You are using social media for business, but are you providing your team with the tools and supportive foundations for success? Whether you’re running a shop, restaurant or agency the Hootsuite Teams functionality in Hootsuite Pro makes it easy to support, collaborate, and share social media with your colleagues. Hootsuite Teams is designed to match your business’ unique organizational structure and scale to accommodate your team at any size.

1. Social Media Collaboration
GUIDE
Hootsuite Teams

2. 2HOOTSUITE TEAMS: SOCIAL MEDIA COLLABORATION
Hootsuite Teams
Social Media Collaboration
You are using social media for business, but are you
providing your team with the tools and supportive
foundations for success? Whether you’re running
a shop, restaurant or agency the Hootsuite Teams
functionality in Hootsuite Pro makes it easy to support,
collaborate, and share social media with your
colleagues. Hootsuite Teams is designed to match
your business’ unique organizational structure and
scale to accommodate your team at any size.
Teams Best Practices
1. Share information
For a Team to collaborate, sharing information is key to
make sure each Team Member is on the same page.
Make sure all relevant information is presented to each
Team Member to ensure that everyone is on the same
page. One way to keep Team Members informed within
Hootsuite is by sharing streams.
For example, right within Hootsuite, your Customer
Service Team can work together to set up and share
Twitter search streams for brand name misspellings,
campaign hashtags, or negative sentiment phrases. For
example, DAVIDsTEA might set up a stream for “david’s
tea” or their popular hashtag “#teaoftheday”. This way
your Team can respond to inquiries via Twitter and there
is less chance that the Team will miss any mentions.
“The biggest problem we faced was the
ability to capture every single tweet
discussing our brand. Hootsuite allows
us to set up lists and streams to ensure
a speedy response on Twitter.”
Youri Hollier, Social Media Manager, DAVIDsTEA
To learn more about sharing streams, read this
article in the Hootsuite Helpdesk.
2. Be prepared
Anticipating your customers’ needs is a great business
practice, and preparing messaging in advance for FAQs,
emergency situations, or product details will save you
time and ensure your voice is consistent. Create a
supply of message templates ready for your Team to
use for a quick response in any situation.
To learn more about creating message templates
within Hootsuite, read this article in the Hootsuite
Helpdesk.
3. Assign messages
At some point you may come across a question or
comment on social media that would best be addressed
by another Team Member. For example, you might
receive an inquiry about career opportunities and would
like to share the message with your hiring manager. A
great way to inform a Team Member of a message that
requires their attention is to assign that message within
the Hootsuite dashboard.
Assign messages within the dashboard, or use the
Assignments extension for Chrome to quickly assign
social media posts to Team Members as you browse
Twitter.com and Facebook.com. The Assignments
Chrome extension also lets you track and monitor
assignments to further ensure they are taken care of.

3. 3HOOTSUITE TEAMS: SOCIAL MEDIA COLLABORATION
For example, when a potential customer tweets a
question about a bike’s availability at your downtown
location, “Assign” the question to the downtown Team
so that they can respond accordingly.
“Having clearly defined Teams lets us
quickly assign messages on the fly and
be sure that they’ll be addressed by the
best people for that situation. We know
that we’re getting the right information
to the right people.”
Nicole Winstone, Customer Support Lead, Hootsuite
To learn more about assigning messages, read this
article in the Hootsuite Helpdesk.
4. Secure your channels
In order to keep all your channels secure, it’s important
to know exactly who is collaborating on your Team,
and how. One way to make sure only the right people
have access to your networks is by not sharing login
information. With Teams, Hootsuite allows for each
Team Member to have their own personal account,
meaning passwords remain private and secure.
Hootsuite Team Admins may also assign different
permission controls for each Team Member.
For example, if you’re an agency and have different
Teams set up for different clients, as a Team Admin
you manage all Team Members, social networks, vanity
URLs, and message templates associated to each client’s
Team. This way, you can ensure all of the right Team
Members can view and engage with the content, while
you remain in control.
To help you understand which Permissions levels
are available and how you can use them, read
this guide on permission levels in the Hootsuite
Helpdesk.
5. Stay accountable
In order to keep up and ensure your Team is running
smoothly, have a plan in place that can be executed in
the dashboard as a Team—be it global or local. Once
everything is up and running, you can follow up to see
that the appropriate Team Member is responding to
tweets. Making sure it’s clear who is responding to what
and when allows for everyone to remain accountable
and aware.
“Teams are great for collaboration.
When you’re dealing with the volume
of mentions we get @hootsuite, it’s
important to have visibility into who is
responding to what and when.”
Connor Meakin, Community Manager, Hootsuite
Hootsuite Organizations
In Hootsuite terms, your business account is called
an Organization. Within your Organization, you can
create one or several Teams. You can choose to set up
your Organization depending on what works for your
business, whether it’s by region or department.
For example, if your bike shop has three locations,
each with a geographic specific Twitter handle (e.g. @
BikeShopLondon) and Facebook page, set up the Teams
in your Hootsuite dashboard to match the geographic
locations. Then, set up each Team with their regional
specific social media accounts and appropriate Team
Members.
How to create an Organization
1. From the launch menu on the left, click your user
profile icon.
2. Under the section “Organizations that I’m a part of,”
click “Start collaborating with others.” However, if
you already belong to other Organizations and wish
to create a new one, click “Create an Organization”
located under the “My Social Networks” section.
3. Type the name of your Organization.
4. To upload an Organization icon, click “Upload,” locate
the image/photo and click “Open.”

4. 4HOOTSUITE TEAMS: SOCIAL MEDIA COLLABORATION
5. Under Social Networks, click “Add Social Network”
and then click to select the social network(s) to add.
6. Click “Create Organization”.
Note: In order to successfully add members to your Teams you
must first add Team Members to your Organization. To learn
about inviting members to an Organization, check out this
Helpdesk article.
Hootsuite Teams
Setting up your Hootsuite Organization is the starting
point to aligning your social media team. Now that you’ve
created your personalized Hootsuite Organization,
decide which department, manager, or region will have
responsibility for each social profile. Hootsuite Teams are
flexible to scale with you as you grow.
How to create Teams
1. Beside your Organization’s name, click “Manage”.
2. Click “Add a Team”.
3. In the “Create Team” pop-up, type a Team name.
Click to select member(s) and social network(s). Note
that only members and social networks who have
been added to your organization will populate in the
list. Click “Create Team”.
4. You can then select each Team Member’s
permission level within the Team.
Hootsuite Teams
Click to watch this video about Hootsuite Teams in your
browser.
Resources
For tips, tricks and answers to your Hootsuite
Teams questions follow our Social Media
Coaches on Twitter @HootSuitePro
To learn more on assigning messages, see this
HootTip:
#HootTip ~ How to Assign a Social Media
Message With Hootsuite Assignments
For even more information on Assignments,
check out this Social Media Coach blog post:
Hootsuite Assignments: Social Media
Coach Series
To learn more about Hootsuite Teams, watch this
free webinar.
WATCH NOW

5. HOOTSUITE TEAMS: A REFERENCE GUIDE BY THE SOCIAL MEDIA COACHES
What are Hootsuite Teams?
Hootsuite Teams allow for comprehensive collaboration
for everyone, from managers to interns, who are
involved in your social media strategy. Through the
flexibility of Hootsuite Teams, you can create an internal
online team that mimics the structure of your office,
cafe, shop, classroom–wherever your social media
activity takes place.
Organization
Hootsuite Pro users have the ability to create an
Organization, which acts as the overarching structure in
your account. Within your Organization, you may create
several Teams for your employees and their various
roles. Teams can be organized by department, region, or
even by various companies that you may manage. Build
your Organization by adding Team Members, Teams
and Social Profiles. Your Hootsuite Pro account consist
of one Organization, but can have an unlimited number
of Teams and up to 10 Team Members. To add even
more Team Members, consider a Hootsuite Enterprise
account.
Team Members
Team Members are users or “seats” that have been
added to your Organization. Once in the Organization,
Team Members can be invited to manage social profiles
within a Team or Teams. Team Members have different
logins and can each be given different levels of access to
social profiles.
Teams
Teams consist of a group of users invited to collaborate
together within a Hootsuite Organization. Pro and
Enterprise users can collaborate together within a Team
or Teams.
Social Profiles
Social Profiles, like a Facebook page or Twitter profile,
are what Team Members manage within their Teams.
A Team’s social profiles are only accessible to Team
Members within that Team.
For more information on Hootsuite Teams, check out
these helpful resources:
‹‹ Introductory
Collaboration Webinar
‹‹ @HootsuitePro
‹‹ Community Support
Forum
Hootsuite Teams
A Reference Guide by the Social Media Coaches
Team:
Marketing
Team:
Community
Team:
Human Resources
Organization