If you’re a newbie to the world of making money online, then using social media for your online business is undoubtedly one of the wisest decisions you’ll ever make, and for a multitude of reasons, (the main of which is for the sheer volume of free exposure your business can get). However as the number of online social networks increase, it can become both tricky and time consuming to manage all those social networking campaigns without the right tools for the job.

Certainly one of the best methods in social media management right now has to be HootSuite. HootSuite is a complete social media dashboard that you can sign-up for, free of charge. Within a few clicks (and just a few minutes), you can set-up a social media management tool that will display up to five of your preferred social networking accounts.

To login to Hootsuite you can do so either from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, Foursquare, MySpace, mixi, and Ping.fm, and can access all of these (plus more)  simply by using this one single web based application.

Social media management with HootSuite is not only convenient—it is very easy on the eyes as well, thanks to its streamlined user interface. You can easily perform the same tasks with all your social media accounts in their native form, such as liking posts, re-tweeting, sending and receiving direct messages, posting updates, as well as composing comments.

Certainly one of the best benefits of using HootSuite as a social media management tool is that you can schedule updates to be sent at a specified time, and even post the same message to multiple social networking sites. You can also schedule automatic updates for your social networks with RSS or Atom feeds, but you can only link up to two of these at any one time.

While there are plenty of advantages in social media management with HootSuite, there are also a few disadvantages that you may want to consider first. For example, there’s no email or calendar integration, and reporting can be expensive. The Help function has also been reported by many as “fragmented and slim.” Thus to resolve these issues and to take full advantage of all the benefits that HootSuite has to offer, you might have to open your wallet and bite the bullet with Hootsuite Pro.

HootSuite Pro is available for a reasonable price of just $7.99 per month, and will give you more flexibility with your social media management. By upgrading to the Pro version, you can also enjoy unlimited integration of all your social networking accounts, plus fully automated RSS and Atom updates. If you do not have much time for social media management, HootSuite Pro can most certainly save you that time, but for all the benefits that you’re going to need, it’ll be at a cost to your wallet.

Paul Graham

Paul Graham Blog.com