6 Things I Learned from Hootsuite Academy (after just taking three classes!)

This week as an assignment we had to go to Hootsuite Academy and take a few of their free online training courses (highly recommend). One is focused on the benefits of Hootsuite itself while the other is a social media training. Little naive college Rachel did not expect to learn as much as I did from just going three three of the many lessons....but wow was I wrong! Here I'm going to share some of the tops tips I picked up or things I did not know yet.

1. If you're a small business or organization check out Hootsuite Campaigns

For those who don't know what Hootsuite is, it is a social media management platform. If you want more information, check it out here. Hootsuite Campaigns are tools businesses can use to basically to help launch their own PR/Marketing campaigns for their businesses without involving outside help (which costs extra $). For example, if you are doing a giveaway, you can host a campaign for it through Hootsuite and then your audience can go to your unique URL for it and sign-up. You could change what kind of information you collect based on your preferences...it's all very customizable.

2. Download Hootlet

Hootlet is a program you can download on your computer where if you find an amazing article you want to share on one of your platforms connected to Hootsuite you can click a button near your bookmarks to share it directly from there (and of course, you can customize what you say and where you're sending it). How convenient!

3. When you create a content calendar...highlight KEY DATES!

Remember these dates and work with them! Nuff said here.

4. Three Steps to a Social Media Audit

This is so important to figure out what the voice your brand or self is on social media. What value is your social media adding to your audience? What are your competitors doing and what can you learn from them? Remember to meet your audience where they're at when it comes to what platforms you are using. Here are the three steps:

 -Create an itemized list of current social media networks and their activity rates

-Follower counts per social networks

-Competitive analysis (refer to question above)

5. SMART Goals people!!!

If you are trying to figure out where you want your company to go or what you want to do for a client, make sure your goals are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely. Ask yourself if you would be able to tell when your goal was half complete. If you can't answer this, it's probably not a SMART goal.

6. Create a document for your business or business you are working with that defines the brand's voice.

Ask yourself, what adjectives describe "x" brand? Let your social media voice reflect that. Is ione of those adjectives "quirky?" Well then play around with humor. If it's something like "reliable," then maybe keep your tone more professional.