SXSW is the venerable and legendary media conference held annually in Austin, Texas — HootSuite will be there and we’d like your vote for some proposed panels.

Where it all goes down at SXSW

“Southby” started as a music fest before adding film, then interactive media, to the mix. The geek-centric component has become the *the* place for web start-ups to launch, founders to meet and pundits to extol on the brave future we are all co-creating. We also truly enjoy seeing SXSW using HootSuite to transmit their social media updates to a enthused audience.

While the (often-epic) parties get most of the chatter from the (often-haggard) attendees returning to their cubicles, the panels and presentations remain the heart of the conference. With many rooms running concurrently, there are plenty to choose from … but even more are submitted.

The panels are selected from a mix of public voting, review by an advisory committee and vetting by the SXSW staff. This creates an eclectic and unpredictable mix — which is what attendees expect.

And it’s not just the big tech names who get podium time — lots of “up and comers” and thinkers with fresh ideas get picked to educate, inspire (and entertain) the esteemed audience.

HootSuite is associated with a few panel pitches and we ask you to kindly consider giving a thumbs up each. You don’t need to be an attendee to vote, simply sign-up for a SXSW account and vote up until Aug. 27th. If you are inclined, please spread the news with your social networks (using HootSuite natch).

Very Hoot-able

Ryan Holmes on stage (and thoughtful)

1) Big in Japan: Outreaching to a Unique Market

Participants: Ryan Holmes - HootSuite + experts to be named later

Blurb: Web and mobile technology have developed differently in Japan than any other country with hardware, features and social communities which are completely unique to this singular market. But Japanese companies are now realizing this introverted market position isn’t sustainable and are now looking towards technology from outside and exploring way to create technology for outside of their country. Japan has ubiquitous high-speed coverage and a voracious appetite for tech gadgets, however, their tools have developed with entirely different features than other countries.

2) Bleeding Edge Social Media Analytics

Participants: Priscilla Scala – PeopleBrowsr, Joe Fernandez – Klout, Ryan Holmes – HootSuite

Blurb: From marketing brainstorm sessions to executive boardrooms, we’ve all heard the question a million times: What’s the ROI for this? When it comes to social media, assessing concrete metrics and measuring impact have not always been obvious, but are nonetheless essential for buy-in, investment, and long-term success. With the right tools and approach, we can peel back the layers between the digital and real worlds to determine how social media programs affect actions, sentiment, and marketplaces.

Bonus Round

Here are a few key selections from our colleagues at Invoke Media:

3) Creating Corporate Campaigns in Facebook – WTF?

Participants: Sian Pairaudeau & Andre Liem - Invoke Media

Blurb: Have you been asked to create content for corporate Facebook pages? Are you thinking about creating interactive content for your company’s page? Listen up! Developing in Facebook can test one’s patience but, as many marketing managers are discovering, it can also reap worthwhile rewards. This dual presentation takes you through the process from both a project management and developer’s perspective. We’ll explore the “dark side” of Facebook’s API and the implications for planning a marketing campaign.

4) Das Stiletto: Discovering Ladykind in the Social Web

Geek chic -- Listen to these ladies share the knowledge

Participants: Grace Carter & Nadia Nascimento - Invoke Media

Blurb: Why does understanding how to market to women with social web apps matter? Come meet a couple of lady dreamers and let’s tell stories together. Grace and Nadia are a two-part set of technologists and romantics. Specifically, we dream up social web strategies for big companies, often times directing the development of online technology. As women in a male-dominated industry, we’ve had a unique opportunity to shape creative content and technology into a compelling experience for our sisters. We’ve also been attuned to who else is achieving this, and how. ...

Pricing and Team Members

There was plenty of reaction and opinions last weeks about our release of HootSuite freemium packages. We’ve listened to your feedback delivered via comments, Twitter, Facebook, blog posts, etc. and we’ve been taking it all in.

We’d like to thank everyone for the feedback (even the remarks with cuss words!) and let our users know the response was fairly loud and clear: people wanted more flexibility around pricing and team member seats.

As such, we’re reviewing the pricing plans and over the next few weeks will be adjusting plans so they work better for customers including power users, small and medium businesses, as well as enterprises and large NGOs.

Non Profit Plans

We’ve also heard the requests for free/cheap/discounted accounts for non-profits and are working on a plan to best serve the needs of organizations with limited budgets to conduct charitable work.

The conundrum is differentiating between registered NPOs with significant marcomm budgets and grassroots groups with limited funds — then finding a way to help these worthy organizations conduct their social media campaigns.

If you are an NPO looking for discounted pricing on HootSuite, please fill out the Non-Profit Discount Application form and we’ll work to provide you with a 20% discount.

Team Members Clarification

Some users expressed concerns about the number of Team Members allowed in each plan. As you likely know, the team collaboration tools are designed to help businesses and organizations manage and respond to incoming messages efficiently.

With this in mind, we expect the biz and orgs to sign-up for Premium plans and then add Team Members to their account. Team Members in this scenario could also include contractors or consultants who work with companies who have Premium accounts.

Keep in mind, these invited Team Members can use free accounts, and their membership accounts do not count against their total account ownership allotment. The social account allotment only counts against “owned” profiles, not accounts in which the user is added as a Team Member.

Here’s a schematic to explain your team might be organized:

Note: Again, team members can use free accounts if they like, and this usage is not counted against their total.

In-stream Ads

Next topic, ads in the free version. We will add Twitter’s Promoted Tweets ads into the Twitter streams for customers using the free version. These ads will be the same ads that users will see on Twitter.com, as well as in other third party clients eventually.

Read more about Twitter’s Promoted Tweets program in this post: Hello World posted by @biz.

Q. What will users see?

A. You will start to see Tweets promoted by our partner advertisers called out at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages. We strongly believe that Promoted Tweets should be useful to you. We’ll attempt to measure whether the Tweets resonate with users and stop showing Promoted Tweets that don’t resonate.

Owly Stats

As for Ow.ly, stats are included in the free and basic packages — and ow.ly stats will always be free. For the free accounts, historical data is limited to 7 days. Premium users with Enhanced Stats will also get access to Google Analytics, advanced URL parameters, and other compelling stats features coming soon (analytic geeks will love ‘em!).

The included Ow.ly stats will continue to provide all the tools — including regional breakdown and individual message breakdown — which existed before the recent business-centric additions.

Payment Methods

We’re adding Paypal, American Express and JCB (big in Japan) to the payment options in the coming days. Other ideas for payment methods? Please add or vote at the Feedback Channel.

Free for 95%

Finally, FREE. Yes, HootSuite will still be available as a free service. The free service includes the core HootSuite features:

• Account Ownership for up to 5 social network accounts
• Unlimited Team Memberships on additional social accounts
• RSS feed to auto-update your network(s)
• Ow.ly link click-through analytics with historical data going back 7 days

To determine the pricing levels, we analyzed data from active customers to ensure that 95% of current users would remain free based on current patterns. However, the free accounts don’t include business-specific services like Google Analytics integration and ...

We are glad to announce to our well wishers and loyal users that on Friday 13th, 2010 InRev System received an Award of Excellence at Microsoft TechSpark 2010.

Microsoft TechSpark 2010 was a flag ship event organized by YourStory.in with support of Microsoft Bizspark Program and CNBC TV 18 Young Turks. The goal of the event was to encourage the entrepreneurship in the field of product companies and support them in their venture.

Among 208 different startups, InRev System was chosen in the pool of final 17 startups. As a result of participation and dedication in the product area, InRev and all the other 17 start-ups received Award of Excellence. For more detail visit Techspark 2010.

So we would like to share this opportunity to express our gratitude for encouraging us and supporting our product Buzzom.

TechSpark 2010 Award of Excellence

Many say that this market is crowded- the market of social media suite. But in true sense there are hardly any serious players in the space pushing innovation. Remember all those initial players in the social media suite tweetdeck, co-tweet, brizzly and seismic. Today, all these players are lost in the silos. They are still struggling to find their space in the market.

This happened because they stopped innovating and stopped listening to the market cry. Then came hootsuite with its not so revolutionary column layout (which was the innovation of Tweetdeck).  But what they added on top of this layout was revolutionary? Team management, multiple networking sites, easy interface and so on. But recently, even hootsuite like all its counterpart have digressed from the main innovation line and have moved towards paid service, leaving very less option on its free model.

On the other hand, Buzzom has been in the market since the times of Tweetdeck and seismic. From its early journey, Buzzom has always been listening to market cry and innovating on that lines. Buzzom started with basic follow/unfollow and analytic feature. Then Buzzom kept adding features and improving its system day by day.

Read here for more Buzzom Story.

As a result, today Buzzom has almost everything that a power twitter and general twitter users would require. Multiple account addition feature, list management, saved keywords tracking, plug-ins for browsers, adding feed urls, people search and engagement console.  Comparing with Hootsuite’s free version, Buzzom adds more value to users than anyone. Not to mention that there is no other application as innovative as Buzzom’s People Search.

This an in depth comparision between Hootsuite’s free version and Twitter.

We would want you to take a closer look at the comparison above and make your choice. Not to mention that Buzzom Team has one of the most responsive team who go all the way to help you.

Representing Buzzom team, I would like to add that we are in continuous innovation chain which will not stop in the above list and there are lot of interesting project coming on your way.

Hello HootSuite Community,

HootSuite is pleased to announce new premium packages designed for business and organizations, while also continuing to provide a free version for most customers.

Following in the steps of industry giants like Salesforce, Basecamp and Flickr, we’ve crafted the package tiers to provide the most useful tools to as many customers as possible while also providing advanced tools to customers who need the business-centric features. We’ll keep listening closely to see how we succeeded in meeting your needs.

Tiers for All

We aim to continue providing free service to approximately 95% of our current users. Based on a customer survey (thanks again to all of you who offered your opinions), along with a comprehensive review of usage data, we’re confident we’ll achieve this goal.

This means most of you will continue to use HootSuite in much the same way you do today. Additionally, power users and enterprises with teams can confidently rely on HootSuite for critical campaigns knowing there will be continuity of service from a stable company.

What’s This Mean for Me?

Starting today (Wednesday, Aug. 11th), all new customers will be required to select a plan upon signing-up — including choosing the free option if desired.

The following week, current HootSuite users will be asked to choose a package with the help of a migration wizard to help you choose the best plan.

For all customers (aside from Enterprise-class accounts), we’ll include a 30-day free trial. This period will allow you to experiment and discover which plan best fits your needs. Again, we’ll continue to offer a free plan for those of you who don’t require advanced options at this time.

While you don’t need to select a plan straightaway, take a look at the Pro Plans and Enterprise Package to see what is included at each level.

Keep on Flying

Since first spreading our owl wings over a year ago, we’ve listened closely to feedback from all corners. In the past 8 months, we’ve rolled out iterations galore — adding thoughtful tools to help you spread messages, monitor conversation and track results.

And don’t think we’re slowing down the pace! The upcoming road-map is loaded with new tools and integrations which will make for more enjoyable surprises. Plus we’ll keep listening to your feedback and offering help as we continue to create the preferred dashboard for social media managers, community builders, marketing agencies, and passionate fans.

Thanks to You

We sincerely appreciate you sharing HootSuite with your friends, mentoring your colleagues, and telling your company about the power of our social media dashboard. We take your trust seriously and look forward to growing with you.

Stay tuned to the HootSuite blog for more info and feel free to share your thoughts with us via Twitter @hootsuite_help.

With best regards,

Ryan Holmes, CEO, HootSuite

More

HootSuite Pro Plans
HootSuite Enterprise Plans
Online Media Kit — includes logos, descriptions and interview scheduling info

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You’ve likely noticed distinctive (albeit slightly odd looking) web addresses at some of your favorite social sites as global brands seek to maximize brand impressions within character-limited messages by creating short vanity URLs.

Domain Shopping

Before you can start using a custom address, first you have to choose and purchase a vanity URL. This requires a bit of creativity and occasionally some international diplomacy.

Here are some tactics to keep in mind while brainstorming:

1. Reflect brand personality — Shorter isn’t always better, memorability and personality are important. For example, the folks behind the “Cheezburger” humor-empire use http://dbl.chz.gr to provide a slice of culture with each URL
2. Make it exciting-ish — Another strategy is to use an action in the URL like social/tech news site Mashable who use http://mash.to (incidentally from Tonga) which implies a call to action as does PBS’s http://go.pbs.org
3. Cut the letters — The most common ways to get short are to remove vowels, like Google’s http://goo.gl, reduce your brand to initials like Wordpress’ http://wp.me and/or remove almost everything like Twitter’s http://t.co
4. Get to know the codes — Check out this Wikipedia entry of top level domain suffixes including: .im Isle of Mann, .tv Tuvalu, .fm Federated States of Micronesia, .ly Libya, and .me from Montenegro. Keep in mind, not all countries offer domain suffixes while others limit availability
5. Find something *actually* available – Once you have some ideas on the white board, you need to find out what’s available — and DO NOT announce your ideas publicly or a squatter may beat you to the punch
6. Choose a reputable vendor — Explore availability at a reputable domain registrar like: http://sedo.com | http://domai.nr | http://www.gandi.net/ Not sure about a registrar? Do a web search to hear what their customers have to say

Get Shorter

Seeking a unique URL for your business. Well, good news, now your company can get a custom branded short web address while still capturing the valuable statistics you rely on — all from within HootSuite dashboard.

Along with the new premium plans, HootSuite now offers custom URL shortening services through the tried and tested Ow.ly tool.

The benefits of using Ow.ly include:

• SEO – All URLs are indexable and fully redirect for SEO best practices
• Control – Share access with selected team members for control over who can shorten URLs
• Portability – Track clicks on short URLs from anywhere including newsletters, comments, Facebook, and micro-sites
• Flexiblity – Choose which shortener to use each time: Custom, Ow.ly, or Ht.ly (with branded social bar)
• Security – Links are checked against Google’s Safe Browsing blacklist to thwart phishing and Malware attacks

Owly Pro is available to customers using the Enterprise or Platinum package for an additional charge. To get shorter, simply send email to pro (at) ow.ly or contact your VIP Ambassador.

Once registered, you’ll receive technical instructions which should take under 10 minutes for your technical team to update your DNS records and provide a list of authorized publishers.

Your Tips

What other advice can you offer about choosing and registering a short domain name? What are some of your faves? Did you imagine this business trend 10 years ago? We’d be pleased to read your thoughts in the comments.

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Don’t you wonder who are the faces behind the tweets that fill your stream day in and day out. These friends have been a part of daily life through you frustration for a product or love for a brand, they have been patient listeners to your mundane activities. So its time you get to meet the real person behind those @’s.

Buzzom is organizing a TweetUp in Bangalore on August 20th. Its a casual meet intended for meeting Twitter friends sharing your thoughts off Twitter for once. The whole idea of this TweetUp is to meet followers, cross followers (someone else’s followers). We have restricted the seats to 50 so if you are in Bangalore, please RSVP and book your seats.

We have kept the agenda open for now but it would surely range from introduction, Twitter, Goodies and lots of fun.

See you on 20th

Agenda

6:15 PM- 6:35 PM  Introduce yourself in less than 140 characters
6:35PM- 6:45 PM  Whats the Buzz about Buzzom
6:45 PM- 7:15 PM  Personal Twitter Success Stories
7:15 PM- 7:35 PM  Biggest Twitterholic Award Game
7:35 PM- 7:50 PM  Twitter Tech discussions; Moment of glory for Buzzom                                                Techies: D
7:50 PM- 8:00 PM  Highest Buzzom Scorer Award
8:00 PM                       Biryani Time

Companies are using HootSuite in all sorts of creative ways and we truly enjoy discovering the ways you utilize social media to effectuate business or organizational aims.

Recently, we heard about a hospital who live-Twittered a surgery. The objective was to help educate patients about medical issues as well as show their innovative use of the new media.

With help from the hospital’s Interactive Media Specialist Kelley O’Brien (@kelleyob), we crafted a brief case study to share the tips and tactics used for, “finding new ways to engage with patients.”

Description

A hospital demonstrated a commitment to innovation and patient education by live Twittering a surgical procedure direct from the operating room using HootSuite and Ow.ly.

This campaign included some unique challenges including ensuring patient comfort, uploading surgical photos in realtime and choosing a useful #hastag.

This case study prepared with High Point Regional Hospital in North Carolina (USA) explains the objectives behind the campaign and reasons why they chose HootSuite for the broadcast.

Additionally, the report outlines social media tactics used for connecting potential patients and medical staff for a conversation about health. Thanks to Interactive Media Specialist Kelley O’Brien.

More Studies

We’ll be creating more of these in the coming weeks and will keep them stashed on Slideshare. We will also continue to feature them in the Library section on the HootSuite Blog.

Do you have a great campaign or have you used HootSuite in an unusual and creative way? Great, let us know with a note to community (at) hootsuite (dot) com with a brief pitch and your expression of interest. We’ll then send you a questionnaire to help craft your story. We especially like stories which show measurable results, plus screenshots, photos, and other interesting elements to enhance the story.

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Good news, owl-lovers! We’ve updated our suite of mobile apps this morning and have rolled out a couple of important bug fixes.

iPhone users, you’ll notice HootSuite v1.1.5.3 is live in the iTunes App Store. This update fixes a recent issue with Twitter search streams, and also resolves a few bugs some users had when composing new messages. Visit our iPhone page for more details and links to download the app.

We’ve also bumped our Android app to v1.0.11. This latest update resolves a few crashing issues that some users were experiencing when sending tweets, and it fixes a force-close problem that sometimes occurred when loading old tweets. Check out our Android page for more details, and links to the app in the Android Market.

We recommend all mobile users update their apps as soon as possible. Happy tweeting!

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People search is one of the most important feature of Buzzom because it allows user to search for relevant profiles and connect with them. Making a good and long lasting connection means finding better profiles. But most tools available today do not have proper people search.

Buzzom indexes millions of open profiles and allows user to seamlessly search and filter users. You can give many criteria like bio, location and name; and search for the profile. You can even filter based on your followings and followers list.

Today, Buzzom has added another feature to the people search that will make user’s life much more easier. Now you can directly engage with the profile from the list itself. You donot have to go anywhere else. You can send DM or Messages directly from the console and its much efficient and productive.

You can search people in Buzzom by typing keywords on the top search text box. Once you search for any keywords, you will be presented with an advance Option. Click on the Advance options and insert your criteria.

On the user list, you can click on details to view bio or click on ‘@’ to send messages to the profile.

We hope buzzom user will enjoy this new feature and leverage their profiles.