Having tested loads of different combinations, the Community Management Team at Noisy Little Monkey are convinced that the 'killer combo' of Buffer & Hootsuite gives you (and us) the best possible results in terms of scheduling and measurement.
Buffer is an extremely useful scheduling tool for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ and it also integrates nicely with a whole host of scheduling extensions and RSS readers like Tweriod & Feedly. Buffer also has some nifty & comprehensive analytics built into its scheduler, which is one of the main reasons we're making the switch here at NLM.
Buffer is soooo awesome because ultimately it will allow us to automate our social outreach further, while providing much more accurate measures. To learn a bit more about what Buffer is and how it works take a look at Buffer’s handy blog post.
Buffer allows us to add multiple users to our accounts and to grant and restrict access where necessary. In effect you can make it so you or your team only have access to the accounts that they're in charge of / responsible for.
We've all heard and seen the industry horror stories where a tweet has gone out from a brand account instead of a personal one, just like @jcpenny's drunk "clever marketing" tweets during the Super Bowl. With Buffer there's less chance of a post going out from the wrong brand.
Who kkmew theis was ghiong tob e a baweball ghamle. #lowsscorinh 5_0
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 2, 2014
We're keeping Hootsuite for the time being, as Buffer isn't able to offer us the same level of real time monitoring that is offered by Hootsuite, and actually we're kind of used to using it and we're waiting to see if Buffer can bring out something better, which it no doubt will.
But at the moment we're struggling to find a more helpful tool when it comes to monitoring and searching Twitter. Because Twitter is such a conversational medium it updates quickly and often.
This means it can be pretty hard to stay on top of your tweets and monitor your mentions at times, but with Hootsuite you get a nice & easy row of streams which are easy to digest so you can see who's tweeting about what and where it's coming from (oh yeah, Hootsuite is kinda awesome as it lets you do "geo-targeted phrase searches" which lets face it, is pretty mint)
To be explicit the tools we're trialing are the 'Hootsuite Pro account' and the 'Buffer for Business' account. If you're looking to use one or t'other or want to know which would be better for your business, here's a quick Pro V Con list.
Pro-
Cons
Pros
Cons
What tools are you using at the moment? Do you think they're better or worse? Let us know @NoisyMonkey
Inbound Manager @ Noisy Little Monkey, Josh blogs about SEO, Local & Mobile, HubSpot and Inbound Strategy.
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