If you’re like many other Virtual Assistants, you are using the social networking tool, Twitter, to connect with your prospects in a new and beneficial way.

However, like many business owners you’re busy and social networking can consume a large amount of your precious time. This is where Hootsuite can come in handy.

What Is Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is a social networking tool that helps you manage your social networking time.  It enables you to:

• Schedule your tweets in advance
• Manage multiple Twitter accounts from one location
• Track keywords and #Hashtags on Twitter
• Add your blog RSS feed for automatic updates
• Shorten URLs
• Track clicks

And unlike many other Twitter applications, there is a free option and a paid “professional” option that costs $9.99 a month. There’s a free 30 day trial period if you’re interested in checking out the professional option.

So How Does Hootsuite Benefit You?

Because you’re able to schedule tweets, you’re really able to create Twitter campaigns. You can plan your tweets in advance and lead followers to the best posts, content, and promotions you have to offer.

Hootsuite also helps you plan your conversations with other Twitter followers so you can craft well thought out and productive conversations, rather than spur of the moment tweets you may later regret.

And Hootsuite enables you to track not only popular keywords, but also your click-through rate so you can fine-tune your Twitter campaign for the best results.

Hootsuite also has a toolbar called Hootlet making it easy to tweet content quickly without leaving the website you are on. Hootlet can help you save time because it automatically shortens links for you. Headlines are also grabbed from the sources title tag and are used as the default text.

Finally, because time management is an issue for just about everyone, Hootsuite enables you to spend a focused amount of time on your Twitter marketing strategy, say 30 minutes a day or 60 minutes once a week, and then set it aside without worrying that you’re missing something or not participating enough. It helps you make sure you focus on the right things at the right time because you’re able to manage your Twitter profiles at any time of the day or night.

Twitter is a growing social networking tool, and business owners can take advantage of its popularity to connect with their prospects and build a larger awareness and a larger audience. Yet, people can spend hours of their valuable time on Twitter thus losing time they could be spending on more profitable tasks. Hootsuite solves this problem.

If you’re a Twitterer, consider checking out this valuable time management tool today.