Many a friend, family member, colleague and client have asked how they can simplify posting updates to multiple social networks. Rather than individually tweeting on twitter and updating Facebook and LinkedIn, there are several options we can use to move updates from one social network to the others so that each of these disparate web communities are able to be updated simultaneously without the hassle of signing into each individually just to post the same update.

I prefer to “tie” my LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter accounts together using a slick web service called HootSuite.  HootSuite users compose a single update, check off the accounts to post, and send it. In a single click Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are all automatically pushed the latest news, all from one place.

The free web service hootsuite allows users to post to multiple social networks at once, among many other cool features.

Additionally, HootSuite offers some other great features, like historical click statistics for displaying the most popular messages by respective referrers.  Another extremely helpful feature is the ability to compose and schedule pending messages. You can even schedule blog posts for Wordpress.com accounts.  There is also a link shortening service ow.ly that transforms links like this: http://microvisionsinc.com/blog/2009/10/solid-state-drive-technology-delivers-exciting-promises/ into a link like this: http://ow.ly/11VEt ; helpful when limited to 140 character tweets.

HootSuite statistics make tracking the number clicks and where clicks come from is easy.

HootSuite is easily set up and convenient to use.  Since setting up my account I’ve used it almost every single day and can highly recommend this amazing, free, online tool for managing updates on all your social networks.

HootSuite has a beautiful interface that's easy to use.