Having heard quite a bit about this Twitter client designed for professionals, the iBraryGuy editing team decided to give HootSuite a try.  Were we impressed?  Well, to say that we got hooked on HootSuite toot sweet (“toute de suite”, for our many Francophone friends) would be an understatement!  HootSuite is one of the very best Twitter clients on which we have EVER tweeted.  From it’s clean, logical, and dare we say “visually pleasing” interface to its high degree of customization, HootSuite is a professional tweeter’s dream come true!

Let’s start with the basics…  What is HootSuite?  HootSuite is an all-in-one social media client for users who need to manage multiple accounts and who want control of what, when, how, and where they post their messages.  From one interface, you can manage your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, and WordPress streams.  You can create a tab for each and, within each tab, create columns of just the streams you wish to see.  For instance, we created a Twitter tab that with colums for our timeline, mentions of iBraryGuy, and direct messages to us.  We created similar tabs for our Facebook and LinkedIn networks.  We even created a “Featured” tab that we first see when we log in.  We use this tab for the streams that interest us most.  It has two columns . . . one follows tweets from members of the Librariana Twitter list and the other searches Twitter for library-related tweets (using keywords that we set).  With HootSuite, our view of our social networks suddenly feels less chaotic and far more organized than ever.

But that is not all that HootSuite has to offer.  There is much more to this Mashable Open Web Awards winner!  You can use HootSuite to pre-schedule postings, help with analytics on your social networking efforts, and even stream your RSS feeds to your social networks.  Sounds overwhelming, huh?  Well, it would be if only HootSuite did not make it SO easy.  Set-up is a breeze and best of all, access is currently free.  Yes, HootSuite is looking at premium plans, but they have not launched yet.  There is no better time to try it out than the present!