As business owners, we face long to do lists, as well as the battle to juggle work and home life. So many entrepreneurs already have trouble with effective time management, but as the workload increases, this can become a more cumbersome problem. And ultimately detrimental to your business. Unfortunately, marketing often gets shoved aside when schedules get tight. Which is why I wanted to share with you one of my favorite tools for implementing a social media strategy all while saving time!

HootSuite is a social media dashboard to manage and measure your social networks.

Simply put, this is a web-based platform designed to schedule your content across the major social media sites. The program is very user-friendly, and has a great resource of tutorials designed for the beginner in mind.

The system is easy to use, you can literally just type in the message you want to schedule choose the platform you wanted to be delivered to, upload an image if desired, And choose your day and time for posting. There is even a handy link box for shrinking your links, which is very handy with the character limit on Twitter.

It works with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, as well as LinkedIn and Pinterest. They improve the platform quite often, taking into account ever changing technology, and user feedback. From a social media management perspective, it is the absolute best, in my opinion.

HootSuite also features the ability to upload an Excel file. This can be a huge time-saver, allowing you to organize your posts in a spreadsheet format, and then simply uploading one file to HootSuite.

So you want my favorite part? It’s free! For zero dollars per month, you can use the service for up to five platforms. If you have the need for more than five, it is still an affordable $8.99 per month.

You can also download the free HootSuite app on your smart phone, for on the go post scheduling!

So if social media marketing is on your agenda this year, I highly encourage you to check out this program. For me, it allows me to maintain my social media presents consistently, without spending all day at the computer. This gives me more time to be working with clients, developing new products and services, and networking with other business owners.

I would love to hear about your experience with Hootsuite, or any other time-savers you would like to share with my audience! Please feel free to leave a message in the comments!