Let Me Set The Scene…

I love blogging. But, I don’t want to spend time updating all my social media sites every time I write on my blog. I just want to focus on my blog and create awesome content. But what’s the point of great content if people don’t find my blog? Argh! The dilemma. What can I do?

Enter HootSuite and Ping.FM to the Rescue.

Ping.FM allows you to notify up to 42 social media sites about your status updates, micro blog updates or blog posts. See my previous post about how to use Ping.FM like a social media ninja!

Now, with Hootsuite integration, you can have more control over your content updates AND you can track click statistics with Hootsuite’s built in analytics.

Setting It All Up

First, log into your Ping.FM account. Then go to www.Ping.FM/key and get your Ping.FM API Key.

Now, log in to your Hootsuite account. Add a new network and select Ping.FM. Enter your Ping.FM username and API key as below:

Your Hootsuite is now linked to all the social media sites you’ve setup in Ping.FM.

Tip: I purposely do not add Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Facebook Pages in Ping.FM because I want to update these main sites directly from Hootsuite and/or Seesmic Desktop. I use both these applications interchangeably.

Connect Your Blog’s RSS Feed

Next, you want Hootsuite to send your blog posts to Ping.FM automatically every time you post. To do this, click on the RSS/Atom tab in Hootsuite.

Just add your blog’s RSS feed and select the services you want it to automatically post to. In this case, make sure you include Ping.FM.

Using Hootsuite and Ping.FM

Now you can post to Ping.FM by typing in a Tweet into Hootsuite and selecting Ping.FM or just create a blog post and let the RSS feed from your blog post update all your social networks.

Either way, this is a very convenient and very powerful way of getting your content syndicated once you’ve set it all up.

But the big question is, does it work the way its deigned to work? I’ve searched high and low and nobody seems to have actually put up actual results.

So I decided to put it to the test on my social media sites. Here are the results:

Social Media Sites Updated via Hootsuite and Ping.FM

Brian Wong on Bebo: YES!

Brian Wong on Blogger: YES!

Brian Wong on BrightKite: YES!

Brian Wong on Diigo: YES!

Brian Wong on Facebook Pages: YES! But this is a direct posting from HootSuite and not part of Ping.FMs update.

Brian Wong on Friendster: YES!

Brian Wong on FriendFeed: YES! But this not from Ping.FM. It is updated indirectly as FriendFeed picks up my feeds from Twitter and from my blog directly. There is a delay of an hour or so for the feed to get updated.

Brian Wong on HI5: YES!

Brian Wong on identi.ca: YES!

Brian Wong on Jaiku: NO!

After several tests, I found that Ping.FM was not updating my Jaiku account for all the type of status updates. I’m still not sure why.

Brian Wong on Koornk: YES!

Brian Wong on LiveJournal: YES! (But posts show up with no subjects)

Brian Wong on Multiply: YES! (all posts show up under “Notes”)

Brian Wong on MySpace: YES!

Brian Wong on MyYearBook: YES! But I am thinking of removing myself from this network. Just like Tagged, I get a lot of unsavory requests and the site looks like its for horny teenagers. I basically just turn off all email communications in my settings.

Brian Wong on Ning.com: YES!

Brian Wong on Plaxo Pulse: YES! But updated via a direct connection between Plaxo and Twitter

Brian Wong on Plurk: YES!

Brian Wong on Posterous: YES!

Brian Wong on Presently: YES!

Brian Wong on Shout’em: YES!

Brian Wong on StreetMavens.com: YES!

Brian Wong on Tagged: NO! (I suspect this site is a cest pool for perverts and adult services. Since signing up, I get a lot of unsavory requests. Am going to leave this account dormant or remove myself)

Brian Wong on Tumblr: YES!

Brian Wong on Twitter: YES! This is a direct update from Hootsuite and not from Ping.FM

Brian Wong on TypePad: YES!

Brian Wong on Utterli: YES!

Brian Wong on VOX: YES!

Brian Wong on Xanga: YES! Updates appear under the “Pulse” section.

Brian Wong on Yahoo Meme: YES!

Brian Wong on Yahoo Profiles: YES!

Brian Wong on Yammer: YES!

Brian Wong on YouAre.com: YES!

Conclusion

As you can see from my little experiment, the success rate of posting to multiple social media sites at once is pretty impressive. I definitely think that Ping.FM and Hootsuite makes a very powerful combination. I especially like the added advantage of being able to view the results of each post via the analytics provided by Hootsuite. So go ahead and register for Hootsuite and Ping.fm

Want more test results? Subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter and Facebook for updates.

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