Comments on: Professional management tools for Twitter: HootSuite and CoTweet

Only a few tools help give multiple users coherent access to the same Twitter accounts. There are the two best.

[Harrison912]

Both sound good and your assessment at the end is very helpful. I use Twitter to help socially market my safety and security web site but I'm not at the level yet where I need these tools. Thanks, Rafe, for a very informative article.

[visibilityshift]

I've been finding it very time consuming to keep logging in and out of the multiple Twitter accounts I'm managing for my blogs and clients...this sounds cool. I'm going to check it out! visibilityshit@twitter

[nghafouri]

Hi Rafe,

I just wanted to make sure you've heard about TweetFunnel (http://tweetfunnel.com/. It's similar to HootSuite and Cotweet in that it helps teams manage Twitter, but it's different in a few ways. First, it has a very simple interface and is easy to use for people who aren't Twitter power users. Second, it's in public beta, so any one can sign up now (and for free). TweetFunnel allows multiple users to post, monitor, assign and schedule tweets and there's also an option for editorial control. And, we have multiple accounts coming in our next version.

You can DM me if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Nathalee
www.twitter.com/tweetfunnel

[ste7777]

Rafe,

While these sites are impressive (I've used both), you guys should really take a look at TwAitter. It is an up-and-coming star in Twitter-Business-Tools. I wouldn't doubt that you will put them on the same level as CoTweet and HootSuite very soon.

They are currently a smalls operation looking for 1st round funding (according to their owner @Twaitting), but their personal touch to the way they work with users got me. While I see the benefits of all three tools (and use them), I still use Twaitter a bit more than the other 2.

Honest assessment

[nickfinck]

Excellent article. Spot on, even 2 months down the road. I did kick the tires of both apps and found your assessment very accurate. I do feel a few points have been missed or perhaps excluded for the sake of brevity.

One of those points are that with the deep stats that HootSuite provides via Ow.ly comes the addition of a marketing bar at the top of each outbound link you tweet using that service. I find this a bit unprofessional. The bar at top does prompt users to re-tweet, post to facebook, etc.. but I just feel when providing a web link, the short link should just go to the page with no bar at top.

Second, the point you make about OAuth API in Cotweet versus Twitter app API in HootSuite is a point not to be taken lightly. Within minutes of using HootSuite beta 2 I noticed that several of my feeds were already failing to load with a standard message stating that they've been having problems loading feeds and are working with Twitter to resolve them. My guess, they are seeing authorization to use OAuth API because of the request limits (think: 1 request every minute from X number of users from X number of accounts on the same service).

Third, and perhaps the most disturbing issue I noticed was that in order to actually upgrade from the standard version of HootSuite (which is not the version shown in the beautiful video demo on the product site) to HootSuite beta 2 you must tweet that your upgrading to beta two. This functionality is actually part of the continue to upgrade process, so what happens is your accounts get spammed with a message that say "I am upgrading to HootSuite Beta 2 because... " and you fill in the blank and hit the button. If you don't, you don't get to upgrade. Speaking on a level of professionalism and out of concern for messages my customers and followers see, this is highly disturbing.

So in summary, your conclusions are still in line with what these two pieces of software have today... if you want a way to manage your accounts and dont care about the occasional marketing plug, use HootSuite. If you are looking for a professional customer service platform, use Cotweet. Maybe we'll see a follow-up article when a third and equally comparable tool enters the space.

Cheers,
- Nick Finck
Director of User Experience at Blue Flavor