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 ...

This afternoon, Twitter added its “Tweet Button” to the ranks of online content-sharing tools. Tech Crunch has been using the Tweet Button to share links with its custom bit.ly short domain tcrn.ch, and we wanted to pass along some tips for using bit.ly and the Tweet Button together.

Publishers can use their bit.ly short URLs with the Tweet Button the same way they have done with other sharing tools. Since bit.ly links never change or expire, a publisher will typically shorten long URLs on their back end and cache the corresponding bit.ly short URLs for repeated use. When the short URL for a given page is stored locally, it can easily be shared using the Tweet Button’s “url” parameter (and passing the page’s long URL in the “counturl” parameter to ensure that the Tweet count is correct) . For example, the following code creates a simple “Tweet” link for sharing this blog using its bit.ly short URL (http://bit.ly/2pqyWD):

Tweet

You can also use the “url” parameter to send a bit.ly short link to the Javascript Tweet Button:

  Tweet

… and to the Tweet Button IFrame widget:

Note that in all of these cases, the URLs being passed must be URL encoded.

We are working on some additional tools and resources for integrating bit.ly and the Tweet Button, and we look forward to sharing these with you soon!

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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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.

No related posts.

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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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Cool hat club -- HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes and Tammy Camp

Replacing your RSS, one of the 20 sites to “Improve Your Twitter Experience,” and Blackberry excitement in Italy… all in a day’s work here at HootSuite HQ.

We truly enjoy seeing such great user created content about HootSuite and look forward to sharing your work with more fans. Thanks for your great work — consider adding your articles to our brand-new community forum.

Here’s a round-up of some recent accolades and tutorials and treats. As usual, keep an eye on all the HootSuite’s social bookmark stream and/or follow @hootwatch.

Tammy Camp - A Comprehensive Guide to HootSuite

HootSuite allows you to share add, edit, and share social network accounts, helping you manage your brand, or just helping you broadcast what you had for breakfast that day. If anything, unlike other aggregators, HootSuite is far more overwhelming than underwhelming.

It’s a beauty guidebook — thanks superstar Tammy!

Mashable – Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience

With its recent update and HTML5 support, social media dashboard HootSuite has become one of the most useful Twitter web applications not only for individual users, but teams managing several accounts. In some ways, HootSuite has the look and feel of TweetDeck with the big differentiator of it being a web-based application, not requiring any downloads.

It’s always a treat to be mentioned in Mashable — and we love their new short URLs too!

It’s Worth Noting – Replacing your RSS reader with Twitter + Hootsuite

We’re living in an age of information overload.  The difficulty isn’t finding information, but sifting through it to focus on what’s important and matters to you.

RSS feeds became commonplace several years ago and have been a great way to consolidate information sources using a RSS reader (e.g. Google Reader, iGoogle or even Outlook).  While these RSS readers served their purpose, if you’re looking for the most efficient way to sift through information or you’re just getting into this game, I suggest a Twitter + Hootsuite setup.

This is a great strategy — the RSS tool is a little bit under-known but so mighty when applied to a purpose. Cheers.

Wisnet.com – How to Connect Twitter and Facebook to HootSuite

HootSuite’s feature-rich application gives anyone the ability to post updates to their social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. This tool can be used by your business to manage multiple networks using one interface. HootSuite has many features including the ability to schedule tweets, add attachments, and shrink long web addresses so they fit nicely on Twitter – which is restricted to 140 characters.

Screenshot from: Wisnet.com - How to Connect Twitter and Facebook to HootSuite

Another great guide with excellent annotated screenshots covering a lot of material – wow!

BlackBerry Italia – Hootsuite, aperta la beta pubblica del client Twitter per palmari BlackBerry

Google translation: For those who do not know yet HootSuite essentially offers a suite of tools to manage their presence on Twitter and other social networks – like LinkedIn – and given the continuing growth of people using Twitter have thought to open enrollment to their free beta RIM BlackBerry handheld.

They are even excited about HootSuite for Blackberry in Italy — Grazie tanto!

Aubreandrus.com – Latest Social Media Obsession: HootSuite

But is it really that amazing? Yes. You can check your facebook, twitter, linked in, foursquare, and even WordPress blogs in one place. Again — all on ONE page. One log-in. One easy password.

Glad to hear you share our obsession with making amazing-ness.

Need More?

Keep an eye on all the HootSuite’s social bookmark stream and/or follow @hootwatch and be sure to let us know in the comments if there is a great article we’ve somehow missed.

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Wondering how the HootSuite social media dashboard can help your business or organization engage with social networks and web conversations? Great! We can help.

Check out this first-in-a-series HootSuite Info Sheet called “The Basics” — a brief document explaining the core tools in HootSuite including tactics for spreading messages, monitoring conversations, collaborating with teams, and tracking results. Additionally, this document points out the integrated social networks, plus shares a few noteworthy clients and methods to get more help.

“The Basics” ~ HootSuite Info Sheet #1 on Slideshare

Share these info sheets with your collegues, teams, managers, etc. by downloading or embedding from Slide Share. Keep an eye out for more to come and find the growing collection in the Library section of the HootSuite blog.

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Email and social media are both powerful marketing channels on their own but, when by using the best attributes of each medium, you can enjoy even more successful campaign results.

With this in mind, HootSuite and email marketing company Constant Contact have announced a co-marketing partnership which will inject a bit of social-bility into your email blasts — plus provide ways to augment your social media outreach tactics with targeted email messaging.

Certainly, marketers want access to as many tools as possible so we’re excited to announce this new relationship which will add a few more implements to your mighty tool kit.

The gist of the partnership is summed up in the press release’s tag line “Partnership Increases Reach of Two Industry Leaders; Extends Marketing and Social Media Tools to Meet Broad Customer Needs.”

Read the full release: HOOTSUITE JOINS THE CONSTANT CONTACT PARTNER PROGRAM AS A CO-MARKETING PARTNER

Here’s a quick overview of some of the benefits:

• This agreement provides HootSuite with a marketing channel to Constant Contact’s more than 350,000 small business and nonprofit customers.
• A co-branded landing page will create a custom gateway to Constant Contact’s services for HootSuite’s rapidly growing client base.
• HootSuite customers will have access Constant Contact’s archive of tools, expertise, and educational programs through a partner extranet.
• HootSuite will share revenue and can utilize Constant Contact’s online reporting tools and emailing services.

Ryan Holmes, HootSuite’s CEO, had this to say about the partnership in the release:

“We look forward to working with Constant Contact as a co-marketing partner to provide more methods for HootSuite customers to spread messages and grow audiences. With Constant Contact’s stellar reputation and vast experience, we’re very pleased to add this powerful partner to our team.”

You likely know about HootSuite so here’s a little about Constant Contact in case you haven’t tapped into their services yet:

Constant Contact’s email marketing, event marketing, social media marketing, and online survey tools help small organizations grow their businesses by building stronger customer relationships. More than 350,000 small businesses, nonprofits, and member associations worldwide rely on Constant Contact’s easy-to use, affordable online tools to create and deliver personalized, professional communications that engage casual customers, members, prospects, and passionate customers wherever they congregate online — from their email inboxes to their social networks. All Constant Contact products come with unmatched education, training and personal coaching services, and award-winning technical support. Founded in 1995, Constant Contact is a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: CTCT) with offices in Waltham, Mass.; Loveland, Colo.; and Delray, Fla.; and a Silicon Valley office scheduled to open in 2010.

To learn a bit more about Constant Contact check out their site and blog. Oh, and of course Constant Contact can also be found on Twitter @constantcontact and on Facebook plus a great blog Constant Commentary.  Read more about the co-partnership agreement from the press release and let us know ways you add a bit of social to your email marketing campaigns.

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Refreshed and Ready

A few months back, we launched the HootSuite Learning program to offer comprehensive training for social media professionals about the nuances and features of HootSuite. We also sought to offer an environment to exchange ideas and discuss trends, tactics and strategies for managing outreach and listening activities.

Now with the first batch of grads proudly displaying their badges, we’ve tuned up the Learning site to be a bit more “Hoot-like” with easier access to the courses, quizzes and the important directory of certified pros.

If you are already a student, take a look and see what you think. Not a student yet? Perhaps you’ll be inspired to join up.

Big Owls on Campus

Now that the quizzes are completed and the grades are in, we’re happy to congratulate the first group of HootSuite Learning program students who are now certified as “HootSuite Professionals.”

All graduates are listed on the HootSuite Certified Professional directory, plus you can identify them by the insignia proudly displayed on their websites.

The list of pros are sortable by city and country so you can find a consultant close to your location as needed from USA, Canada, UK, The Netherlands, Switzerland, South Africa, Ecuador and more.

Guest Faculty

Along with the quizzes and learning modules, HootSuite Learning provides students with “stories from the trenches” as told by an assortment of experienced marketers, authors and managers.

As a recap: In the first month, Lewis Howes demonstrated the power of LinkedIn and shared tips on maximizing this popular business networking tool.

Up next was Lisa Kacerosky from legendary curator of humor, Icanhascheezburger.com. Lisa blew the audience away by revealing the 50+ different profiles she personally manages using the HootSuite and showed exactly how one person can accomplish such a huge task.

Then came Chris Garrett — co-author (with Darren Rowse) of the book “ProBlogger – Secrets for blogging your way to a six figure income — who discussed the business of blogging and creating compelling content for your social media channels.

Following up with a different perspective was Rich Harris, the customer support manager at hardware manufacturer Seagate who discussed tactics for providing customer support using HootSuite.

@ambermac -- photo by @kk

The latest speaker was Amber MacArthur, host of online shows, writer of columns and author of “Power Friending” who shared her insights about the power and benefits of networking.

Next up is Sean Malarkey discussing ins and outs of Twitter and then an encore webinar by Lewis Howes.

Plus Dave Olson, HootSuite’s Marketing and Community Director, has participated to share freshly released tools, as well as providing some context about how ideas become features in the HootSuite universe.

Ready to Join?

Sounds great! Get signed-up for the on-going HootSuite Learning University program for only $47/mo.

Sign-up for the ongoing HootSuite Learning University program

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