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Hootsuite is a great tool for organizing and scheduling social posts for multiple social media accounts. You can write a month’s worth of Tweets ahead of time, or have Facebook posts ready for upcoming events. Here at Strategy, we’ve used Hootsuite enough to come up with a couple of helpful tips for you to get the most out of the service.
The Twitter Difference
Twitter’s 140 character limit for posts can be tough to keep track of if you’re writing posts for multiple social media platforms. If you’re using an Excel spreadsheet to organize your Tweets, you can create a column specifically to show you the character count in your posts.
Just choose a column and type in the formula =LEN(X), where X is the cell with the Tweet text. Then click and drag the little box in the corner of the cell down and you can count all the characters in your Tweet column.
If you’re including a link in your Tweet, remember that Hootsuite shortens URLs to 23 characters. So make sure your Tweets that will have links stay at or below 117 characters.
Smart Quotes
If you’re typing your Tweets out in Microsoft Word, it may be using “smart quotes” instead of “straight quotes”. Can you see the difference between them in the last sentence? Because Hootsuite can, and if it sees smart quotes or apostrophes, it kicks them out. So you try to write “can’t” and you end up with “cant”, and people wonder why you’re bringing up “hypocritical and sanctimonious talk”.
Here’s how to turn off Smart Quotes in Word:
- Click on File, then Options
- Click on Proofing
- Click on the box “Autocorrect Options”
- Click on the “Autoformat as you Type” tab
- In the “Replace as you type” section, uncheck the box “Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes”
These tips will help your Hootsuite experience run a little smoother, but don’t forget that the most important thing is to create good, engaging content that will catch people’s attention.
At Strategy, we can help you tell your story and engage your audience with a social media plan personalized to your organization. Contact us today for more information about how we can make social media work for you.
