After trying Tweetdeck, I’m sticking with Hootsuite

June 28, 2011

I’ve long been a Hootsuite advocate, teaching clients and colleagues how the tool can help you use Twitter effectively and save time.

But two weeks ago Hootsuite made a change that has its community up in arms. The company added a publisher function that allows teams of users to better coordinate. Great feature. Except that when Hootsuite implemented it, they deleted the Pending Tweets column on the main dashboard, causing an inconvenience for users like me. Because I schedule tweets in bulk for clients every morning, I need to be able to easily see pending tweets without clicking over to another page.

That, and Hootsuite’s occasionally slow. It usually works great, but I tend to remember the mornings when it takes forever to process, because those are the days when I scramble to get to my day job on time.

So I decided to try Tweetdeck. I downloaded it both on my work computer and at home, and went about making it look the way I like. But after just two days, I’m going back to Hootsuite — and hoping they re-implement the Pending Tweets column. Pretty please? UPDATE: The Pending Tweets column is back! Score for Hootsuite!

Here’s the deal-breaker for Tweetdeck: It doesn’t offer tabs for different accounts. Which is fine if you’re just using the tool for your own personal Twitter handle. But if you have a handle for yourself and for work — and clients on top of that — one screen with a zillion columns doesn’t cut it. I need tabs for organization. They make it easier to see what I want to see, and help me avoid tweeting from my work account when I’m trying to tweet from @alexisgrant — which, of course, can be a career-ruining mistake.

Then there’s the runner-up deal-breaker: I can’t access Tweetdeck from anywhere. What if I’m at my sister’s place, watching the softball NCAA championships, and I get an email from a client that requires me to make a change to tweet I scheduled earlier that day? With Hootsuite, I just jump onto my sister’s computer, pull up the site and log in, and make the change. No can do with Tweetdeck, because it’s not Web-based. You have to install it first.

That means I’m sticking with Hootsuite.

Which do you use: Hootsuite or Tweetdeck? What are your favorite features? What features do you wish it had?

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