For a while, we were using a HootSuite free account to manage
multi-party access to the Twitter @fedora account. (By rigging up a
ping.fm feed in HS, we had the ability to post to Udenti.ca and thus
echo through Twitter as well.) Using HS allowed us to spread access to
multiple team members without having to insecurely spread the password
around.
Due to HS changing their free/paid structure, though, we've no longer
had the ability to do this for some time. Instead, we have shared
password access to the Identi.ca and Twitter accounts. HS is getting
ready to deactivate access for extra people to our free account there,
making that account virtually useless. The alternatives AFAICT are:
* Switch to a paid account, where we also pay for each additional team
member. A total team size of 4 would run a little over $600 a year.
* Continue to share the password for Identi.ca/Twitter. To augment our
tracking capability I can set up some mail forwarding rules to notify
team members of conversations.
When we originally started HS we did so with some trepidation given it
was a non-FOSS service. I'm not really shot in the arm by paying for
the service, unless we have a clear idea of what that gains us. I
briefly surveyed free tools again and have found nothing that offers
the "many people share a social presence" features of HS. But do we
need their console, analytics, etc. to fulfill some goals? To what
extent are we comfortable or willing to pay for a non-FOSS service for
marketing purposes?
Paul