sales, lead generation, or other metrics from your Google Analytics, using advanced URL functions.

All in all this new version of HootSuite is amazing and I truly enjoy using this tool above all other social media management apps.  I hope you will give this unique and rapidly growing social media dashboard a try!  If you are already using HootSuite5, tell us what you think about it

All quoted text and imagery was obtained from: http://blog.hootsuite.com and is the property of HootSuite.

Last June I reviewed six distinct twitter tools for use in small business and since then I’ve had a lot of time to work out kinks in the process of leveraging social media tools for business. 

Today, I’m going to share with you two very powerful (and free) tools to use for not just Twitter, but all of your major social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and more!

I’ll keep this very short and sweet, so stay with me a bit

The first social media tool is Ping.fm

Ping.fm is a social media distribution application.  In simple words, you can type your message once and it goes to every social media site you have associated with your Ping.fm account.  The beauty here is you can associate nearly every major social network with this application, allowing you to spend more time focusing on the message you’re sending out rather than worrying about getting that message into all of your social networks.

The second social media tool is HootSuite

HootSuite, like Ping.fm allows you to associate your social networking profiles, but here’s the part that makes HootSuite shine over all others: not only can you associate multiple Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and even Ping.fm accounts, but you can schedule your status updates for weeks or even months out in advance and the built in reporting is simply amazing.

The conclusion of the matter is this: social media can be very powerful, but it can also be extremely time consuming.  By leveraging these two social media tools, you can get more content out to more places in far less time!

I plan on producing some tutorials to help you get started in the coming months, so stay tuned!   Reply with your questions or comments about Ping.fm and HootSuite.