Here it is - the final Thing! I made it!

A lot of ground has been covered in these 23 Things, so an obvious question is, "How do I stay on top of all these tools, platforms, streams and other gubbins?". An answer would be to have a look at Rudaí23's final Thing! They suggest Flipboard, Hootsuite, Buffer and Google Alerts.

I've never really got on with Flipboard - I don't like the magazine-style format - so I thought I'd take the other three for a spin. I set up a couple of Google Alerts - not a tool I'd used before - which was a painless process. I have yet to see the service in action, so I will reserve judgement until the e-mails start rolling in. I set up a Buffer account for my work Twitter, but again, have yet to properly road test it on the information superhighway1. I'll get a bit more stuck in to these tools after the half term break.

Finally, I started playing around with Hootsuite this morning. I have used it only briefly before, so I thought I'd get a bit more in depth with it. For those who don't know, Hootsuite is a tool for managing multiple social media accounts - you can connect it to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, WordPress and Instagram. The free version lets you attach 3 social media accounts, but I only use Twitter and Instagram at work, so this is not a problem for me.

Hootsuite lets you schedule tweets in advance (a feature that would seem to make a separate Buffer account superfluous - or am I missing something about Buffer?). I currently use Tweetdeck at work, which is similar to Hootsuite, but not quite as feature rich, and just for Twitter. I will probably be switching now, thanks to this Thing.

I used to struggle with FOMO2 on social media, and would obsessively look through EVERYTHING that was posted on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. A few years ago, I got so far behind that I gave up looking completely rather than face the massive backlog. But now I think I do OK - I don't keep up as much as I would like - even with tools like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite - but that's fine. I'll survive.

DIVERSION 1:

While I was playing around with Hootsuite, I decided to check out the analytical tools to see how the school's Twitter feed has changed since I've worked there. The free account gives you very limited options, but I only really wanted to see how the number of followers has changed since June. The results in Hootsuite were - to put it simply - wrong. But now I really wanted to know. So I fell down the rabbit hole of analytics, and spent the next few hours looking up the best free Twitter analytics tools that would give me the information I was after. It was surprisingly difficult to find. Twitter's own analytics tool was confused - it said I had -51 followers at the start of August. I tried many others, but the only one that gave me the exact information I was after was SocialBro.

SocialBro Twitter Analytics
Twitter Followers - the vertical line is when I started working there.

 

DIVERSION 2:

While poking around in Buffer, I came across a web app called Pablo. Created by the Buffer team, it lets you easily create those pretty pictures with inspirational quotes you see all over social media, like this one:

Pablo
Pretty pics and inspiring words.

It's quick, easy and free! Click the image above to check it out.

THE END

So here we are, at the end of the Rudaí23 course. I have already put a lot of these Things into practice, and doing this course has definitely made me a better librarian! And having got into the rhythm and habit of writing regular blog posts, I hope to be able to keep that up now that the Things have ended. I was planning on doing NaNoWriMo next month, though, so you might not see that much of me in November...

 

Footnotes

  1. When was the last time you heard that phrase?
  2. Fear Of Missing Out