To manage my social media feeds, I had been using Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck requires installation on your computer, unlike HootSuite or Seesmic which are online applications.
Tweetdeck served me well, however, I began to grow tired of what seemed like daily software updates for either Tweetdeck or Adobe AIR (which is required to run Tweetdeck). One other drawback was that you had to install Tweetdeck on any machine you used in order to access the service.
At the encouragement of several of my social media friends, I checked out both HootSuite and Seesmic. Both of these services are internet based so there is no need to download and maintain software. You can login from any computer with internet access and manage your social media world.
Although HootSuite was a bit tricky to configure, it easily outpaced Seesmic in functionality. To me, it was the clear winner. As an internet marketing strategist, I monitor and maintain multiple social media feeds for myself (music, marketing, personal) and my clients. HootSuite allows users to manage Facebook Profiles and Pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, PingFM, WordPress and Foursquare.
Antother cool feature is that you can schedule updates. Want to update your Twitter feed at midnight? No problem — enter your update, schedule it and go to bed. HootSuite takes care of it for you. To be fair, I’m still exploring the HootSuite possibilities.
I’m sure there was some notice, but I missed it. HootSuite is in the process of transitioning from a free service to a paid service. There will still be a free offering, but you will only be able to maintain five feeds. Infortunately, I’ve added and configured over 15 feeds.
So now I have a decision to make. Do I pay $5.99 a month for this service, do I scale it down, do I return to Tweetdeck? Do I find another free service?
I fully understand that the development team at HootSuite have a product that has value. What I’m concerned with is I simply didn’t know that they would be eliminating functionality of the ‘free’ service. Had I known, I may not have even tested the product. Now that I have put considerable time and effort into setting it up, I really don’t want to start over.
HootSuite is not the first ‘free’ service to become premium. How do you feel when this happens? Any HootSuite users out there? How does this impact you?
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