Hootsuite Adds New Features for the New Year

Hootsuite calls itself the “professional Twitter client” and for good reason. The interface is clean, it doesn’t hog your resources, it’s fast, and it’s packed full of features that can help anyone from the novice to the business professional manage not only their Twitter account(s). They also have advanced integration with Facebook and LinkedIn so that you can pretty much manage your entire brand from one place. A few hours ago, they added a few features that raise the bar even further.

WordPress.com Integration

Hootsuite has added the ability to compose and publish a post to your WordPress blog. Simply add your WordPress.com details under Settings and then select your WP.com avatar before you publish your update. Don’t worry, you’re not limited to 140 characters in this case. This feature is great for writing a short blog post about something that catches your eye in your stream. Rather than just retweeting or @replying, be a little more verbose and publish your thoughts to your own site. It’s only for WordPress.com right now, but self-hosted WordPress support is coming.

Trending Topic Descriptions

Probably taking a queue from Brizzly, Hootsuite now provides descriptions for trending topics. No more wondering what the buzz is about, just click the search box so bring up the trending topics, then click the ? on each topic to see the details. Information about trending topics is powered by What The Trend.

Link and Media Previews

The most exciting new feature being able to preview links and media. Links in Hootsuite are now accompanied by a plus sign (+). Hovering over or clicking that symbol will show you a preview of where the link goes. If it’s a video, it will start playing in a small popup window. Links to Twitpic’s show a thumbnail of the image. Awesome feature and hopefully Hootsuite will expand the media links that it recognizes.

Hootsuite has also started auto-loading more tweets so you don’t have to keep clicking More to see your feed. They have also touched up there Apps and Plugins section, providing plugins for your favorite browsers and a link to their iPhone app.